The Courage (and Reality) of Becoming

Have you ever felt like you're on the brink of a major life change, or maybe you've been thrust into one and you may be equally excited and terrified of what lies ahead? Well, just like a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly, we as humans go through our own metamorphosis, which requires us to shed old identities and grow into new versions of ourselves. So today, we're going to explore this journey of becoming. So spread your wings and let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello my beautiful friends. Welcome back to the podcast. I am in it right now, and I know some of you, as soon as I say that you understand what that means, but let me give you a little context because it actually inspired today's episode. I am juggling a lot of things right now. In fact, I'm living out of a suitcase in a hotel. At the same time, I got word last week that my dad had fallen again. They took him to the hospital. He's been in the intensive care unit, and so I was up there for a few days. I came back because I'm supposed to be moving into my house, but my house isn't complete, and so a lot going on. Not to mention I'm in the process of rebranding, and I say rebranding, it's up-branding.

It's the next evolution of me and the School of Self-image. And along with that, it's a whole process and there's so many different moving pieces. And there was a moment, a couple of days ago when I was at my parents' house, where I just surrendered and I said, "I'm just going to let go and focus on what's right in front of me in this moment." And also, I know deep down that what is happening in my life right now is really helping me expand into that next version of myself. I call this process the art of becoming. And when I say that, it's the process of growth and evolution. In fact, if you look up the definition of becoming it is the process of coming to be something or of passing into a state. So new states of being, and what I've come to understand, because I've had so many evolutions and so many of you have been along on this journey with me for over a decade. Some of you have been with me since the very beginning.

Can you all believe it's been over 15 years since I started doing this work? But you all have seen so many different states of me, so many different evolutions, and I'm in the middle of another one. And it's about shedding old identities, beliefs, and habits to make way for new ones that align more closely with who you truly are or who you aspire to be. And I know for me that the process of becoming has been so much about letting go, of shedding, of really getting back to my true nature. It's been a journey of coming home to myself. And I think about a quote that a dear friend and a member of the School of Self-Image sent me on Instagram the other day, by Edna O'Brien. And she said, "In spite of it all, there used to be inside of me this river, an expectation for something marvelous. When did I lose it? When did it go? I want before I die to be myself again?"

God, that is such a beautiful quote. And what I've come to understand is this journey of life that we're all on together is that we go out and we experience the contrasts. We try something new, we see how it fits, and hopefully if it doesn't fit, you will let it go. You won't keep moving in a direction that doesn't serve you. And so I've talked openly about this in previous podcasts, but over the last three, four years, I've been doing a lot of that experimenting, and it's so rewarding and beautiful to, number one, recognize I had the courage to do that, but also to have a self-awareness of knowing what fits my unique soul, what feels true for me. And so this next evolution of becoming is really about me letting go of identities, of habits, of beliefs that don't serve the vision that I have for myself and my life.

Now, here's the thing about becoming. Sometimes it's a conscious choice that we make intentionally. We decide we want to change, we want to grow, we want to be different. Maybe you've decided to switch careers, to prioritize your health or to work on your relationships. That is intentional becoming. But oftentimes we find ourselves in unintentional becoming. We are thrust into a life circumstance that we didn't ask for. Maybe it's a sudden job loss, or a health crisis, or the end of a relationship, and these unexpected events can force us into a process of change and growth, whether we feel ready for it or not. A lot of the members that come into the School of Self-image have found themselves in these unintentional becoming states, where they have encountered something that they didn't plan for, that they didn't expect. And the work that we do in the membership is to support their process of becoming so that they can handle it, so that they can overcome it, so that they can get to the other side of it in a better place than had they tried to navigate that without ever changing.

But one thing that I know for sure is life will always hand you opportunities to evolve and expand. The question is, will you answer the call? Will you have the courage to become the most truest, the most vibrant, the most strong, the most, fill in the blank, of whoever you want to be? Are you willing to let go of who you've been to become who you truly are? Because that's what I'm most interested in. When women say to me, "But Tonya, you are just who you are." A lot of us are being versions of ourselves that we would've never chosen on purpose, and there are versions of ourselves that don't support us. Yeah, at the end of the day, we get to choose. And I think that deep desire of who you really want to be is who you truly are. It is a process of coming back home to yourself.

