Bring the True You to the Surface: 10 Ways to Reclaim the Hidden Aspects of Yourself
We give aspects of ourselves away or hide them away for many reasons—others' expectations, traumatic experiences, societal or cultural expectations, etc. However, to harness our authentic power, we must work to reclaim these lost aspects of self. In this episode, we discuss the what, why, and how of self-reclamation.
“Inauthenticity is the attempt to be, above all else, likable.”
what you’ll learn from this post
The most common reasons why we give away or hide away pieces of ourselves.
Some of the symptoms or consequences of hiding away pieces of yourself.
The easiest and most powerful way to identify the aspects of self you need to reclaim.
Why we can feel powerfully attracted to another person despite being in a happy, committed relationship and what this attraction is trying to tell us.
10 ways to begin to reclaim hidden or lost aspects of yourself.
A few months ago, I was reading Jessica Zweig's book Be. and the quote above 👆 struck me like lightning:
“Inauthenticity is the attempt to be, above all else, likable.”
So simple and yet so, so powerful.
Have you ever prioritized your likability more than your authentic expression? Hidden away parts of yourself to make others comfortable? To fit in? To keep the peace?
If so, I'm right there with you.
Why do we do this though?
Why do we shrink, bend, and even break our true selves?
We come into this world whole... unscathed by expectations and circumstances.
And yet through the years, we give away pieces of ourselves to compromise, to keep the peace, to fit in, to be accepted, to be loved, to cope, and so on...
Little by little we drain ourselves of our true nature as we mold, soften, and shape ourselves to fit the desires of others and to avoid standing out.
If left unchecked over time, we become a product of our surroundings, our circumstances, and our relationships instead of an authentic reflection of our inherent values, intentions, and desires.
We wear the masks others have handed to us or forced upon us instead of allowing our true nature to shine.
When we hide away pieces of ourselves, we can end up feeling lost, stuck, stifled, limited... a whole variety of un-fun ways.
Before we dive deeper into this conversation, I want to note that this is a very broad and general introduction.
Full self-reclamation isn't something that can be done by reading one article or listening to one podcast episode. It’s something that happens gradually, over time and with lots of self-reflection and compassion. My intention with this post is to offer you a starting point to contemplate this idea. As always, once the seed is planted, it's up to you whether or not you'd like to water it.
On that note, let's get into this...
WHY DO WE HIDE AWAY PIECES OF OURSELVES?
There are many reasons that we give away or hide away pieces of ourselves, but some of the most common reasons are…
Because of others’ expectations… these can be societal, cultural, parental, or peer based.
Because of traumatic or highly emotional experiences.
Because we fear rejection.
Because we want to belong.
We’re exceptionally impressionable at a young age, and so it’s easy for us to take on others’ values as our own. We do this to fit in or survive in certain surroundings or circumstances.
But in the process of giving away or hiding away aspects of the self, we shut down our own desires and values in favor of belonging or fitting in.
Sometimes we give away aspects of ourselves as a mechanism of self-preservation or protection.
Us people pleasers are especially likely to have given away important aspects of ourselves throughout life.
Interestingly, we give away or hide pieces of ourselves in an effort to fit in and and feel secure. And yet the more we hide away, the more insecure we become as we distance ourselves from our true nature. We end up locking ourselves into very specific identities that stifle us.
SYMPTOMS OF LOST ASPECTS OF SELF
When we hide away pieces of ourselves as a method of self-preservation, we can end up feeling rather lost or stuck. This experience can manifest in many different ways, but some of the more common ones are that…
Our boundaries with others can become blurred or unhealthy.
We neglect our goals or our commitments to ourselves.
We require other people to validate our wins. If we aren’t externally validated or don’t receive “enough” validation, we downplay or diminish our successes.
We fall into patterns of self-sabotaging behavior.
We let others walk all over us.
We become fearful of speaking our truth or living our truth.
We feel at odds internally—this sort of internal inauthenticity.
We feel as if we’re bending or breaking to make others comfortable.
We dim our light or shrink ourselves to fit in.
We feel disempowered, limited, stifled, or even indecisive.
