Midlife Uncensored

Unlocking Personal Freedom through Authenticity and Self-Awareness

• Joel Poppert • Season 1 • Episode 21

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Ever wondered how being true to yourself can transform your life? Discover the powerful connection between authenticity and self-awareness as Emanuela and Joel engage in an enlightening discussion about what it means to be authentic and how it impacts our lives. Drawing from definitions—including the Urban Dictionary—and personal anecdotes, we unravel what it means to be genuinely you. From the struggles of defining oneself outside traditional roles to the liberating experience of making choices aligned with personal values, we explore the journey of knowing, owning, and expressing your true identity.

Our conversation dives into the benefits of self-awareness, such as reduced anxiety and more meaningful decisions, while tackling the societal pressures that challenge our authenticity. Learn how embracing your true self can lead to better relationships and inner peace, and why it’s crucial to foster self-awareness from a young age. Through candid reflections and a touch of humor, we emphasize setting boundaries and forming relationships that resonate with your authentic self, providing practical tips for navigating polarized environments and living a fulfilling life.

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Speaker 1:

Hey y'all, you're listening to another episode of the Owning Alone podcast hosted by your favorite middle-aged Sasquatch with the epic beer game, joel Popper, aka Popper, and his very own Italian unicorn, emanuella Messinaio. Before we start, I want to remind you guys to follow us, subscribe. You can find us on Instagram at Owning Alone, or you can always email your stories or your questions to joel at owningalonepodcastcom, or you can slip into our DMs on Instagram. I am Emanuella and I am recording from my mom's basement in Wisconsin. Where are you at?

Speaker 2:

What's up? I'm in my dining room slash office, oh yeah.

Speaker 1:

Real nice.

Speaker 2:

It's a beautiful day here. It's like almost 90 degrees. I was going to tell you how was it up there it's been pretty good.

Speaker 1:

It's been raining and sunny and windy. My mom and my sister and everybody lives out in the country. Here in Fond du Lac, wisconsin, I'm out Wisconsin. I was out here for my niece's graduation party she just graduated high school, which is crazy and then just fishing and catching up with family and friends and doing a little upper Midwest tour, making sure I got to come back every six months or so and redial in my accent. So I imagine this episode is going to be very. Wisconsin fresh. I sound like a Canadian.

Speaker 1:

You should have your cheese hat, whatever it's called. My cheese hat's in Denver, actually. Yeah, yeah. No, I'm literally in the basement here. I'm hoping that there aren't weird noises that start to happen here.

Speaker 2:

Should I tell you if a spider drops on your head?

Speaker 1:

I can handle spiders, I can't handle snakes, no snakes.

Speaker 2:

Oh boy.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, it's been a good trip.

Speaker 2:

The weather's been good.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I'm heading down to my hometown here this weekend to go hang out friends and hit up the lake, and then I'm throwing Mesa in the back and going up to Minneapolis.

Speaker 2:

Nice, that's good.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, it's been a good week just working remotely, and today I know we threw this together. We're trying to record remotely, which we don't do very often, so we apologize to our listeners if anything's funky, but maybe we'll even start a YouTube channel with this one, since we're actually recording our faces.

Speaker 2:

Hey, why not? But I actually Also. We can practice for all of these like remote people that we want to interview so we're using ourselves as Guinea pigs too.

Speaker 1:

I'm pretty happy with squad cast. It looks like it's recording.

Speaker 1:

I've been pretty happy with the podcast, software and robotics and AI that's out there making our lives a lot easier. And yeah, so the topic for today, authenticity, which we'll get into here in a little bit. What is it, what does it mean to us and how to gain the confidence to embrace it? I think it's authenticity and living an authentic life and being yourself is obviously at the core of owning alone. So I thought it was worthwhile to dive into it and I found a pretty cool quote in a world where you can be anything, be yourself, which I think is a good sort of way to start the topic. I did give it some thought last night and today, because I think that you know authenticity. Last night and today, because I think that you know authenticity, I was thinking about starting with chat GDP, because I'm sure chat GDP is going to have the best answer after this whole series. Again, what authenticity means to artificial intelligence. But I pulled down a couple definitions.