As Joseph Campbell once said, "We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us." This willingness to let go, to step into the mystery of life, that's where the courage comes in. I think about my life right now. It is not what I had planned, you all. I had a very clear plan of how this season of my life was going to go. I had dates in the calendar, I had project timelines. I had it all mapped out beautifully. And I'm all for planning. I am a huge believer in having a vision for your life and creating the plan that allows that vision to come to fruition, but life doesn't always go as planned, and I just trust that life is always happening for me. When life doesn't go according to my plan, I believe, this is my belief that has carried me through so many challenges, something better is on the horizon, and it may not feel like it right now.

Right now, my life feels very chaotic, but I'm trusting deep down that something is going to come from this period. Whether it's going to birth a version of me that I didn't even know existed, who knows what opportunities might come as a result of all of this. But I'm just trusting that there is a bigger plan and I'm just letting go and surrendering. Letting go, however, does not mean giving up. It just means letting go of the control, of you wanting it to be a certain way. I'm still showing up. I am still showing up for meetings. I'm still showing up and doing my work. I'm trying to be present for my parents. I'm still showing up in life. I'm just relinquishing the control of how I think it should go and what it should look like.

So in this episode, I want to talk openly about the reality and the courage of becoming. So often, we only see the after. We don't see everything that had to take place to create the after, and then when we're going through it, we don't realize so many other people have gone through it. And so we feel like we're so alone, that no one can relate, and I think we need to have more conversations like this, where you understand this process. And I will tell you, understanding the process of becoming has supported me so much when I'm in a state like I'm in right now. I know nothing has gone wrong. This is just part of life. No one escapes this. Everyone, at some point, goes through this and just knowing that should offer us all some comfort when we're in it.

The art of becoming is very much like the butterfly metamorphosis. If you think about it, a butterfly's life begins as an egg, which then hatches into a caterpillar, and then this caterpillar enters into a stage where it quite literally dissolves into a soup of cells before reforming and transforming into a beautiful butterfly. And this is not just a physical transformation, but a complete reimagining of what the creature can be and do. So, much like the butterfly, we humans go through our own metamorphosis throughout our lives. Some of these changes we choose intentionally, while others are thrust upon us by life circumstances. But one thing's for sure, life will always hand us those opportunities.

So the best tool I have ever come across to understand this process is Martha Beck's Change Cycle. I trained under Martha Beck. I think she is brilliant, and this one tool changed my life. And the way she has broken it down is into four stages that, if you pay attention, you will find yourself in at all times of your life. And you might be in different stages in different areas of your life. That's usually the case for me. I'll be in one stage with my relationships, one stage with my health, one stage with my career, but I want to talk about these stages so that you have an understanding of nothing has gone wrong. Again, this is the process of being a human and the process of becoming, and I have found that understanding these stages have helped me to navigate them with more grit and more grace.

So let's talk about the first stage. She calls this stage Death and Rebirth, also the dissolving stage. This is the part of the butterfly's metamorphosis where it's literally dissolving into what she calls a person soup. And unfortunately, we're not taught to expect this. We're not taught that this is part of life, and so when it happens to us, it is extremely scary. When we're in Square One or stage one, whichever you want to call it, we feel like life is falling apart. We may sense that we're losing everyone and everything, and it feels like a death in a way. It is the demise of the person that we've been. Now, as Square One, it might actually be a happy thing that's happening, but it still is shifting your identity in a way that you're having to let go of an old part of yourself.

A great example of this is when you become a mother, when you become a parent, when you get married, maybe you get a new job that is completely different than your old job and you're having to birth a completely new identity to be able to step into this new role. So it's not always something, again, that is unintentional. Sometimes you find yourself in Square One intentionally. And what I found recently in my life, the Square Ones that I have been in are intentional, but that doesn't mean they're any less scary because you are having to confront things about yourself. You are having to let go of very comfortable ways of being, in order to step into this new identity. I found myself in Square One last year. I went through a very difficult time where I had to take a good and honest look at myself, of how I had allowed myself to get into a certain position, how I had allowed myself to be influenced in a way that didn't feel true to me. And it was all on me. It was nobody else.

It was all on me, but I had to face parts of myself that, quite honestly, they were hard to face. I didn't like what I was seeing, but that is the process of becoming. You should never ever be ashamed of that because again, no one escapes it. But the courage that it takes to have an honest conversation with yourself, to be truthful with yourself, to look at how you have justified certain things even though they didn't align with you, to be able to look at how you've held yourself back, to be able to call yourself out on things that maybe you've done, maybe things that you have said, maybe things that you have felt that were not coming from the truest part of you, that takes a lot of courage and a lot of people will never do that. Pride gets in the way, ego gets in the way, but if you want to embrace the art of becoming, you have to be willing to do that. And so that is what I did a big part of last year.

