Unmasking Myself: A Journey of Authenticity and Breaking Free from Societal Molds

Have you ever contorted yourself into someone you're not just to be liked or fit in? Join me on a heartfelt journey as I peel back the layers of my past, revealing the self-imposed barriers that once stymied my journey through my 20s and 30s. We're not just talking about growth; we're actively breaking through the soil of conformity to bask in the sunlight of authenticity. Tune in as I bear my soul about the times I downplayed my passion for books, learning to meld into societal molds, and how I emerged from the chrysalis of self-compromise to a path of true self-discovery.

This month on Have a Cup of Johanny, it's all about shedding pretenses and growing into our truest selves. I'm opening up about the awkward, necessary pivots that redirected my life trajectory. From concealing my love for literature to playing the 'dumb but cute' role, I'm laying out my past missteps and the profound realizations that followed. We'll navigate the bumpy roads of personal evolution together through intimate reflections. So grab a cup of your favorite brew, and let's share the wisdom gleaned from embracing who we truly are.

To listen to my other episode where I speak about authenticity, click here: 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Oh, we could, we could fly. Welcome to this new season of the have a Cup of Johani podcast. So I want to title this new season that I'm embarking on with I'm Growing, so this is going to be the season of growth, and that's what I'm going to share with you throughout the season. So I thank you for coming over here and sitting with me, and I hope you enjoy. Hello everyone.

Speaker 2: 0:31

If I sound a little different today, I just want to say that I am recording this not from my amazing studio that I have in a closet in my garage, but from a hotel room, and I brought my tiny little baby mic that, if you would have gone to some of my TikTok videos, you may have seen this tiny little cute mic that I use for those videos, but I just don't usually use it for recording podcast episodes until today. So there you go, all right. And now that we're over that hump, let me tell you about the theme for the have a Cup of Joannie podcast for April. I have thought about this long and hard. I bounced back a few ideas back and forth. So, remember February, we looked inward, march we looked outward, and now in April, we're looking into growth and what may be holding us back from that growth. And this is based, as these episodes are, on the experiences that I had where I failed, sometimes tragically, sometimes embarrassing so, but then I learned something from it and I went ahead and did that awkward pivot and went in a different direction. So awkward pivot and went in a different direction. So for the month of April, I am sharing with you the observations coming from yours truly, of the things that held me back at one point in my 20s and 30s. Are you ready? What are you waiting for? Let's go Get on the train. We're going.

Speaker 2: 2:41

Younger Joah, trying hard to fit in, trying hard to be liked, as most humans do, but sometimes don't want to admit and to do that. The thought that comes into my head is let me twist myself into this pretzel that I'm not, so others can like me. Does that sound familiar? Raise your hand. Okay, I won't judge. So the thought of making myself smaller and twisting myself into something that I wasn't I thought was the best option for me, so that way, others around me can find commonality with me, can enjoy my present and would want to be with me. And if you heard my previous episode when it comes to fitting in, you would have heard that I try to hide certain things about my personality. So if you know me from your life, or if you do get to know me, you will know that I love books, I love reading Just your friendly, local nerd, dominican nerd. I enjoy books, I enjoy talking about books. I want to read all the time, every day, all day, learn something from them and talk about it, however, that in the circles that I was in, that was not necessarily something that was cool and that was not necessarily something that was cool to admit. So I tried my best to hide that so that way I can be like other people around me. And I will say that was in my teens and I talked about that in the episode that I will link in the show notes. But it also happened in my 20s when I started dating. So don't judge me too harshly.

Speaker 2: 5:00

People, people I often knew a whole lot more than the people that I was dating, but I will never admit to it. I wanted to play the dumb but cute girl in the relationship, because that's what got attention, that's what got the whole. Oh, let me tell you something, let me teach you something. When I was young, in my 20s, I thought that the way that I could get attention is by pretending to not know much, so that way the man around me can teach me something and can get close to me by teaching me something. And I play that for the longest in my 20s. Play that over and over and over and let me tell you it would work. People, men, will get close to me. They will feel so important, they will feel so intelligent and they will gravitate towards me because they just they wanted to be the one person to teach me this one thing, the one person they wanted to feel like Christopher Columbus, right, the one person that's like Ooh, I was the first one to teach this girl this, I was the first one to show this girl this, and so forth, so forth.

Speaker 2: 6:31

But here's the thing, right, I couldn't keep the mask on for too long, and this is not me going on an ego trip or anything like that. It just it has always been hard for me to not be authentic for too long. I can't carry it on for too long. And I wasn't aware of that in my twenties, and really in my early thirties as well, I would say I didn't start grasping that until my late thirties. But during my twenties and my early twentiess I really I kept going at these relationships, pretending to be a dumber version of me, because that's what in my head, the guys I was attracted to wanted and liked about that. But what I didn't realize was that perhaps those were not the guys that I should be linking myself. Because now let me tell you about the mask.

Speaker 2: 7:34

Eventually, the mask would slip and then sometimes I will put it back on and I will pretend again, but then I'll get tired and it will slip and then eventually, like towards the end of that relationship which I didn't know would be the end I would just be so tired of it that the true, authentic me will come out and then I will get the whole you're belittling me, you are too much, you are too intense, et cetera, et cetera. So all these comments if we're talking about feedback from most of my exes, that was the feedback in a nutshell You're too intense, you're too much, you are belittling me. And it took me such a long time to figure out that. Like that quote, I'm pretty sure some of you all have seen it on social media that if you're too much for somebody, that means that that is not your somebody, because for the person that is for you, you will be just right. And I'm not giving this quote justice. So I hope y'all go out there and try to find this quote. But I hope y'all know what I'm getting at. I hope y'all know what I'm getting at.

