Embrace the Real You: Ditch the 'New Year, New You' Myth

Hey, nosy friends.

Welcome, and welcome back to Nosy if conversations about art, activism, and social change.

I am your friend and host, Stephanie Graham, and I would personally like to welcome you to the last day of 2024.

The crowd.

Katt Williams told us.

He.

He told us, y'all.

I still remember sending the Katt Williams on Club Shay interview to my friend Felicia.

Katt Williams told us that 2024 was going to be a wild year.

And he wasn't wrong.

It's been crazy.

As the year wraps up, I've been reflecting on all that's happened and thinking about what I want for 2025.

And I wonder if you've done the same.

Well, have you?

Have you?

If not, no judgment.

Because, you know, if you're bored and looking for something meaningful to do today, I guess today.

Because 2025 starts tomorrow.

I mean, even more tomorrow.

Even for tomorrow, I highly recommend, you know, some, like, reflection.

Just chill on your couch, you know, put, like, some lo fi beats on and just reflect.

This year has flown by and I gotta tell y'all something.

I missed so many goals.

I made way too many goals.

And I was, like, going through.

I have a little goal tracker.

I'm just, like, missed, missed, missed.

Dang.

But I am super proud of what I did accomplish this year, and this show is at the top of this list.

And I really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really want to thank you for being a part of it.

Speaking of the new year, I'm doing something special today.

I have a feed drop featuring an episode of Unlimited by my friend Valerie Friedlander.

And Valerie is diving deep into something that's marketed to us 80s babies and 90s kids ever.

So if you are past that, like, if you are a current baby, you might not know about all this, but it is the infamous New Year new you.

So you've heard it everywhere.

That idea that you need to reinvent yourself every January.

And let me tell you something.

Do not talk about this around Valerie.

She will snatch your edges because she is definitely not about that life.

Instead, instead, like, Valerie, she's, like all.

She, like, leans into, like, the New Year as you, like, move into the New Year as you.

Who you are, you're perfect.

And in this episode, she breaks down on, like, why that whole New Year, new you messaging is super toxic and how we need to shift toward an idea of self trust, reclaiming our inner child, and then building a year that supports us as we already are.

Which is cool because that means that we ain't got to do nothing but just chill.

I love chilling.

You heard me just tell you to reflect by playing some lo fi beats and laying on the couch or on the floor or sitting at a chair, wherever you want to be.

So, I don't know.

I think this is a good episode because it's like, look, this year flew by.

We don't have time to be doing all that, you know, all these goals and stuff, like, trying to decide, like, how we're going to reinvent ourselves.

No, we are all set, per Valerie and per the Lord.

Amen.

So I hope you enjoy this episode.

Episode of Unlimited.

And you know what?

Let's hear what Valerie has to say.

And cheers to stepping into 2025 as you.

Hey there.

I'm Valerie Friedlander, certified life business alignment coach, and this is Unlimited.

This podcast bridges the individual and the societal, scientific and spiritual, positive and negative.

Nerdy.

And no, there's just a lot of nerdy.

Come on board, and let's unlock a light that's as badass as you are.

We're gonna dive in right off the bat with the problem around this whole new year, new you thing.

And what it is is that at the root of it is this idea that you need to be other than you.

So we're starting a new year, and it's time to be not you.

You need a new you, because the you that you had last year isn't good enough.

It didn't cut it.

It didn't have what you wanted.

It has smaller than you want to be or whatever.

All of the stuff.

Stuff.

The societal stuff that's like, okay, let's shed that and do this new thing.

Okay, so I've already talked last year about the whole issue with kind of kicking things off at the beginning of the year anyway.

There is momentum to making changes this time of year just because there's that societal momentum.

But there can also be this real pressure to do things beginning of the year.

And if you don't do it now, then you just won't do it.

And that is not true.

That kind of pressure can actually make it so that you don't do it.

Because for most of us, our stress response is avoidance.

It's the freeze and flee.

So if that's your stress response, if you feel stressed, you are more likely to not do the thing to avoid the thing.

I was just working with a client the other day, actually, who was like, I really want to exercise and want to move my body.

And we explored, of course, like, what is exercise?