There were a lot of tears, there was a lot of frustration, there was a lot of anger, and I had to be willing to face it all in order to become the version that I am today. And I will tell you, I'm a healthier, more expansive, more loving, more confident version of myself than I've ever been. But when you're in it, it is not fun, you all. And so I love the suggestions that Martha offers when you're in Square One. First of all, instead of getting caught up in the big picture, like where am I going to be in five years or 10 years? Your brain is in such fight or flight, you can't access that. You just need to come back to today. One day at a time, and it might even be 30 minutes at a time. Instead of allowing yourself to get lost in fears about the unknown future, focus on what's happening right now. Focus on what you have right now. Find the things that bring you a little joy. Find the things that you're grateful for. Just stay as present as possible.

I love the mantra, right here, right now. When I am feeling like life is chaotic, I've been using this mantra a lot these last couple of weeks, but I'm just like, "Right here, right now. What's in front of me right now? That is what I'm going to focus on." Also, you can cocoon yourself with self-care. Last year, I spent so much time caring for myself, and it's really interesting to me, especially if there's a lot of shame involved or you're upset with yourself, this is when we often abandon self-care and that's when we need it the most. And if you think about the butterfly metamorphosis, you're literally in a cocoon during this stage and you need to cocoon yourself with self-care. And that can look different for all of us, but even just wrapping yourself in a warm blanket, making a cup of hot tea, doing whatever feels comfortable for you, supporting yourself in this moment, physically, spiritually, emotionally, and maybe it's a hour-by-hour check-in with yourself saying, "What do you need right now? What feels like love? What would be supportive of you right now?"

Just see what your body needs. See what your spirit needs and be willing to cocoon yourself with self-care. And then another thing that can be very helpful is to talk to other people who have gone through this, who are on the other side of it, who can give you hope, who can give you encouragement because they've been through it and they're on the other side of it. And knowing there are people that have gotten through similar situations can be the encouragement that you need to keep you going when you feel like you can't go any longer. One thing to remember about Square One is that the process of dissolving, it's hard, and you might find yourself fighting against it.

You might get hysterical. You might fight your feelings. You might try to recapture your former life, but these reactions only make Square One more painful. Remember, what you fight against becomes stronger. What you resist persists. So you have to be willing to dissolve. Now, if you find yourself in Square One, there is a mantra for it, and I love this mantra, and it is, I don't know what the hell is going on and that's okay. Now remember in Square One, you are coming up against old identities. You're coming up against limiting thoughts, limiting beliefs, and so you're going to be letting go, letting go, shedding. And I want you to see that process as creating the space for the new you, the new vision to emerge. And that leads me into Square Two, which is called Dreaming and Scheming.

This may feel like a beautiful rain after a long drought. This is when the clouds begin to part and you can start to see a little bit of sunshine. This is when you can begin to imagine a future that you've never imagined before. In this phase, your psyche will begin to offer you gentle nudges about what's next about your new identity. It's like the blueprint of your future self begins to whisper to you. You may be finding yourself drawn to new styles, interest or ways of living that your old self would've never considered. As Martha Beck puts it, you'll know you're beginning phase two when your mind eye starts seeing images of the life you are about to create.

Now, these visions can't be forced. They happen to you, often in unexpected ways. And for me personally, Square Two requires that I stay in touch and in tune with my body because my body is speaking to me, and I often talk about hot and cold. This is the stage where I'm very aware of what feels hot, what feels true, and very aware of what feels cold and untrue for me. So last year, when I was going through my Square One and I allowed myself to grieve, I allowed myself to be angry. I allowed myself to really take an honest look of myself. I then moved into Square Two and I started to become excited again, in a way I haven't been in a long time, and I started to pay attention to the places, the people, the things, the topics that really excited me. And interestingly enough, a lot of it was part of my past that I had gotten away from. And I don't regret any of this. Not a single part of it. I don't believe in regret. I think regret, it just slows us down.

I believe everything has happened for a reason and it happened to teach me something about myself. So in Square Two, I can tell you what it looks like for me and it's going to look different for everyone. But for me, I start imagining things not yet seen, and I began to be inspired. I began to just surround myself with things that feel aligned with me, like who I really am. So last year, I spent a lot of time creating Pinterest boards. I have so many Pinterest boards just full of images that speak to me. I also began cooking again. I started throwing dinner parties again. I had a lot of joyful hustle towards the end of the year, where I started to reimagine my business, and what I want it to be, and getting it more aligned.