Speaker 1:

The Urban Dictionary's definition is being who you are, listening to yourself and making your own decisions rather than buying all the crap society foists on you, or keeping it real. In short, or more standard definition is true to one's own personality, spirit or character, and authenticity is one of those things that is renowned and respected and involves a lot of work. It involves knowing yourself very well, which is the cornerstone of our podcast and our thesis, and self-awareness and discipline and all of these things. It's basically the essence of a strong human being, of owning your alone. It gives you the strength and the confidence to achieve what you want to be with who you want to. All of it. Know yourself, own yourself, be yourself is another thing that I wrote down, so I guess we'll start with.

Speaker 1:

I think everybody has an idea of definition wise. What is authenticity? I think it'd be interesting to have a conversation about what it means to us, to you and I as individuals. Like what does authenticity mean to you in your life and do you consider yourself authentic and have you always been authentic? How do you maintain that?

Speaker 2:

I think, like when you're just, when you've been like talking about this, I think another sort of concept came to mind which is like just being genuine. So, but if we go back a little bit, the being true to yourself, knowing yourself, own yourself, be yourself I think in order to really be authentic and to be genuine, you've you do have to first figure out who you are, and I don't know that we all stop to really think about that at times. We probably have an idea, but have we really? Could you like write that down? The first time I really realized that maybe I didn't have a great grasp on that piece of it, like at least being able to vocalize it was when I actually you interviewed me the first time on the podcast and I had to write this bio for you, and I was like, oh God, how do I? What am I going to write down?

Speaker 2:

Because so many times you define yourself within like a work environment or a family environment. But who are you just like individually? Yeah, like just who are you individually and what do you stand for? I do these like exercises within, like my company, where we go through every now and then we talk about who are we, what are our values, what is our like mission statement, where we go through every now and then we talk about who are we, what are our values, what is our like mission statement, what just like who we are as a company, and that way we can make sure that we're aligned with our customers and things like that, but doing that individually. There's so many times that we don't do this stuff for ourselves, and so I do think that, in order to be authentic within whatever relationship you have, whether it's a friendship or even like in your career, you really have to have a good gauge of what that looks like for you. Yeah, no, I would agree.

Speaker 1:

I think there's truly authentic people out there, A lot of people. There's different levels of it. I also think there's people out there that falsely believe they're authentic when they're not, but they're also fighting in their own convictions.

Speaker 2:

So what does that look like for you? Sorry, I'm going to interrupt you Someone who's like somewhat. No, like what does someone who's not being authentic? What does that look like? Somebody?

Speaker 1:

who has very poor self-awareness. A significant part of their personality is identified as part of a group or somebody else is setting the characteristics of their personality. For them, we see this a lot on the fringes in the political spectrum. For them, we see this a lot on the fringes in the political spectrum, we see this in different sort of I hate to see the word religious, but any sort of groups that you self-identify with. It's the inability to own your own convictions. I think it's not even own your own convictions.

Speaker 1:

Or make decisions, your own convictions, or make decisions or people walk around without really truly understanding who they are, and the reason that I'm suggesting this is because I've always been.

Speaker 1:

I think somewhere around freshman year in high school I branched off and became poppy right and there was a good chunk of my personality that was fairly authentic and people enjoyed that about me and appreciated that and respected that about me. But there was also this other part of my personality where I didn't have the courage or the awareness or discipline or confidence to fully embrace. So I did things that I probably, if I had more confidence or understanding or awareness, wouldn't have done nothing bad, just did things or participated in things, groups that I probably wouldn't have, or hung out with people that I didn't necessarily align with values, wise made, even made like decisions around classes and stuff based on what other people were doing, and just couldn't didn't have enough awareness to be truly authentic. And there's definitely different levels of authenticity and I think that we, some people are naturally. Some people just come out of the womb just clearly confident and disciplined and know themselves and they just are. You can see those people even as children. Some people have to work at it.