What is movement?

And all of that sort of stuff.

But this desire to exercise coupled with the should around exercising, she was both, oh, I know I feel better when I do this.

But because it was coupled with that should where she was kind of beating herself up over, you need to do this, you should be doing this, you should be doing this.

She was naturally avoiding it because there was guilt and all this weight around it and stress responses to avoid the guilt and the weight and the yucky feelings.

So when we couple what we want with the pressure that you have to do it or you should do it, it's very common to avoid doing it.

And you're like, why am I avoiding this?

Well, because you're beating yourself up, overdoing it.

So, therefore, anyway, so back to the idea that, well, there's something wrong with you.

And there is a large story in our society around there being something wrong with you, especially for people in marginalized communities.

So this idea that, all right, something's wrong with you, someone else knows better and can fix you, and that's what the marketing is.

That's what all the messaging is, the advertisements, all of the things pushing you to buy and spend money and get stuff.

It's this sense that something's wrong with you, you don't have enough.

You need to be fixed, and you need to spend money to be fixed, and I'm the one who can fix you.

We are conditioned to believe this, to believe that there is something wrong with us.

I was just spending a little time with bell hooks who.

Well, not personally, though that would have been amazing.

But she passed away recently, and I found a quote from her that said, the wounded child inside many females is a girl who was taught from early childhood on that she must become something other than herself, deny her true feelings in order to attract and please others.

Ugh.

So that hit me really hard because that is something that very much resonates.

This need to feel safe, to feel secure, to.

To have people validate me because I didn't feel like I belonged.

I was told that I was too girly, I was too fat, I was too smart, you know, And.

And how many of you have experienced that too muchness and being told that you need to make yourself less to make others more comfortable?

I'm betting that most of you, whatever your identities, but especially for those of you with identities that are other than white male heteronormative cisgender people, have experienced a lot of that at varying levels and from a variety of spaces.

Now, I will say right here that I believe that these Things also impact everyone in various ways that they're harmful to all people.

However, it's important to recognize that there are layers to that within society.

For me personally, I have experienced this with, you know, being the.

The little girl in the fluffy tutu, the purple fluffy tutu who prances around with big dreams, imagining being she Ra and riding on swift wind and being a hero leading people.

I was the ringleader on the playground, coming up with all the imaginary games.

We had such fun.

And then things changed.

And at a time where I was particularly lonely and my parents were especially emotionally unavailable, available, I had peers around me who were telling me that I was too much in a variety of ways.

Too girly, too fat were some key ones for me that I.

And I didn't feel understood and I didn't feel seen.

And I thought, oh, I just have to try harder.

And I learned to be a chameleon to fit in.

And I found that if I could make other people feel better, then I was safer.

And so I learned to hide my power and instead try and hold up other people's.

Now, I say this because there are pieces in here that are part of me and places where I learned patterns that suppressed who I was and the way I could play powerfully.

I also hear from clients that the story especially prevalent in our society around being lazy, like, you can't rest until you're done.

And most of us, though this wasn't said directly to me, internalize this from our schooling.

You need to keep working to push yourself.

You got to get the work done, otherwise you'll get a failing grade.

So you can't rest till you're done.

If you need to rest, that means you're going to fail.

Taking time, taking up space means that you're going to take away from someone else.

And we develop this fear of letting other people down or hurting other people because we internalize that as our responsibility as children, because that's what children do, is everything's about them.

So all of these things we take on and they feed into the ways and like the layers of.

Of crust that gets built up around us, shining as brightly as we could.

This impact, you know, people who are neurodivergent, who have differing abilities, mentally and physically, who it is just across the board.

If you don't fit into what is idealized in our society, if you can contort yourself into fitting into that, then you do, which is harmful to you.

But then oftentimes then we perpetuate that harm onto other people to try and bolster our own positioning.

That's a big one.

And it's something that I've had to do a lot of looking at as a white, cisgender, heteronormative woman in the United States who is able bodied and fairly neuronormative and all of that, like really looking at those layers of privilege and the places where we've internalized the stories that then both restrict our own ability and perpetuate harm on others.

And anyway, I say all of that because it's why this story is so problematic that there's something wrong with you, because it blocks our ability to learn and to grow.