At times, these insecurities can cause us to appear to swing to the other extreme. One in which we appear outwardly overly confident as a means to mask these lost aspects of ourselves. Or to try to control everyone else in an effort to make ourselves feel whole or complete.
BENEFITS OF SELF-RECLAMATION
When we reclaim these lost aspects of ourselves, we reclaim our authentic power.
Not power in the sense of having power over others (that would be force), but power in the sense of igniting our divine spark so that we can live life with intention and purpose.
This is the ultimate act of self-love.
In reclaiming what we’ve hidden away, we free ourselves from the consequences of those lost pieces of self and we reap the benefits of the newly reclaimed pieces. In this way, the perks are two-fold.
IDENTIFYING WHAT WE’VE GIVEN OR HIDDEN AWAY
One of the most powerful ways to identify what you need to reclaim—in other words, the aspects of yourself that you've hidden away—is to examine the traits or characteristics that you most admire in other people. These are the qualities in others that you find to be most magnetic and captivating.
What we admire in others is often an indication of what we need to reclaim within ourselves.
A PERSONAL EXAMPLE
I've always admired people who bravely and humbly use their voice to speak their truth. These individuals prioritize their truth and their voice above their desire to be liked or accepted, and I find that to be an exceptionally magnetic quality.
I also admire people who can behave in completely goofy or silly ways in front of almost anyone because they don't fear rejection.
In other words, I admire those who have the courage to be disliked. Those who have freed themselves from the limitations of needing to be accepted by others. Those who don't shrink themselves to fit in. This is the aspect of self I've been working to reclaim for a very long time. I've come a long way, but there's still work to be done.
Something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is that we’re all viewing each other through the lens of our own story, which means we’re going to play a different character in everyone’s book.
I can choose to hide myself away in an effort to remove myself from the story altogether, or I can bravely step out and stop caring how I fit into other people’s story.
SPIRITUAL MIRRORS
The concept of spiritual mirrors is applicable here. I have a separate blog post on this, but I'll briefly summarize this idea here.
There are three different spiritual mirrors or mirrors of perception:
One mirror reflects back to us what we are.
Another reflects back to us what we judge.
And the third mirror reflects back to us what we are missing... whether we've given it away, had it taken away, or have hidden it away.
Thought leader, Gregg Braden, offers a powerful example of this particular mirror.
He notes that if you've ever felt powerfully attracted to another person despite being in a committed, happy relationship, this is an example of the mirror of what's missing at play.
The person you're attracted to has the quality that you've lost, given away, or had taken away.
This experience though isn't limited to only romantic attractions. We can be powerfully magnetized by others in a completely platonic way as well.
Think about those you admire or revere from a distance... perhaps through social media.
We long to be complete and so we subconsciously search for the pieces of ourselves that we've lost throughout life in hopes of making ourselves whole again.
This is the reason opposites attract—because the other person's qualities fill in the gaps and spaces within us that have been created through this process of giving away.
Think about the famous quote from Jerry Maguire:
"You complete me."
This idea of “completion” coming from someone else is merely an illusion. Until we do the work to reclaim these aspects of our self from within, we’ll never feel ‘complete’ and we certainly won’t find completion outside ourselves.
Finding in our significant other what we've lost in our self can, for a time, allow us to feel whole or complete. However, as the relationship continues on and we acclimate to it, that lacking or missing feeling washes back over us.
We can then choose to either internalize the power of this feeling, allowing it to spur us to reclaim these missing or hidden aspects of self from within or we externalize the power of this feeling and continue to search outside ourselves for our completion or wholeness.
Whatever we find outside ourselves though is merely a bandaid; a temporary fix. It's not until we do the work to reclaim those aspects of self from within that we begin to heal the root cause of our discontent.
RECLAIMING WHAT WE’VE GIVEN OR HIDDEN AWAY
The process of self-reclamation begins when we first notice which aspects of ourselves we've given away, hidden away, or lost. We can't heal what we don't notice.
Knowing what we've lost or hidden requires us to get very clear and honest about our limiting beliefs. It can help to journal about this or merely contemplate a variety of questions.
Here are a few ideas of questions to ask yourself:
Who or what do I tell myself I am?
Who or what do I tell myself I’m not?