Speaker 2:

Where do you think they get that from? Is it like generational?

Speaker 1:

I don't know. It's probably their sign, somebody would tell you, or their astrological sign. I think it's probably the way they're raised.

Speaker 2:

Clearly mine's the best.

Speaker 1:

I'm just kidding, if you're raised by parents, or at least one parent that's very self-aware and very disciplined and has the ability to translate into their children and raise their children that way, like confidence equals.

Speaker 2:

I mean, kids are sponges, yeah you can't be.

Speaker 1:

I don't know about that. It's a different type of confidence. Tell me about that, okay.

Speaker 2:

Confidence does not necessarily mean authenticity. You have to be confident to be authentic. But just because you're confident does not mean that to me authenticity comes from.

Speaker 2:

Oh, okay, sorry, I was just. I think for me, as you were talking, I was thinking, like some of what you said was I think we go through these periods at a younger age where we do what we think we're supposed to do. We do what we think we're supposed to do whoever determines that, and then, whether it's like society, religion or parents, family, whatever it is, or doing things to fit in with a group or to be more popular, are things that you were saying would make you inauthentic. So to me, it's more, instead of it be like yes, you do need confidence in order to be authentic, because it means that you have to potentially go against the norm or go against what other people are doing. But I think where it for me, it's about checking my intentions, and I know that sounds a little frou-frou, but if I'm, yeah, is that?

Speaker 1:

a term we're famous.

Speaker 2:

It's more about. Am I doing this so that somebody will like me, so that they'll accept me, so that I get something out of it? Or am I doing this just because I think it's the right thing to do, or because it aligns with my own values, or because I want to be a good person? That, to me, is like a little helps me better gauge authenticity, but you certainly need confidence in order to do that and to say, oh no, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do what the rest of the crowd is doing.

Speaker 1:

I totally get what you're saying between. Authenticity is a good way to find external confidence, but I think to be truly authentic takes a different type of confidence, right. You're confident in yourself, you're confident in the person you are, you're confident in the decisions you make. You're all these things which you can loosely tie authenticity to confidence, to self-awareness, to all these things right. I think that the more self-aware that you are, the more authentic you're ultimately going to become, because the more aware you are, it's hard to not be authentic, because now you have this sort of unique ability to understand what's happening around you, what's happening with you, you, and make decisions. You're going to just ultimately, like instinctually, make decisions that align with your, with the awareness you have around yourself, which is a very enlightening sort of place to be as a human being.

Speaker 1:

I think that we're never fully aware. We're obviously always learning, but once you elevate your self-awareness, which is something I've worked really hard on in the last couple of years, I just again, like, certain things change for me. My relationships change, my how I approach my career, changed all these things to make sure that what I was doing fit inside of who. I'm starting to understand who I am right. I go to the mountains less, and not because I don't like the mountains, but because I found some enjoyment in the city and traveling and I used to get so worked up if I didn't do X amount of days of skiing and X amount of days river rafting and I do things that I guess didn't fit in that moment or put unnecessary stress on me because I think I was doing things to uphold a persona that maybe wasn't fully me. So I now I don't stress the decisions I'm making.

Speaker 1:

Another thing that I used to struggle with, I think, was anxiety around what other people were thinking of me based off of what I, the conversations, what I said, the conversations I had with people, and it's a. I think it's a thing that a lot of people struggle with is they get anxiety around but you go out and you're super extroverted and you have all these conversations of people at a party and I would wake up the next morning and be like I wonder what they thought about that. And I said that, cause you know me, I'm really open and blah, blah and what I've said about that, and I finally realized I'm like I'm not a crazy person. The things that come out of my mouth, my mouth, aren't necessarily bad, wrong anything, so I just trust that probably most people enjoy the conversations they have with me because I'm being very authentic and I leaned into that.