It creates this crust of rigidity that doesn't allow you to be expansive.

And being expansive means that you lean into what your gifts are and who you are.

And there's a.

There's a strength in who you are.

So what do you do differently than this whole new year new you and trying to be different?

Because I, I mean, I advocate change, right?

Change is great.

If you want something different, you need to do something different.

But does it mean you have to be someone different?

In some ways, yes.

So it's really though, in my belief that it's not about at the core of you being something different.

It's about removing the obstacles to being you, your true you, your expansive you.

So when I say, what if you were reclaiming yourself this year?

What if this year you could be the most you possible, what do you think about that?

How does that feel differently for you if you think about being the most you possible versus a new you, like somebody else?

Now there may be some of you who are like, okay, that actually doesn't sound so great.

Because I don't want to be me.

Because I want to be the, like this other person who is offering something, who looks like this, who does these things, who has these other things.

I want to be that person.

Because the person that I am right now is.

Is a mess, is a hot mess.

It's uncomfortable.

I.

I don't like it.

I don't like the person I am right now.

I want to be somebody else or the person who has the life that I have right now.

I want to be someone who has this other life that is totally understandable.

There are plenty of reasons that being you could be unappealing and difficult.

And something else sounds way better.

The thing I encourage you to remember, especially if you're doing the comparison thing right, judging your insides by other people's outsides, which is something that I have done plenty of.

And yeah, it's it's not, it's not very fun knowing that you don't know their whole life.

You can't possibly know their whole life.

It's very easy to fall into that in social media.

It's something that is a huge problem actually with social media is it becomes so easy to judge your insides by other people's outsides.

What you see is what you think you want and that is tied to, to who you think you'll be and the way you think you'll experience life differently if you have that.

So let me just say that again because I think it's really important to remember that a lot of times we think we want what someone else has.

Something in particular, maybe it's an amount of money, you know, all the stuff around, like become a seven figure business or a six figure business, even like make more money, have more success, love your job, all of those things, the specifics of those things, you know, have the clean house, the big house on the hill, like whatever it is, those things are tied to who you think that you'll be and, or the way that you think you'll experience life differently if you have that.

What I want you to know is that you don't have to be not you to have that experience of life that you want.

You do not have to be not you.

You can be you and have that.

Actually trying to be other than you and have that experience of life that you want won't actually work.

It might work temporarily, but it's not sustainable to have an experience of life that isn't tied to who you are.

So who you are leaning into that person and removing all the crap that you've been conditioned to believe about who you are, as well as engaging the structures in society that perpetuate that conditioning and the obstacles that it then generates is the key to having the experience that you want.

So it's.

If you can divorce those two things, that experience and that thing tangibly, it's not that they don't necessarily go together, but how you achieve that and what that actually looks like for you may be different.

So removing all of that crap, you know, stop trying to be someone else, because by doing that again, you participate in the perpetuation of these problematic narratives of being someone else and that this is the goal and this is the ideal way to be.

And based on your positioning in society, then you're likely to perpetuate the harm that hurts not just you, but other people.

And I'm pretty sure most of you people who have taken on that, like, I don't want to hurt other people.

I want to help other people.

And like me, you know, doing that whole, like, trying to help other people to feel okay within myself instead of the opposite, which has taken a lot of self work to go, oh, if I learn how to develop my relationship with me and be my best self, be my most me, then I naturally support other people being that rather than fixing them, because I really, truly believe you don't need to be fixed.

There's nothing wrong with you.

There's just oftentimes a lot of crap that we've internalized.

So it's time to free that little girl that got lost somewhere along the way from family, friends, society, school, all that stuff to free her from the box that you were taught to put her in, to be acceptable, to be safe so that she wouldn't get hurt from the people around her that were threatened by her, that felt her power and were threatened by it.

So it's normal, it's natural if you put her in a box to keep her safe, that there's nothing wrong with you that you did that either.

So I think that's also important to remember that there's nothing wrong that that happened.

There's nothing wrong about you that that happened.

You don't actually have to know where that little girl went.

You don't have to know where the box is or where you put it down or whatever.