What are the boundaries my mind uses to define and limit me? To keep me small and unobtrusive?
How does my internal critic limit my life and my potential?
In what ways do I compromise myself and my authentic truth to please others?
What patterns or beliefs limit my ability to be fully authentic in my actions, words, behaviors, and endeavors?
Who is the person I present to the world?
Who is the person I truly desire to be and know I am at my core?
What expectations do I feel the need to uphold to maintain the version of myself others "know"?
What identities am I protecting that no longer serve me?
What aspects of myself do I hide from others?
What characteristics of myself do I hide away that I wish I had the freedom to share with others?
What higher purpose awaits me if I reclaim these lost or missing or hidden aspects of myself?
10 WAYS TO RECLAIM THE TRUEST YOU
The methods you use to reclaim these lost aspects of self are entirely dependent on you, your experiences, and what it is you're working on.
Because of this, I'll share a wide variety of ideas to get you started. As always, give yourself the freedom to take what resonates and leave what doesn't.
1. Familiarize yourself with your limiting self-talk.
Limiting beliefs are these sort of weeds that get planted in our subconscious.
As they grow, they begin to take up more and more space in our conscious mind. As they do, they overtake the landscape of our lives, overgrowing and wrapping themselves around all of the foliage we’ve intentionally chosen to plant. No matter how much we nourish and water the plants we chose to seed, they’ll be stifled by the overgrowth of the weeds (limiting beliefs).
What has your inner critic been programmed to say on repeat? Negative self-talk is the ego’s way of hitting the breaks on our soul’s desire for evolution, change, growth.
Think about a situation where you go to do something new or out of your ordinary routine... something that you genuinely want to be doing... and your mind starts up its naysayer ramblings to convince you to stop.
What is it saying in these instances?
A few common limiting self-talk phrases are, "You're going to embarrass yourself." "Who are you to do this?" "What if [insert catastrophe] happens?" "This isn't something you do." "So many people know more about this than you... you don't have anything to add."
When we familiarize ourselves with our limiting self talk, we create the space needed to then notice it when it comes up. From this distant vantage point, instead of believing we are what the mind says we are, we see that the mind is simply running its usual predictable naysayer beliefs in an attempt to keep us safe.
And in seeing these beliefs from a distance, we can then become curious about them. We then begin to think about why in the world this chatter runs throughout your mind. Who put these thoughts there? Where are they coming from?
Our limiting beliefs are usually the result of subconscious programming… a paradigm of beliefs buried within your mind that affect your conscious thoughts, behaviors, and habits.
The subconscious mind accepts and embeds everything that the conscious mind does not actively reject or challenge. It doesn’t have the discernment capacities to reject or challenge beliefs that get passed to it by the conscious mind. It must accept them.
As children, we’re not very discerning because we don’t have the experience to be so. We tend to consciously embrace everything that is impressed upon us, which then gets embedded into our subconscious.
This is why limiting beliefs tend to be so sticky—because they’ve been with us for a very long time. Impressed upon us by the external world without us having the experience to consciously challenge much, if anything, at all.
To begin to free ourselves from them, we must bring awareness to them and then shift them over time by constantly evaluating them. Repetition is the key to shifting anything at the subconscious level. And we should always be evaluating our beliefs, especially the ones we hold about ourselves. Repetition is what created our limiting beliefs… it’s also what will dissolve them.
Beliefs are layered—there are conscious beliefs and subconscious beliefs. To truly change, both layers of belief need to be modified. We can believe something at the conscious level and yet we’ll continue engage in behaviors that don’t align with those conscious beliefs if our subconscious is still stuck in the old belief system.
This is a slow evolution, not an overnight shift. The goal is to observe incremental upward growth and improvement in our beliefs over time. Our beliefs take time to form, which means they also take time to change.
2. Unlearn and relearn.
Release beliefs that no longer serve you. Normalize unlearning as much as learning. Just as we learn to grow and evolve, we must also unlearn.
We can observe the inner critic, embrace her concerns, and yet do just the opposite of what she tells us.
If you haven’t listened to the episode titled ‘fear-apy’, be sure to give that one a listen because it’s helpful here.