Speaker 1:

I can't say that everybody enjoys everything I say, but it's just like a level of anxiety went out the window and I think that the more authentic that my conversations and the way I lead my life and the way I deal with people translated into a lower, lower, less anxiety for me. I don't give a fuck because I'm a good person. How do you think? Why do you think it's so important to live an authentic life or to be authentic?

Speaker 2:

Why is it important? I think it's just for your own inner peace. Really, I don't think it really. I don't think anybody else gives a shit, just don't think it affects other people's lives Like it really does your own. So I think it's more for your own inner peace and to live a life that you want to live for yourself and what your values are, versus what everyone else wants for you. But I don't know, I don't know that anyone else really cares whether you are or not, like whether you're doing that or not. I don't know that they really care, like they just might decide you aren't for them If you're not a very authentic person.

Speaker 2:

I guess I feel like it's more about your own, I think it's more about yourself than it is about anybody else. So, in terms of you ask, like, why is it important to live that? I think it's for your own inner peace and happiness, so that you can feel like it, this, so that you can feel like you're living a life with some sort of meaning, like for yourself, and that now maybe that eventually taps into a little bit of what's your life purpose and things like that, but just doing things that are a little bit more meaningful. I think it's again just for like your own inner peace and really so yeah, my mind is like now going down like a rabbit hole. No, it's fine, I'm just like it's now.

Speaker 1:

I'll get off topic eventually, what is the opposite of authenticity? I didn't look that up in the dictionary. What is?

Speaker 2:

it Probably something like fitting in and conforming to what other people want. I suppose there's a part of it that like, if you're in corporate America, you just go with the flow.

Speaker 1:

I don't know, and I think it's the reason that I'm, the reason that's an interesting topic for us, I think, is because we're middle age, right? So, whatever, maybe not, maybe we'll live, to be in our well, into our hundreds.

Speaker 1:

But this is when I think a lot of people that didn't lead an authentic life, that didn't have self-awareness, wake up one day, divorced, with a couple kids or whatever it is, and they go from being a corporate attorney to farming. Or somebody like a friend of mine who was married for decades and has three children comes out of the closet and is a very happy gay individual and finds his leans into his sexuality in his in very adult years. And this is why authenticity is so important. It's important to encourage our children to question themselves, to talk to themselves, to lean into themselves, to explore their thoughts and their likes and their dislikes and their relationships, their likes and their dislikes and their relationships, and it's an incredibly difficult time for a child to do this right.

Speaker 1:

When you're a child, there's fitting in, there's not fitting in right, and not fitting in comes with consequences, and fitting in obviously comes with some consequences too. But as adults, if we don't have good self-awareness, the reciprocal words authenticity and self-awareness to me. So if we don't have good self-awareness or lean into our selves, we start to make decisions that impact our entire lives. We marry the wrong person and have a family with them and that's a decision. We go to school for 12 years to be a doctor, even though we fucking hated every year of it because we didn't have the courage just to realize we wanted to be a farmer, which is a really weird analogy. Whatever, it's the extreme side of it do you really want to be a?

Speaker 1:

farmer. I loved playing on farms when I was a kid. I I'm a Wisconsin boy. Not quite sure there's a lot of money in it, but I just like being out in the country.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

I don't want to go down that road. Are you picturing me in overalls right now and like a pitchfork?

Speaker 2:

I am I totally am.

Speaker 1:

Oh man God, I'm a good farmer.

Speaker 2:

You also. I know, I'm a good farmer, you also.

Speaker 1:

Except I don't like getting up at three in the morning.

Speaker 2:

Whatever the hell, no, good Lord.

Speaker 2:

We're talking about people shedding these ideas of what you're supposed to be in middle age and claiming who they really are authentically and that could happen, like it really at any age.

Speaker 2:

But a couple of things come to mind, and one thing is I think there's a level of exhaustion that comes with doing what you're supposed to do and conforming to what other people want you to do. That by the time you're in middle age, you're just like I'm over it. I want to do something that feels better for me, and so I think that's where the whole midlife crisis sort of idea comes from is like that you become exhausted from wearing this like mask and being something, someone or doing things that other people wanted you to do. That might not really align with who you are at that point. Now you also talked about, like youth right now having decisions, and I think they are faced with so many more decisions and choices than what we had. Or just like also just access to so much more with social media, even when we were growing up, like we didn't have the internet, like you had to go look things up in an encyclopedia. So, like the we didn't have I don't know if it's authentic.