It's just knowing that she's there, that you are her, that she is you.

She's part of you.

And you've learned more things that you can release and some things that you'll carry with you.

Along these lines, it's important to remember a lot of times we think of, oh, we have these character defects and these things are things that we don't want anymore, that we want to let go of.

These are things that are contributing to that person that you don't want to be.

So then, you know, you want to let go of those things to be the new you.

And I would like to posit to you that those character defects aren't actually defects.

They are assets that have run amok.

They have expanded in ways that maybe they don't belong in.

Maybe they're.

They're misplaced.

They're focused on something like, for example, fixing other people instead of listening, instead of holding space for someone.

Maybe they're misunderstood.

Maybe they're assets that scared other people and then they wanted to make smaller.

Right?

Those.

Those places where that little girl got put in the box.

So for example, things like, you know, I personally, I struggle with details.

I am not someone who remembers details.

So I love history, but I could not tell you.

I like testing on, on history.

Like when I did ape history, like, no, that did not go well.

I'm excellent.

However, connecting dots and a big picture, hearing how things relate to each other.

So I thought, oh, this is a defect that I can't remember details.

But actually what it did was it kept me from getting lost in those details and allows me to be able to see connections in a different way than maybe someone who is into details is.

Now that doesn't mean that details are not good.

It's just, that's not my gift.

I have a client who's unable to focus for long periods, which is pretty common for people who have adhd.

But they light up with variety.

So this inability to focus on one thing may be seen as a defect, but what is the, what is the corresponding asset to that?

And that is she is amazing with multitasking.

She can pick up this thing and that thing and move smoothly through different things and loves that variety.

So being able to recognize like, okay, what are, what are these things that I'm labeling as defects and how do they actually play?

Like, where are they assets?

Where could they actually be beneficial?

Taking a look at that and maybe taking out of this needs to be fixed and maybe this just needs to be placed differently.

If you think about like in a company, someone might not be great in one position, but they'd amazing in a different position.

So, you know, take a look at that.

One of the things as we're reconnecting to ourselves is a lot of times people love personality assessments.

I tend to attract people to me who love personality assessments.

And you know, I, I also do.

Because the thing is, personality assessments help us validate ourselves.

It helps us place ourselves, it helps us connect in an initial way.

It's like a, a step towards self understanding.

But it's really important to remember that it's just a step towards self understanding.

Just one step.

It allows us to take all of the learned judgment because our brains like patterns.

So we tend to judge things and put them into the boxes that we're familiar with.

To be able to, to use that judgment to go, oh, this is this, this is this.

Oh, that makes sense.

That's why this, the next step is being able to step out of that judgment using that validation of, oh, there's nothing wrong with me.

This is, this is part of my way of being.

This is part of who I am.

And then into a space of curiosity and an ability to have a relationship with yourself.

Because the thing to remember is a relationship is constantly evolving.

It's not fixed, it's not static, it's dynamic.

So maybe you love personality assessments.

Take that as information as a piece of you.

Now, I think it's interesting if you, like, do a lot of personality assessments, you can kind of see some threads throughout.

So just to give you a little.

A little more of a sense of.

Of me from that.

I'm an enfp.

Or at least last time I took this assessment because, you know, some people find certain assessments don't work well for them.

But as an enfp, I'm people centered.

I'm a creator with a focus on possibilities.

Warm, passionate, contagiously enthusiastic.

I love to help people explore their potential.

And they're often artistic.

Oh yeah, all right, that sounds familiar.

I'm an enneagram4.

Now, I.

There's a wing here that I don't remember what it is, but it definitely offsets.

These Enneagram Fours tend to be like, kind of reserved.

Definitely not that.

But they also want to be unique and experience deep, authentic emotions.

They're inspired and highly creative, with a tendency to be dramatic.

Oh, I don't know anybody like that.

Moody and self conscious.

Oh, yeah.

I'm a questioner in the four tendencies.

I value reason and purpose and want to understand why something should be done.

I picked up the Evo Planner because it has a personality assessment component with it.

Now, I can't.

Can't advocate for it because I haven't actually used it.

I'm.

I am one of those Planner hoarders working on that.

