True vs. Faux Self

Who are you really? That is the question that we are exploring on today's episode, so let's dive right on 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. How are you doing? I'm sitting here sipping my coffee. I got up at 5:00 AM this morning, wide awake, ready to go. It is now 8:00 and I have gotten so much done. Every once in a while I'll have these mornings, and when I do, it's like I want to capture whatever's happening because I'm like, this is the way to start the day. I feel like I've already completed a whole workday and now I get to hang out with you all on today's episode. Today's going to be fun. We're talking about a concept that truly changed my life, and I learned this through Martha Beck when I went through her coach training all those years ago. What was it? Back in 2008?

She taught a concept called social self versus essential self. And if you want to read more about it, go check out her book Finding Your Own North Star. It's one of my favorite books because it was truly one of those gateway books that really opened me up to the power of our own mind and how we have the ability to change the trajectory of our lives and create completely new results for ourselves. I think up until the point I met her, I felt like I was at the effect of my life versus being the creator of my life. And so I want to start today's episode out with a question. If I asked you who you are really, what would you say? And more importantly, would it be the truth? How do you know? And where did your answer come from?

Was it something that was offered to you? Was it an answer of who you were told you were supposed to be? Does that answer come from your past and the stories that you have created about yourself? And I think the most important question here is do you like how you answered that question? Who are you? I know I've told this story a million times, but for those of you who are new to the podcast, I remember being asked this question 2:00 AM, while I was working as a critical care nurse by a doctor who was visiting. And he turned to me and he said, "Tonya, who do you want to be? Now it's a little bit of a different variation of the question, but he was like, "Who do you want to be?" And I did not know how to answer him. It was such an interesting question.

I'm like, I'm a grown woman. This is what you get asked when you're kid like, "What do you want to be when you grow up? What do you want to do?" But sitting there as a woman, working as a critical care nurse, I was speechless. And I said to him, "I want to be a good mom, a good wife, and a good nurse." And he said, "I'm not talking about the roles you play in life. Who do you want to be as a woman? Your essence?" And I didn't even realize that was a choice at the time, actually. I just thought we were who we were, that it was unchangeable that it was permanent. But it started to play with me and I was like, huh, that's a really interesting question because the way he posed it's almost as if I had a choice. And I'll never forget driving home that morning and the word popped into my mind and I was like, oh, this is ridiculous. There's no way I can be this.

I mean, I grew up in a trailer. I grew up very humble beginnings. I grew up Pentecostal holiness. We've never traveled because the word was worldly. I wanted to be a worldly woman. And when I stopped all the chatter and I just allowed myself to consider the possibility of that one word, it felt like home. You know what it's like? It's like my soul came here to be that, and somehow I got kidnapped and I was trying to find my way back to it. It felt expansive, it felt exciting, it felt so just joyful to consider myself to be a worldly woman. And for me, that was a woman who is at home in the world because she's at home with herself. She knows she can handle her own no matter where she is, she can have conversations about almost everything.

She isn't panicked when someone walks up to her and wants to have a conversation because she knows who she is. She's well traveled, she understands culture and the arts and philosophy. I mean, to me, that's what it meant to be a worldly woman. And I know now looking back, that was coming from what I call my true self. Now Martha Beck would call it your essential self. And now looking back on my journey, I can see that that is when I started to address the restlessness, the disconnection, the feeling like I was playing a role in my own life because that was the faux self, the self that was designed to please, to impress, and to conform. It was the part of me who was trying to be a good girl and to do what everyone expected of me. And this is why this episode exists.

It is here to remind you that there is no freedom when the faux self is in control. And isn't freedom what we all want? I know we say we want different things, but at the end of the day, I feel like we all want freedom. We want to feel that expansiveness of feeling like we have control over our own lives. We want to feel like we get to determine our reality. And if your faux self is in charge, you're not going to be happy with what you create. So let's talk about the faux self, that carefully curated version of you that you've created over the years. It is very rare to meet someone who is not living in their faux self. And I say this with so much compassion and empathy because I have been there and even to this day I find myself sometimes being in my faux self. To find someone who is fully in their true self is such a rarity because it takes so much courage and a lot of people won't like you.