Speaker 2:

We just didn't have so many choices like Like you, just you did this or you did that, and now instead of two choices, you have 12, and it's like whoa. And not that you couldn't say I'm somewhere in between these two choices, whatever. It is Right, but I'm just saying that's just like another piece of it right now. When you talk about like youth, but in terms of middle age, yeah, I'm getting at.

Speaker 1:

I just want to interrupt you for one second. Keep your thought, though. I think what I meant there is that when we were younger, of course, we were influenced by, I think, michael Jackson and Michael Jordan and a lot of Michaels when we were younger Star Wars and all this shit Jordan and a lot of Michaels. When we were younger, star Wars and all this shit. We were influenced by the big movies, the actors, the whatever that we saw in magazines, and I think, for kids these days, they're influenced by their peers in a way that we were never. We would have never saw a kid from california with a million followers doing something that you know we thought we should be doing, and so there's just a lot of yeah. It's harder to.

Speaker 2:

it takes more discipline, I think, for all of us, particularly young people, to lean into their authenticity without recourse, external recourse, and so for sure, yeah, and regardless of that, I think every we obviously don't have the perspective of the generations before us, because we didn't live it, but I think every generation has their own unique circumstances.

Speaker 2:

But one thing that seems to be recurring is this concept of like midlife crisis, and I think where that comes from is really just some level of exhaustion carrying on a way that you think you're supposed to and really coming into your own at that point. I don't know that you can do it sooner in life, because I think it just takes experience and going through life and figuring out what works, what doesn't work for you. But I think the other motivating factor to claiming that is people realize life is short and some people realize that sooner than others do, and that could be for a multitude of reasons, and one of the things that we were talking about earlier is was it that you said something about getting to middle age and realizing like you aren't being your authentic self? But what about if you're on your deathbed?

Speaker 2:

Like what if you're beyond middle age? And no, but I think that's the point.

Speaker 1:

Like regretting that you weren't authentic. Like regretting that you weren't authentic.

Speaker 2:

No, I think that's what we want to avoid, right. For me, that's a motivating factor. I don't want to be on my deathbed, whatever age.

Speaker 1:

That is regretting not doing something that I really felt called to do in whatever way that is Simply, though I think we're talking about the broader levels of authenticity, but I think it's the interpersonal relationship, is the real, is the one where it helps us, guide us, to make the decisions that we should have been making, to do this traveling, to do the take the career thing. But the smaller, micro level benefits of leaning into your authenticity is that is the emotional management, is the confidence, is the reduction in anxiety, all the things that come along with knowing thyself, and I disagree a little bit that knowing thyself, are you going?

Speaker 1:

I do think that younger people, people, there's a lot of younger people I'd like you to quote some scripture, please. I I mean, I do think there's a lot of younger people that are that have leaned into their authenticity. I think they're still confused about bigger things and still influenced by, maybe their parents at a bigger level than you are in middle age.

Speaker 2:

But I I'm so confused by a lot of things I guess that it brings me.

Speaker 1:

I want to talk about what. I want to go two places. I want to talk a little bit about what sort of hinders somebody, an individual, from being authentic or leaning into the authentic side, or even finding, even getting to a point where they can face that, understand that they aren't being themselves.

Speaker 1:

And then I want to move into what does it take to find yourself and to lean into that and then embrace it right so that's the journey that I think anybody's going to go on, and I wrote down I guess one of my questions was what are some of the roadblocks you think that keep one from embracing a truly authentic life? And I wrote just a couple of bullets relationships, insecurities, fear of extradition, all these things that keep the individual in the closet per se. So I don't know if you want to dissect that or what would speculate on what you think, why you think some people just don't go there or can't find themselves.