I'm an alchemist in the Evo Planner, so desiring variety and constantly learning, as well as seeking new ways to creatively use and share my knowledge and inspiration.

Anybody else seeing a pattern here?

I recently also dug into Chani Nicholas's you were born for this book Astrology for radical self acceptance and found.

I am an Aries in the eighth house with moon in Libra and rising sign in Virgo, which means that my purpose lies in tapping people into their skills resources to help free us all from the shackles of rules based in lies and create a more expansive, harmonious way of being being.

Because I need beauty and justice and balance.

And I thrive making connections and helping others feel witnessed.

I am driven by taking in knowledge and sharing it in a way that is useful and practical.

And I need partnerships to feel centered in my ability to communicate well.

So, yeah, I mean, all of that sounds very like, that's very affirming.

Like all.

There's a pattern in there.

I can definitely see how it all relates together and all of that.

And it can be really helpful.

I do appreciate the way Chani talks about how this is just a step towards self understanding.

So like I was saying before, it's a way to kind of understand ourselves.

So she talks about how the planets are actors and the signs that they're in are like their costumes and the houses that they're in are like the sets.

Which as a theater person, that really resonates with me for.

But recognizing.

She doesn't say this directly, but like, you're the author, you're the writer, you're the playwright, you're the director, you're the one who is in control of this.

So it's not like these are dynamics that are just kind of happening to you.

That's just, oh, this is just the way I am.

You don't want these things to put you in another box.

It's one of the reasons why I love the assessment that I was trained in, which is the Energy Leadership Index assessment.

And I have a whole episode on that assessment, which helps you see the lens that you tend to see through.

It's definitively subjective kind of assessment to help you see patterns and understand a system in which to engage those patterns and shift those patterns if they aren't serving you.

So taking steps into being yourself and reconnecting with yourself is really important.

And then the next step from there is building self trust.

I have a couple episodes where I explore self trust and I'll have those in the show notes.

One is with the amazing Shelly Robinson and one is a solo episode I did a little bit ago.

But there is a theme throughout that, and I'll just share here that, you know, oftentimes people come to me to develop their clarity and confidence.

And what we create is not the clarity, but a sense system for gaining clarity.

So, I mean, yes, there clarity exists there too, but it's both gaining the clarity, but in a conscious way where it's a system for gaining clarity.

So it's not just this moment of clarity, but what do we do to achieve that clarity.

And it can totally involve other people.

It's not like you have to do that by yourself.

And actually, I think dealing with and engaging other people in that process is really important.

Having people around you to support that clarity is really important.

And that's not about, like not trusting yourself.

It's about having people who can help you Hear yourself right?

Instead of imposing themselves upon you to help you, hear you and reflect back to you what they're hearing and help you explore what your answers are.

And that's, that's the core of what coaching is.

At least coaching the way I do it, that's at the root of it.

But it's possible to find people who are able to do that.

That is their, within their gifts.

I mean learning how to communicate and how to hear myself was something that I began doing with another friend who was also doing self development work.

And we were both working a 12 step program together.

And that was very core to my learning how to communicate, how to set boundaries, how to have a supportive relationship.

So it's absolutely possible to do that with other people.

And I think it's important to do that in a way that doesn't take away from you trusting you without you relying on someone else to tell you what to do and be the guide for what's right, being able to hear your own intuition.

So that's the start of it.

Understanding, connecting dots, identifying patterns, creating steps that fit you so that you can make and keep commitments to yourself, which is the key to building self trust, making and keeping commitments to yourself.

And this is another reason why the whole new year new you and so many of the strategies that underlie that story that people are selling to you is often problematic is because you think you're making a commitment to yourself, but then because of variety of dynamics, either that the strategy doesn't fit you, the timing doesn't fit you.

Whatever it is, it pulls you away from who you want to be, you don't follow through and you perpetuate the belief that you can't trust yourself.

So even small things where you can build that self trust will support you, following through, support you, being in tune to you, hearing your own intuition, trust that you'll do the things, that you'll care for yourself, that you'll be there for you and can thus attract others who will care for you and support you.

Navigating those relationships, honoring yourself and the other person or other people or companies relationships, to be able to listen to yourself and listen to other people, to be expansive, all of those things is what that fundamental creating trust in yourself versus putting trust into other people.