I think about my man, Fonz. Now the people that love him, love him, but there are people that don't like him, and guess what? He does not care. I think he's probably the one person, him and my mother, those are the two people in my life that I've come across that I can say are in their true selves almost all of the time. They speak their mind, they don't try to impress you, and they also ironically are not the most loving people you will ever meet because if you think about it, when you're in your faux self, you're lying. You're lying to others, you're lying to please others, you're lying to yourself. And we don't do this consciously. We don't do this because we're bad people. If we look at the reality of it, our faux self has helped us create a lot of success in our lives.

It probably kept you out of trouble when you were a kid. It probably helped you get those promotions at work. Maybe it helped you get into that friend group that you were wanting to be in. And so the faux self, or as Martha Beck would call it, the social self has served us and even to this day, the faux self can still serve us. I think it's the part of us that has a little bit of decorum that knows, hey, just because you're pissed off at someone, you don't walk up and slap them. It keeps us in check sometimes, but the problem is when it runs the show. Because the faux self is all about wearing mask performing roles and mistaking that performance for your identity. I know this firsthand. I think about the times that I've been in my faux self, and there are numerous, my friends. So let me just think about some of the examples that I can share with you that maybe you can relate to.

But I do remember when I first started what I consider to be my personal development journey. So for example, when I decided I wanted to be a worldly woman, I mistakenly thought that that meant expensive things, right? When I thought about a worldly woman, I'm like, oh, well, she is well-dressed an all designer and obviously she needs to look really expensive. And so looking back now, I can clearly see that was just the faux self because if you think about it, that is outwardly focused. What are other people going to think of me if they see me, I don't know, carrying this handbag? And so I can even see some of my purchases back in the day were driven from the faux self. Now it's part of my journey that I am not ashamed of. Many of those purchases changed me, not the actual purchase themselves, but me overcoming the chatter that, "You don't deserve this. This is a waste." And I can also clearly see that it was also the faux self driving it.

Over the years, I've learned to really stop and take a pause and think, "Would I want this if no one would ever see it?" Would I want to invest my money, my time, my energy in this thing if no one would ever know about it? That's how you know if it's a true desire versus a faux desire. Because that's the thing I've learned, if it's a true desire, you will want it no matter what, and you'll be willing to go through all of the failures and the challenges that are going to come along to create that thing and you'll enjoy it when you actually achieve it, versus when you go after a faux desire, often the journey is very unfulfilling as well as when you achieve it, you're like, "Oh, this doesn't feel like I thought it was going to fill. I'm not happier, I'm not more fulfilled."

And that's the thing, when you listen to the faux self, it's going to lead you in the wrong direction most of the time. Not all of the time, but most of the time. Now the part of you that says don't go and punch that person in the face, well, that's the faux self-supporting you, helping you. Because it knows that that's probably not a good thing to do, whereas your true self may want to do that, but you can see that when the part of you that is programmed to please, to be approved of, to impress, to keep everyone happy, when that part of you is in control, who suffers? You do. I think about one of my clients who came to me and stuck in a career she actually hated, but she stayed in it because she got a lot of praise.

She felt like that job, that career was proving her worthiness. She was a high-level executive making well over six figures, but every day she felt like she was suffocating, and the moment she admitted to herself, I don't want this life, everything changed. She finally listened to her true self and she ended up leaving her career and pursued her passion. And although it was scary, she told me, she was like, "I finally feel alive. It's a feeling that I haven't felt in years. I was so numb." I have another client who... And some of you all can probably relate to this because she had built this picture perfect life. She had the big house, she had the fancy cars, she vacationed in the fancy places, and yet she felt so unfulfilled and she admitted that she was just playing a role instead of truly listening to her soul and her truth.

And so she finally admitted to her husband that she wanted a simpler, more creative life. And everything shifted. What was crazy about her is that her husband had been feeling the same way, but he was too afraid to admit it. It's almost like they had created this prison for themselves, and neither of them were looking at each other and being like, "Listen, we feel trapped." But the moment she had the courage to say to him, "I don't want this anymore," he had the courage to admit he didn't want it either, and they ended up selling their home downsizing, and she said, "I've never been happier." Now sometimes the opposite could be true. You may want a bigger house that could be a true desire for you. We don't need to judge other people's desires and what they want.