Speaker 2:

I think it's mostly about fitting in and having connection to people, but it's not in the right way. That would be my off-the-cuff answer to that. What do you think it is? I?

Speaker 1:

think it's a lot of things. I think, if you think of examples, if you pick out examples of one might be, I'm really unhappy in my career. I don't want to be a lawyer, I don't want to be an accountant, blah blah. I think you have.

Speaker 2:

Why do you pick on lawyers all the time too? I'm just kidding. You just always reference lawyers. Do you want to be a lawyer? Uh?

Speaker 1:

I would have never made it through law school. I'm not a big, I'm not a big fan of reading boring text and I'm not good at memorizing shit. But yes, I would like to be a lawyer because they make a lot of money. I would not have been the lawyer that saves poor people, I would have been the corporate lawyer that just I'm an asshole. Oh geez, it makes up two million dollars a year it's not very authentic of you very authentic that I know that about myself.

Speaker 1:

Fuck that, okay. I also don't want to be the president united states, because that looks like a shitty ass job. I want to be a farmer. Uh, yeah, you do. I think this comes down to insecurities or security, right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 1:

People don't lean into their authenticity.

Speaker 1:

For, I said, fear of extradition, being extradited from their social circles for having a different thought, which is a big problem in America. In the West, because of the political sort of hyper political fringes that we live in, you can't sit in a group of liberals and talk about the border or letting people across the border. You can't have an intelligent conversation, you're going to be extradited. Same thing with the right. You can't talk about whatever, and I'm not going to again. I don't want to do political isolation here, but you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2:

Like any sort of no, but I think it's like that. I think you bring up a good point with the concept of like insecurities, but that does boil back to fitting in. If you are insecure about something, why are you insecure? Because people might not agree or accept you Like what's the other? Yeah, I'm trying to think of other things that could be, but I think it does boil down to that and those go hand in hand.

Speaker 1:

I think the fear of extradition or lack of, or not being accepted as a massive player in a people's inability to have the courage to be authentic, it comes down to how many people show up on a date as somebody other than themselves, right?

Speaker 2:

Can you be too authentic?

Speaker 1:

That's a good question.

Speaker 2:

I think that Like too much, like too independent, almost, because that's where we're going is like this if you because I think, if you are, we're talking about not having this fear to be on your own I think that you can't be too authentic.

Speaker 1:

I think that if you're, if you believe, if you have enough external awareness to recognize that somebody's quote unquote too authentic, they're probably not. They're not probably all that authentic at all. They're probably overcompensating for some some insecurity or something. Being authentic is the ability to walk into a room or to stand up for yourself to say, if somebody asks you, do you believe in X? Instead of being righteous about it, you're like this is what I think about that, and in such a tone that has no undertones of disgust or any sort of emotion. It's just. This is what I believe, I've thought about it and this is what I stand by. This is what I believe.

Speaker 2:

Should you also be open to discussion around it, though, too? You don't want to just say this is my opinion. I don't need to hear yours, these discussions.

Speaker 1:

I think a lot of the discussions about authenticity or about what we believe or what we should do or the relationships we be in, are with ourselves. So I think a lot of it's internal Half of this stuff is a war that we're having with our inner selves, and that's where true authenticity is, this self-awareness piece. The external piece is easy once you figure out the internal piece and I think that ultimately we attract again. We attract where we are right.

Speaker 1:

So truly self-aware, authentic people tend to attract very self-aware authentic people themselves and then know how to very at least personally and I've seen this with you like this ability to navigate all these different types of personalities very thoughtfully and not step in the shit per se.

Speaker 2:

Right, the shit doesn't it can present itself and we just step over it I think that's why you and I click too is I think I see a lot of that in you too, but I don't know if we necessarily attract people who are in the same place as well, as much as we just don't engage with the ones who don't, cause I think there's constantly people around that will gravitate towards people like you or I, and it's more about us being, us having those boundaries and knowing what's good and bad for us or whatever, that we just don't engage with, the ones that aren't at this in the same, that just don't like that, don't like line up with where we are, in whatever capacity that is, and other people could say that about us, and because, again, we aren't all made the same. But so we talked a little bit about, like why you wouldn't lean into your authenticity or why you wouldn't be more authentic. But then you'd also ask, like, how to overcome that.