Like I talked to so many people are like, I have a bad picker when it comes to other people.

It's like, well if you haven't developed that relationship with yourself, then yeah, you're gonna pick other people because of these beliefs that you don't even necessarily realize because, you know, so much of what we think is subconscious.

We're going to pick these people that are trying to fill this need that we haven't learned or understood within ourselves.

And we're going to let ourselves down because we don't have that healthy relationship based in a wholeness within ourselves.

So, you know, it's like that idea of boundaries.

Boundaries let love in versus walls that keep love out.

But we need boundaries in order to let love in.

I know it seems so weird, but we're gonna dig more into that in another podcast episode because like I said, a lot of this stuff is.

What we're gonna dig into this season is building those relationships both with yourself and then with the actions that you take and the life that you're creating and the people around you.

So this season we're gonna walk through these relationships.

The focus is gonna be on the one that you're yourself.

Each month I'm going to provide two podcast episodes that further this conversation with yourself.

We're going to start with visioning in February because again, I'm very much an advocate of like, we don't need to start at the beginning of the year when it's winter and so many blazes and it's really hard to get things going where we're kind of recovering from the holidays.

Especially if you're someone who's in a product based business.

You probably just went through a major push and need some time to rest.

You don't need to buy into all that hustle.

This is a great time to take a moment to assess and do that reconnection so that you can do the next things in an aligned way.

So I invite you into that exploration.

I am going to be providing a variety of ways of supporting you should you want.

The very minimum with this podcast, walking through the pieces of my course, Visioning values perception, stories and assumptions and rules, inner critic, emotional awareness, releasing stress boundaries, aligned planning, healthy habit development, and maintaining your mindset as you move forward.

So all of that's going to be this season.

Also, I will not only be doing podcast episodes on these topics, but workshops each month digging into them so that you can join me with other people and really dig into these topics and explore them for yourself as well as coaching, either individual coaching or group coaching.

Again, I think it's wonderful to have group coaching.

I find that the relationships that I've built walking through personal development with other people have been pivotal in my life.

Not just with a person facilitating it, but the people that I'm doing the work with have been so important and still are so important in my life.

So providing that opportunity to engage and to have the coaching support from me, but also to build those relationships.

I am building out a sliding scale for all the things that I offer because I want this to be accessible to you.

I know that it takes a time commitment and you're already contributing that to participate.

So making it accessible financially as well is really important to me.

So that's what's coming.

I hope that I will have landing pages that will be linked in the show notes, so be sure to check that out.

But if you don't see that there, send me a message.

Let me know what you're interested in.

There's no commitment there, just lets me know to be sure to let you know when things are ready and available and to engage me in the conversation of what this looks like.

Because bottom line is I want it to be supportive for you.

I do have one thing to ask from you before I wrap this up and that is that if you find value in this podcast, if you found value, if you have loved this episode, if you're excited about things coming forward, please share it with others.

I know it says in the wrap up, but how many people listen to the final wrap up if they've been listening for a while?

I really, really have that as a request for you to please, you know, send someone a message and be like, hey, I love this podcast.

This episode was amazing.

I would love for you to check it out.

Send that message to even just one person and reach out to me if you have questions, if you're interested in things you want to be kept up to date, just shoot me an email, send me a DM in social media, whether it's on Facebook or Instagram.

I really do love to hear from you.

I do respond to everyone who sends me a message and I am so excited to kick off this next season in this next year.

Yes, I'm doing.

I'm starting something new in the beginning of the year after this whole episode of why you don't need to do that.

Any who.

I appreciate you being here.

I'm excited as we move forward and I look forward to hearing from you.

Talk to you next time.

This has been another episode of Nosy af.

I'm your host Stephanie Graham.

What did you think about today's conversation?

I would love to hear your thoughts.

Head over to the Nosy AF website for all the show notes related to this episode.

You can also find me on Instagram tefaniegram what would you know?

Or online@missgraham.com where you can sign up for my newsletter where I share exclusive updates about my studio practice as well as this podcast.

Until next time time, y'all stay curious and take care.

Bye.