I even started re-imagining my style. This is my summer of style, and I was like, "What is the next evolution of my style?" Other things that I did, I started reading fiction again, which was super fun, something I haven't done in a long time. I started journaling again. I just started doing things that nourish my soul and also having, what I call, a visionary feast, and not needing to understand how is this all going to happen? Just allowing myself to daydream, and that's what you have to do in Square Two. You need to give yourself permission to daydream, let it run wild. Try on different scenarios in your mind, this mental exploration can save you a lot of time and heartache in the real world. In this stage, I encourage you to put visual representation of what could be, what excites you.

This is also a stage where I highly encourage you to try a lot of different things. Some may be a fit, some may not, but I'm the kind of person that I often need to try on things. Just like you're trying on clothes, I need to try on different possibilities to see how they fit, and that can be a mental thing. You can just imagine yourself in this role, with this person, in this kind of life, or you can actually put yourself in those situations. If you, for example, if you're like, "I wonder what kind of home I want to live in." I've done this personally, I will go on home tours, and go in the house, and see how it fits, how it feels. And so Square Two is this fun period of just dreaming and scheming of what your life can be. The mantra for Square Two is, there are no rules and that's okay.

At a certain point, when you are in Square Two, you are going to have this nudge, this desire to actually start taking action. And that's when you move into Square Three, which is known as the Hero's Saga. Also, you can call this square reforming. In Square Three, you are going to stop fantasizing and you're going to start taking action. I find sometimes it's hard to move people out of Square Two to Square Three, because Square Three is when you start putting it all on the line. It's where the risk comes in. It's where the exposure starts. It's where you are facing failing, and so a lot of people love hanging out in Square Two. This is where they feel the safest, the most comfortable, but to get to Square Four, you have to go through Square Three. You have to go through the Hero's Saga to get to Square Four, which we're going to talk about in a moment. And this is where the rubber meets the road, or maybe where the butterfly starts to test her wings.

You're going to feel compelled to take action, to implement your dreams in the real world. So you might start submitting your artwork to galleries, or finally ask your friend to set you up on that date you've been dreaming about. You might get on Bumble, you may put in applications, you may decide to sell your house. But here's the kicker, and this is the thing that we don't want to face, it is not going to probably go perfectly. You're most likely going to fail. You're going to experience what I call the messy middle. It's the part between the before and the after, and that is normal. When I think about where I am right now in my life, I am in Square Three in different parts of my life, mostly my business.

I'm taking a lot of action. I've brought on a new team. We have done some things that haven't worked. We just put out the private, Why Don't You Podcast, and we had issues with it. And we had planned so well, and we still had issues with the private podcast, which by the way, if you have not joined the Why Don't You Podcast, what in the world? Go to schoolofselfimage.com/why and join us for this fun series. I think we have the issues fixed now, but you're going to have unexpected things come up. For example, I had my entire summer planned out. I knew when we were going to be in the house, and I had set up my entire content calendar around that. I had scheduled all of my coaching calls, and then my dad gets sick. And so I'm having to shuffle things, and rearrange things, and improvise, and that is part of Square Three.

You're going to fail. Things are not going to go as planned, and that's okay. In fact, the mantra for Square Three is, this is much worse than I expected and that's okay. I think we buy into this fantasy that things are supposed to be easy. And while I do think we can make things easier, and I do believe in ease, often that comes from us not expecting it to be easy. Hear me out here. I think one of the ways that I create ease in my life is that I don't expect it to be easy. And so when I'm up against hard things and they're challenging, I'm like, "Yeah, this is supposed to be happening." And so I'm not resisting what is, I think resisting what is, is what makes things so much harder. What if you train yourself to see these obstacles as something to move towards, not away from?

I think about Ryan Holiday's book, The Obstacle is the Way. I think a lot of people think that when things go wrong, it's a sign that it just wasn't meant to be. And I will tell you, if I thought that way, I wouldn't be where I am in my life right now because I've had a lot of things not go the way I had planned, but I just see the obstacle as the direction that I need to move in. That obstacle, here's the way I see it, that obstacle is there to birth the next version of me. That obstacle is there to grow me, not to back away from, not to run from, but to run towards. So in Square Three, it's very important that you are willing for things to go wrong and for you to train your brain to know that is part of Square Three, that is part of the Hero's Saga.

If you watch any film, you will see that this is the progression of the character. It's never the character had a dream and he perfectly executes the dream. Never. The saga is all of the obstacles that this character has to go through to get them to Square Four, which we're going to talk about in a moment. So when you're in Square Three and things aren't going well, it's very important that you have the tools to navigate it, and that's why I love the School of Self-Image membership, because that's what we provide. Learning how to manage your mind, learning how to develop courage, learning how to step into new identities that support you, that is the work that must be done in Square Three. You also have to be willing to start over.