One of the questions that was asked of me recently, and I thought it was a really great one, they were like, "Is the desire for money a true desire?" And I had to think about that one for a minute because I want us all to have the money and to be abundant and to be able to do what we want to do, and I don't think that money in and of itself is a true desire. I want you to think about this. If it were just a piece of paper sitting on your desk, would you want it? That's all it did. That's the sole purpose. It's just sitting there. No, you're like, what use is this? It's just clutter. The true desire is behind what you want the money for, right? So maybe your true desire is to be able to give your kids a great education. Maybe your true desire is to have the beautiful handbag because you really appreciate quality and luxury and you don't care if anyone ever saw it, but you get to see it and you love it.

Your true desire may be giving to philanthropic organizations. Maybe your true desire is to build a beautiful art gallery. Everybody's desires are different, and this is where you need to be very careful because the faux self will tell you what you should and shouldn't want. Sometimes it's going to tell you to go after material things to impress other people. Sometimes the faux self will say, "Don't you dare do that. How dare you want a fancy car? That's not what you should want." But what if you really love fancy cars? I think about Fonz. He loves cars. He could care less about other things, but cars are his thing. They bring him so much joy. He will sit in them, he takes care of them, he washes them at least every couple of days. He loves cars. I could care less about a car, but you know what I do enjoy? A house.

I had so much fun designing and planning my house last year. Well, for the last two years actually. And now that I'm in it, I don't want to leave. I've become such a homebody, you all. But then I think back to when I was a kid, guess what I did? I would draw house plans. I loved architecture as a child. I love any kind of home decor or architectural digest. Those magazines I've always been drawn to. Now some people like my client, she felt trapped by that, and that's why we have to tune out the noise of the world and get in touch with our truest self, the part of us who knows our truth. And I love what Martha Beck says, "You will know your truth because it will taste like freedom."

The faux self is who you think you should be. Your true self is something that you create by getting in touch with your deepest desires, by getting in touch with what you value, by remembering who you are before the world told you who you should be. So how do you recognize her? How do you recognize your true self? Well, I'll tell you how I recognize her. She feels like ease. Have you ever done something, maybe you wore something or you spoke in a certain way or you made a decision, and you felt this exhale of relief? You felt maybe expansion that is your true self. I think to a recent decision that I made that my faux self was trying to convince me that I needed to wait to make it, but the moment I made it, I just felt so much relief. That's because my true self showed up and she made that decision.

Also, your true self is the part of you that existed before you cared what other people thought. As I was saying earlier, it's going back to my childhood. I can see the things that I loved. I could see who I was, how I behaved. I was so joyful. I was so free. I wasn't afraid of what people thought. And I want you to think about that. When you were a child before you started to be socially programmed, what did you love? Who were you? For me, I remember even as a kid, my mom made my clothes and she would make me the most fancy dresses, and I always wanted to wear those dresses, the ones with the ruffles and the lace. I loved spinning around and my skirt would fly up. It was just so much fun. I loved being fancy, even as a kid. Loved it.

I didn't know that people were looking or judging. I just loved how it felt. Now for you, you may think back to your childhood and you'd be like, Tonya, I loved being in trousers, playing in the dirt, although I did that too. I lived on a dirt road, so we made mud pies. I enjoyed that as well. But you may look back and realize I wasn't into fancy things. I was a tomboy. And that's beautiful too, to recognize that. Maybe when you look back at your childhood, you remember, "Oh my God, I used to love drawing and painting. I used to love playing sports." Your true self is that part of you that existed before the world told you who you should be and before you started caring what people think. Also, your true self, she makes decisions based on desire, not fear. The faux self will say things like, I should or shouldn't do this because it looks good or it doesn't look good.

I shouldn't do this because if I do it, people are going to be upset. So you find yourself looking around at the outside world letting it dictate to you what you should and shouldn't do in order to please it. And the unfortunate thing is you can't please the world. Inevitably, there will be some people that are pleased and some people that won't be. So you've set yourself up for failure because you're never going to be able to please everyone. Now I do want to speak to something that I've been wanting to talk about for a while because I've seen in the personal development space, and I even got caught up in this too, you all, of the pendulum swinging in another direction where you become so self-focused and I'm the only one that matters, and it's all about what I want and it's me, me, me world, and you end up making decisions that can hurt a lot of people.