Speaker 1:

So what are your thoughts on that Overcome. I think that I stole this from an article I read before I was trying to prep for this a little bit Again. I think it's self-awareness, and self-awareness entails understanding your strengths and your challenges, understanding your values and your challenges. Understanding your values, having a good grip on your goals, your dreams and your fears, knowing yourself, your personality, what do you like and dislike about yourself, personal preferences, understanding your insecurities, managing your insecurities, the quality of your relationship and whether they're a good fit for you and those are all big things to truly understand. So I think that you need to be authentic. I think you have to have a really good relationship with yourself, which equals self-awareness, which, if you're not even close therapy, find a good therapist.

Speaker 2:

Doesn't it take self-awareness? Doesn't it take self-awareness to know that you're not? Can you learn it? There are so many people out there I think that don't have it, or have a wall up around themselves Very externally aware.

Speaker 1:

I've always had good external awareness and maybe I'm wrong and that's really my cognitive distortions, but I do think that's true and self-awareness took a lot more work than external awareness, and I think you're right. If you don't have any self-awareness, it's impossible to know that you need to gain self-awareness. But that's when, at some point in your life, if you have zero self-awareness, the house of cards is going to come crashing down and at some point you've got to look in the mirror and be like all my relationships are with crazy people.

Speaker 1:

I'm not happy, my blah, blah blah. I'm not doing this right, I'm an anxious person, blah blah and you start adding these up. And if there's anybody in your life that's listening and has some sort of awareness, somebody.

Speaker 2:

And if there's anybody in your life, that's listening and it has some sort of awareness.

Speaker 1:

somebody, hopefully, is, or that cares to give you feedback. Hopefully somebody's stepping in and being like hey, that's assuming you can take it or there's a commercial you hear that says do you have self-awareness? And they ask all these questions.

Speaker 2:

You're like oh yeah maybe, I don't know Should we come up with an infomercial on this? Should we come up with an infomercial on this? I think where I was getting like before, it's if you don't have self-awareness, some of that might be because you have so many walls up that you're not even like you. You block it out, like you don't want to admit it to yourself, but then other people may not even be able to. If people offer you that feedback, you might not even be able or willing to receive it either. So I was just curious, I think. I think I've always had some decent like self-awareness too, but there are certainly things that for me at least, like that I've maybe been closed off to receiving feedback on, and maybe just because I wasn't ready to handle it or deal with it in a certain way.

Speaker 1:

I got a bucket of things that. I probably need to address in my life that I have enough awareness around that I don't need to address it all at once.

Speaker 2:

And what about people that don't have any?

Speaker 1:

I don't think there's a lot of hope for people that don't have any if they don't seek help. Um, I I think there's books that you can read, but the art of self-awareness is it takes facing ourselves, our true selves, and it can get dark and it can get scary. You're addressing and communicating your insecurities, some of which everybody has insecurities, some learning how to live with them.

Speaker 1:

Some of it is acknowledging your place in the world and being okay with it and happy and getting rid of whatever is bringing you down, whatever is hindering you from being your authentic self. What I can say is that the more you gain self-awareness and the more you gain control over this, and we talked about addressing our emotions in real time and processing them. All of this stuff comes along with it that the more authentic, the more confidence and courage you'll have to live an authentic life, and it has massive ripple effects into everything else. If you're single, it's an enduring quality. To the right women or men, you attract incredibly wonderful human beings into your life. You will likely rid yourself of relationships that are toxic and embrace and grow relationships that are good, rewarding your life and find those people and attract those people. So there's all kinds of amazing things that come with self-awareness, and one of those things is authenticity with self-awareness, and one of those things is authenticity, which is a very nice way to live your life. It doesn't not have external sort of side effects, but it comes back to this sort of idea that I'm feeling it even more as I get into my forties.