3. Forgiveness.
Sometimes self-reclamation requires us to first forgive (someone else or our self).
This doesn't have to be externally expressed forgiveness (although it could be), and it certainly doesn't mean we need to condone poor behavior or forget about it.
It also doesn't mean that we'll allow people back into our life who aren't good for us. Merely, that we release any resentment we’ve been harboring.
We can be motivated to forgive not because of others’ need for our forgiveness, but by the compassion we have for ourselves. Holding onto the energy of wrongs or misdoings is punishment of its own sort. It gives continued power to the person who hurt us, and it disempowers our ability to heal.
In the book The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz talks about knowing that you've truly forgiven someone when you can see them or hear their name and no longer have an emotional reaction. As if you’ve released that sort of emotional pang or zing.
4. Connect with your younger self.
What does your younger self desire for you?
If you find it difficult to make changes for the you that you currently are, make changes for the child version of you.
It can be easier to motivate ourselves to change when we connect with our inner child because we see her innocence and have a desire to uphold her dreams and values.
5. Release relationships that no longer serve you.
Especially those in which you find yourself constantly having to shrink or bend or break to make the other person comfortable. If you find yourself constantly compromising your authenticity or giving away your power, the relationship is not serving you. Let it go.
Know and honor what is and isn't acceptable to you.
6. Embrace fluidity and even a bit of contradiction and release the (ego) identities that inhibit you.
In other words, write your story in pencil. It's ok to change. It's ok to erase and release what no longer serves us so that we can pencil in something new or something that we've lost or misplaced.
Oftentimes we do what we do and think what we think merely because it's habitual, not because we desire or intend for it to be that way. If we make some sort of change to our behavior or identities, we fear that others will judge us because the shift won't fit in with their idea of who they think we are.
Give yourself the freedom and the permission to change. And give yourself the permission to surprise others. Recognize that if someone is uncomfortable with these reclaimed aspects of you, it is their responsibility to work through that discomfort, not yours.
7. Meditate to move beyond the analytical mind and into the subconscious.
About 5% of the mind's patterns are conscious, the other 95% are subconscious habits, behaviors, beliefs, etc.
Because of this, it can be challenging to consciously change limiting beliefs, patterns, and habitual thoughts because they’re buried deep within the subconscious.
Meditating to induce a theta brain wave state is a powerful way to shift subconscious programs and patterns. Theta is easiest to access in morning and evening, so keep this in mind.
I have a meditation for releasing limiting beliefs on my website. I’ll link to it in the show notes if you’re interested in listening.
8. Become playfully curious.
Try out new habits or identities and don't take anything too seriously.
Give yourself the freedom to explore whatever your soul calls you towards.
Embrace what resonates and release what doesn't.
9. Prioritize your feelings.
Take responsibility for your emotions while at the same time knowing that the emotions of others are their responsibility. It's your job to act in alignment with your inherent values, it's not your job to make yourself fit into the confines and limitations of everyone else's.
This means working to not take anything personally—criticisms or compliments.
Even when we receive constructive feedback, we can receive it without personalizing it. We can then work to improve ourselves without creating some sort of limiting identity out of those criticisms.
Along this same line, don't take the ego's ramblings so personally either, especially not its limiting beliefs. Be an observer, not a believer.
From this vantage point, we begin to realize that what we experience in the external world is a reflection of everyone else’s perceptions of self.
10. Engage the power of your imagination.
Imagine the whole version of yourself—the one with all missing or hidden parts reclaimed. Close your eyes and visualize her. What does her energy feel like? How does she feel inside and what does she radiate out into the world? Is her authenticity magnetic? Powerful?
Visualize yourself as you want to be. This is the idea of starting from the end first and it ties into the law of attraction. Thoughts become things, and when we powerfully envision the end result the ‘how’ begins to reveal itself gently to us. We don’t need to force anything, just envision it and follow the breadcrumbs that manifest before us.
Visualization is also a powerful way to affect the subconscious mind. We can’t think our way to changing our subconscious beliefs, but we can feel our way there through visualizing the desired result.
“Determined imagination, thinking from the end, is the beginning of all the miracles.”
—Neville Goddard