I know when I first started my journey, I did this and I'm not proud of it, but it was me exploring. It was like the immature Tonya who was trying to hear herself again, who was trying to get in touch with what she really wanted. And I've come to understand now, when I get in touch with my true self, when I get really quiet and I just allow myself to get into that place of expansiveness and love, it almost feels like when I'm in those moments of really deep meditation, it's like I go beyond myself. And when I'm in that space, I just naturally factor in the people I love. I realize that we're all connected. So it's not just me, me, me, it's us.

And so my true self, what I have discovered is always looking for the win-win. It's always looking for the yes, and. It's not I'm just going to do what I want to do and not care what you think. And I'm talking about the people closest to me because if I get too called up in what the world thinks, then the faux self is in charge. But I'm talking about the people closest to me. When I'm in that space, it's us and how can I show up and honor my true desires as well as honor them? Now sometimes that means me making decisions that maybe they're not happy with, but I've made it from a place of love. I haven't made it from that wild child energy of just screw you. It's all about me. I don't care what you think, I'm just going to go and do me. It's not that kind of energy. It's like I've really spent time thinking about what feels right, and I think that's how the true self makes choices. What feels right? And that is going to be different for all of us.

But as Martha Beck says, "You will know your truth because it will taste like freedom." And sometimes that's going to mean pissing a lot of people off, even the people closest to you. And sometimes it's going to mean you taking a deep breath and really thinking about alternatives because that's what feels right. Now here's the not so fun part of waking up to your true self. It can be very painful because when you stop playing the role that people expect, some people will be disappointed, some people will judge you, you will fail, people will talk. But here's the question I asked myself, would you rather be judged for being real or praised for being fake? Now listen, no one wants to be fake, and I don't think people are being fake on purpose. I think we have just been so conditioned to wear these masks under the fakeness is just a lot of fear, and I think we need to approach people in that way.

I think we need to approach people with empathy and compassion because we've all been there. There's no one listening to this who hasn't been fake in the past. I mean, fake is people pleasing. Fake is lying to yourself. Fake is trying to get approval. Fake is showing up in ways that compromise your values. We've all done it, and maybe you're even doing it now. I might do it later today, right? So don't judge yourself for it. I just think it's a beautiful question to ask yourself. Would you rather be judged for being real or praised for being fake? I mean, let's face it, praise feels so much better than judgment. But what's the ultimate cost here? People fall in love with the fake version of you, and then you have to keep up that facade, and that's why change is so hard. What's really crazy to think about in a moment, we could all just step into our true selves.

Boom. Done. I'm going to live this truth no matter what. But the reality is not only cognitive dissonance, but the pushback that you get from the people around you when you make sudden changes, even the people that love you the most, it's a little bit jarring. People are like, "Whoa." I remember when I started showing up in a new way. The people that love me the most were like, "Who do you think you are? What are you doing? Why are you changing the way you speak?" I completely changed my accent, by the way. I used to have such a country accent. I talked like this. I heard a video or an audio of me talking, my mom had, and I'm like, "Are you kidding me? I used to sound like that?" But truly, no one could understand me when I would travel. They'd be like, "What planet are you from?"

And so I decided to change my accent. But when I started, can you imagine being around my country family and me trying to change my accent? They made so much fun of me, and I just let them. I was like, all right, go ahead. But now, years later, it's just who they now know me to be. But it was uncomfortable when I was going through that. And I think this is why oftentimes we take change slow because if we change a little bit more slowly, the pushback from the people around us isn't as drastic. It happens over time and before you know it, you're like, "Oh, wow. I'm completely different." And each little change has allowed them to catch up without it being so jarring. But it is really cool to think that we could just step into our true selves right now, but do you have the capacity and the willingness to feel all of the resistance that you are going to have, not only within you, but from the people around you?