Speaker 2: 9:14

And it was this confrontation that I was having because my real self finally showed up and it was not congruent with that guy that I was dating. And finally that guy figured it out that, oh my God, this is not the girl that I started dating. I mean, in their own right, no, I don't want to date this girl anymore. And then I will go to the next one and do the same thing. Because, right, what do we do when something doesn't work? We do it all over again, right?

Speaker 2: 9:51

And I had to beat my head on the wall several times and identify that. Why was I so afraid of taking up space, of having an opinion and of like daring to be disagreeable? And I'm telling you, like the journey from identifying that, you know, to when it all started was not linear at all. Like it was kind of like an accordion effect, like sometimes, right, I'll be like I'm going to be my authentic self, and then my hormones were like, no, you're not, because here's this cute guy. You got to pretend, right and um. And then other times I was like, okay, with this relationship, I'll really be my authentic self, right. And then that didn't work out and then I'll go back. So it was like kind of like this whiplash back and forth, but it really took and I will say this that I think it took really me being confident about who I was and not being afraid of being on my own, and when those two things came together then I didn't have this accordion effect going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth and forth, back and forth, back and forth, because now I understood and I accepted that side of me that would just come out every single time and I was okay with people or with the man that I dated not liking it, and I was okay with just going solo for the rest of my life. Because at the end of the day, I've accepted that side of me and I ended up loving that side of me.

Speaker 2: 12:05

And it took a lot of uncomfortable self-talks, various journal entries that when I look back at it I was like gosh, so embarrassing and really, to be honest, a bit of a rebellion. I always say I make my best decisions when I go like fuck it, like I don't care anymore, let's just, let's just go with it. That's when, whenever I let go of my inhibitions, that's usually when, like, good things start falling into place for me. And that's exactly what happened here, after oh, so many times of just hitting my head in the proverbial wall when it comes to this, to just being afraid of taking up space, being afraid to articulate myself, being afraid to really represent my authentic self. I was able to find the person that is meant to be with me and I found out that authenticity is like this magnet right. The more that I embrace my quirks, beliefs and true opinion, the more that I attracted the chipped away at this disfraze que yo tenía, like this costume that I just kept putting on over and over, and I started like cutting it, cutting it, cutting it until I no longer wore it, the more that those people will come around my circle. Right.

Speaker 2: 14:10

And I also realized another thing. There were several things that I realized. Right, that disagreement isn't a death sentence, and I think that is why I can have really good conversations, because now, after learning all of that, it's easy for me to disagree and to still express my thoughts respectfully but firmly. And to still express my thoughts respectfully but firmly and it doesn't lead to this like catastrophic event where it's like I'm never gonna talk to you ever again. And, if anything, I have learned that that deepens my relationships, my work relationships, my friend relationships, my family relationships, definitely my husband and I relationship, because we can have those talks. We can disagree on things and we can agree on others and we can continue to move it forward, but because I'm authentic, I know that when it comes to my husband, that he respects who I am and he supports my decisions and opinions, even if he doesn't agree with them.

Speaker 2: 15:22

Another thing that I learnedrayal is the highest cost, and I can't believe like my stomach is squeezing right now because I can't believe that I betrayed myself for that long. I'm talking like 20s and early 30s that I kind of like chopped myself up to be accepted and me saying that out loud just makes me want to hide and cry in a corner. To be honest with you, it really is the biggest lesson in here that I learned when I started to be my authentic self and not hide behind the mask. That is one cost that I'm unwilling to pay to betray myself in order to make other people feel comfortable, because, at the end of the day, I'm the one living in this body, right? I'm the one that has to love myself day in and day out, have to live with myself within this mind, right? So if I betrayed myself, god, that will be so frustrating to live with that, and that's what it was during my 20s and my 30s. It was just so frustrating to keep hitting my head on the wall over and over and over, and I didn't realize that at that time that I was betraying myself. Yeah, yeah, but those were the three things that I learned from doing that.

Speaker 2: 17:19

That authenticity is like a magnet. You are going to attract people that appreciate the real you, and you're gonna learn how to have disagreements with others while still being respectful and standing firm for what you believe, and that self-betrayal is a cost that you will not want to take. So my big takeaway from this episode for you today is that minimizing ourselves doesn't protect us. If anything, it prevents us from experiencing the depths of genuine connections and the joy of being truly known. And it's tough, I'm telling you, because we're human beings. Like I said at the beginning, we are human beings. We want to be liked. That is in our nature. But it's worth it to be authentic because then and this may be a long, long-term thing, but then you will be liked by those that like the authentic you, because, at the end of the day, the person you need to please is the one staring back at you in the mirror. So think about that.

Speaker 2: 18:51

Hey, this is a quick, sweet episode. Come back for next Wednesday, where I will have more observations. Thank you so much for sharing this cup with me and remember to take up space Be you. If you're loud, be loud. If you're quiet, be quiet, just be you. You're quiet, be quiet, just be you. And until next time, you make sure you keep sipping on that truth tea and come back, so that way we can continue to grow together. I'll see you next Wednesday. Bye, thank you so much for listening. I want to hear from you.

Speaker 1: 19:34

Leave me a comment, do a rating if you can on the podcast, share it with somebody you love, but, most importantly, come back. See you next time. Bye.