When your plan fails, you'll most likely return to Square One where you're feeling scared, lost, confused. And the way I see that is going back to Square One is an opportunity to release, to let go of the limiting beliefs, to let go of the identities, to let go of the self-image that's holding you back. And then you revisit Square One or Square Two, and you remember your dreams, your vision for your life and you may want to adjust it a little bit to include more of your truths that you've learned through your experimentation, but you have to be persistent. You have to keep showing up, taking the action, going through the Hero's Saga. And when you do, you'll eventually end up in Square Four, also known as The Promised Land.

This is the square where you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor, to savor this new identity and the life that you've created. In so many areas of my life, I am in Square Four. In my relationships, I feel like I am in a Square Four. I'm so grateful for my man, for my family, for my friends. I have the most incredible community around me, and I just enjoy them. I just relish in the fruits of the labor of who I've had to become to attract these kinds of people into my life. With my health, I feel like I'm in Square Four. Now, in Square Four, you're always maintaining and tweaking, but I feel healthier than I have felt in a long time. And trust me, I've been through Square One, Two, and Three with my health, but I feel like I'm in The Promised Land right now. I just feel good.

Now, that doesn't mean when you get to The Promised Land that you don't do any more work. You have to maintain, and again, you're going to have to refine and tweak some things, but I feel like I'm in a Square Four with my health. When it comes to my business, it's really interesting. I was thinking before I started recording this, I don't know that I've ever felt like I've been in a Square Four in my business, and I don't know that I ever will. And here's why. When it comes to my business, I am always setting new, big goals. And whenever you have new, big goals, you are always growing and expanding. And last year with my business, it was a whole process of re-envisioning, and now I'm in Square Three with my business, which is where I often find myself, and I've just embraced that, that as long as I have this company, I'm always going to want to make it better. I'm always going to want to delight my clients more. I'm always going to want to expand.

It's just who I am. Maybe it's the Capricorn in me, I don't know, but I love it. I love working. I love joyfully hustling, and I'm sitting here wondering, I'm like, "Do I ever want to be in Square Four with my business?" Not right now. I'm enjoying the Hero's Saga, the hero's journey, with my business. And last year, as I was saying, as it relates to my business, I did a lot of re-envisioning. And we are in the process right now, and you all don't see what we've been working on because it hasn't been revealed yet, but I'm so excited. I'm excited to up-level. I want to be even more supportive of my members, and I already feel like we support them in such big ways, but we are in the process of up-leveling the membership. We are in the process of doing a rebrand, a refresh, getting more in alignment with all of the things that I discovered last year. And so it's a fun time, but it's also a very hard time. I'm not going to lie.

It is challenging in so many ways, and maybe with my business, there will be months where I feel like I'm a Square Four, but I just know I'm going to throw myself right back in it because this is the one area of my life that I'm always so... It's like a creative endeavor for me. I love envisioning. I love coming up with new ideas, and so because of that, me and my team, we're in constant, it feels like Square Three of just taking that action to realize these visions that I have. So Square Two and Square Three is where I hang out with my business. But here's the thing, you all, the only constant is change. And what I know to be true is that every area of my life, at some point, I will probably end up in Square One again.

Nothing ever stays the same, and that is the reality of becoming. You don't stay the same. Life doesn't stay the same. We are always being bombarded with change and fighting that only causes more suffering. And so for me, just understanding the Change Cycle, these four stages that we're always going through, has given me the courage to face it and not run from it, and also to know this is life. This is what it's all about. You can deny it, you can resist it, or you can embrace it. And that leads me to the mantra for Square Four, everything's changing and that's okay. Have a beautiful week, my friends and I will see you in next week's episode. Cheers.

Before we part ways, I have an exciting invitation for you. If you have been desiring to elevate your style, but find yourself stuck, unsure or overwhelmed, I've created something very special just for you. Join me for a private 12-week podcast series called Why Don't You, where we're going to dive deep into personal style, confidence and self-expression. It is an intimate journey, designed for the discerning woman who knows she's capable of more but needs that extra guidance and inspiration. And just so you know, this isn't about fleeting trends or rules, it's about discovering and embracing your unique style story. So to access this private series, all you need to do is go to schoolofselfimage.com/why and secure your spot. And remember, true style is timeless, and it starts with you. Why don't you join us to unveil the most stylish version of yourself?