There's no way to do this wrong. There's no way. I will tell you, little by little honoring your true self, you're going to be so much more fulfilled. I think back to the thousands of clients that I have coached and witnessing their journeys, and I realize this is the work. This is everything. It's getting back to your authentic self-image. Your authentic self-image is seeing yourself at your most expansive, most joyful, most loving self. And it really is more about just shedding than adding. It's more about letting go of all the shoulds, letting go of the expectations from others and listening to yourself again. And that is a skill, learning to listen to yourself, especially after years of listening to everyone and everything outside of you. It may sound silent.

Silence isn't a sound, but there's silence there when you're like, "What do I love? What do I want? What does bring me joy? What do I want to eat? What is my favorite color?" And you're drawing a blank. You're like, "I don't know what..." I've always paid attention to what I thought it should be. And this is why I love this work so much. Seeing women step into their true selves is one of my greatest joys. We just changed our membership platform and we have a brand new community platform as well, and I've been in there a lot, and just the energy is ridiculous. It's so fun.

But seeing women's stories, seeing their pictures, their before and after pictures. And then their after picture, you can see that the life has come back into their eyes. You can see the vitality. And then they're reporting on all of these things that they're doing and accomplishing, and it's all because they had the willingness to stop and ask, "What do I deeply, deeply want? Who am I really at my core? Who am I beyond my roles as a mother, as a daughter, as a wife, as a business owner? Who am I really?" That's the question I want us all to be asking ourselves. She's already within you. It's not something you have to go out there and find. You just have to get quiet long enough to listen to her. She's trying to speak to you, always. Are you listening?

If today's episode resonated with you, I want to let you know that the School of Self-Image membership is open right now. And we've been getting a lot of questions from those of you who aren't in the membership and you're curious about the changes and what is different, what is the same. And so I'll tell you right now. We spent last year really going through feedback, sitting down as a team and getting clear on how we can best support our members. Every decision that we've made has had our members in mind. And so we built out a brand new platform that is so streamlined, so elevated, and it's just taken this membership to the next level. I spent a week with my team refilming the Self-Image Method and the Self-Image Studio, which used to be called The Dream Atelier. And that has become the framework for our months together.

The Self-Image Studio is held each month at the end of the month where we come together and we plan out your month, 30 days at a time. And I want to just tell you all that I'm going to request that your true self shows up for that planning session. It's very important. We don't want to be planning from shoulds, we want to be planning from true desires. We have also laid out paths for our members because you have to understand self-image work is applicable to every area of your life because your self-image is influencing everything. It's influencing your relationships, your finances, your health and wellness, the state of your home, the state of your closet, literally every area of your life.

And so we have divided up four paths that you can choose based on what you discovered during the self-image method. So we have the path of elegant success, the path of stylish living, vibrant well-being, and magnetic presence. And so when you come in as a member and you go through the self-image method, you get to choose the path that you want to focus on. And we have organized our curriculum around these four paths. You also get a monthly self-image class taught live as well as Q&A calls, a coaching call, and then you get access to our vibrant community.

I mean, I'm telling you all, this is worth the price of the membership alone. To see these women not only connect online, but they are getting together in person, in cities, not just in the States, but across the world, it just delights me because one of the core pillars of my teaching methodology is surroundings, and how important your environment is, and the fact that we have created such an expansive, uplifting environment of women who are cheering each other on who understand this work, the kind of place where you don't have to worry about being judged for what you want. It is all celebrated. It is all supported. This community is just...I mean, women tell me all of the time, "I'm in a lot of online forums, but I've never come across a community that is so supportive and expansive and just fun." We have fun together.

And so if you want to take this work to the next level, if you want to spend time really listening to yourself and taking steps to honor the answers that are coming from the questions that you're asking of yourself, if you want to spend the year going after something that is uniquely yours, that's a true desire, if you want to learn the tools to manage your mindset and to live a life on purpose, if you want to learn how to curate your days with intention, this membership is for you, and I would be delighted to have you come and join. So all you need to do, my friend, is go to schoolofselfimage.com/join. You can see our brand new membership page, tells you all about it, and I look forward to supporting you inside the School of Self-image. Have a beautiful week, my friends. And I will see you on next week's episode. Cheers.