Speaker 1:

Life is so short and I think I know for sure that on my deathbed I'm sure I'll have regrets, right? I think everybody does whenever that is. But at least, like I'm, I have the awareness to know that life is short. Life doesn't just mean money and whatever society has told us it is, life means what you want it to be, right.

Speaker 1:

How close did you get to meeting your goals, to living, being the human being that you wanted to be, to knowing yourself, to being that person, to your people, to all those things? Right? Don't figure that out in your 60s and 70s or, god forbid, like 80s or on your deathbed. Figure that out now and start working toward being that person. And I think also like, as just a side note for our sort of, our single audience or the people that are like out there middle age alone, right, because it's the owning alone podcast. I think that this, the more you can work on self awareness, I think it's priority number one. If you're struggling with self identity, if you're struggling to get back out there and date, if you're struggling with you're struggling to get back out there and date. If you're struggling with you know, making friends, I think the last thing you want to do is be making friends and dating the wrong people because you don't know yourself, and now you're just going to go

Speaker 1:

through this cycle that you started when you were a child. As an adult, again right, and so focus on your self-awareness. Find a good therapist or some friends that are you know, I guess can help in that regard. Or read the books. Subtle art of not giving a fuck is I'm always going to give a plug, for that one is a good one. There's a million books on emotional eq and self-awareness and stuff to read. But yeah, chat tdp fun time. We asked chat tdp what does it mean to live an authentic life and how do you gain the confidence to embrace it? And, of course, can you make it funny. Living an authentic life means being true to yourself, embracing who you are and not pretending to be someone you're not. It's like when you go to a party and, instead of pretending to know the latest dance moves, you just start doing the Macarena, because that's what makes you happy Gaining the confidence to embrace an authentic life is like building muscle at the gym it takes time, it takes practice and maybe a little bit of sweat.

Speaker 1:

Here are a few tips to help you out. Number one self-reflection. Take a moment to think about what makes you unique. If you like singing show tunes in the shower, own it, just maybe warm your roommates first. Number two accept imperfection. Understand that nobody's perfect. If you trip over your own feet in public, laugh it off and keep going, Maybe even take a bow. Surround yourself with supportive people.

Speaker 2:

I like that.

Speaker 1:

Number three find friends who love you for who you are. These are the people who will laugh at your terrible jokes and help you pick out the broccoli stuck in your teeth. Number four practice honesty. Be honest with yourself and others. If you don't like pineapple on your pizza, don't eat it just because everyone else is. Stand your ground, even if it means getting into a heated debate at the dinner table. Number five take risks. Try new things and don't be afraid to fail. If you decide to take up knitting and at the end, with a scarf that looks like a lopsided caterpillar, wear it with pride. Remember, living an authentic life is about embracing your quirks, being honest with yourself and others and having the confidence to let your true self shine. And if that means dancing like no one's watching, even when everyone is, then go for it Again. She does well.

Speaker 2:

Good job.

Speaker 1:

All right folks. Maybe we'll stick that up at the beginning. She always takes the spotlight from us. Not really Just confirms what that tech hour of banter that we just did.

Speaker 2:

What fun is that, though we can't, nobody's going to listen to just unless I give her the very elegant French voice or something. Unless she has jitter tits. Oh, she has jitter tits. Oh, Chachity T definitely has jitter tits.

Speaker 1:

I've seen the pictures Very scary. Anyway, with that, amanda, I wish you to all our listeners.

Speaker 2:

I appreciate you.

Speaker 1:

Why don't you slip into our DMs and tell us about how you live an authentic life, or talk to us about your dating? We want to hear from you. So you can find us on Instagram, at owningalone, or you can email us at dole at owningalonepodcastcom, or you can get real cranky and slip into our DM. Or you can find us on Facebook, but again nobody knows there. So with that, the Sasquatch is out.

Speaker 2:

Bye there. So with that, the sass watch is out. Bye.

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Joel Poppert

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