The BEST Gift You Can Give This Season || Identity

Why finding your true self is the best gift you can give yourself and your loved ones.

With Christmas only a few weeks away, I’m in full gift-buying mode. Truthfully, I’m not great at buying gifts. (And sometimes I hesitate sharing gift ideas.) But, you HAVE to hear about this gift. 

The best gift you can give this season is the gift of your true self!

Do you ever feel like you’re NOT acting like yourself? This may happen on days where you’re tired, depleted, or unfulfilled. In those moments, you can’t truly give or be your true self because you don’t have a true self to give from! 

If you’ve ever felt like this, know you don’t have to keep living this way!

This episode dives into my personal journey of finding my identity. What happened changed my life.

You’ll also hear three women from our community each share what changed after they found their identity again. Their stories are powerful and prove that you CAN take steps to find your true self, too! 

You don’t have to feel lost or unfulfilled anymore. Put your SELF under the tree this year! Tune in to feel empowered and equipped to take steps to be your true SELF again! This will truly be the best gift you can give all year long.

PS: I took what I learned about uncovering identity and created “Finding Me,” a 6-week course geared to help YOU find your true self again. Invest in your SELF and enroll to the course before prices go up January 1st + get our exclusive bonus (a private Masterclass you don’t want to miss!).

About a few other things...

Reclaim your creative power and rediscover who you actually are! If you’re ready to come back home to yourself, to be able to say that you know who you are and what matters to you, take my foundation course, “Finding Me.” It’s OK that you’ve lost parts of yourself along the way; but as you learn to anchor back into who you are and align your life to what matters to you, you’ll find that you have more strength, more fulfilment, and more creativity to bring to your important roles and responsibilities.

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SHOW NOTES
Monk Manual - code 'PROGRESS' for 10% off
Foundational course, “Finding Me.”
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Songs Credit: Pleasant Pictures Music Club

TRANSCRIPT

In this season of giving gifts, I know all of us are looking for ways to show our loved ones that we care, but we often miss the most important gift we could be giving. Today. I want to share what that is.

I saw the funniest Instagram post the other day, it was framed to look like a Twitter post. And it said "14 years ago, I married my husband and promise from that day forward to be in charge of all of his gifts for his mother, siblings and friends." Women seem to carry a lot of the gift giving responsibilities in most households, but this episode is not meant to be a long rant about the unfairness around that. Instead it's actually about the power gifts can hold.

Quick confession for you. I am not a great gift giver. I basically ask my kids what they want and I choose a thing or two from the list. And then I get it for them. I asked my friends what they're getting for their kids, and I copy them. For Brad, I make a few assumptions based on the things I can see he needs, but I don't really belabor it. Luckily he's pretty easily pleased.

And if you listened to my episode on lowering the hurdles a few weeks, then you all know about my gift giving cupboard, where it's basically impersonal. And I just get things out of the cupboard for my friends. I am guilty of wrapping gifts in newspaper, or in the plastic bag that came from the store in, because I never seem to think ahead when it comes to that stuff.

On the other hand, there are people in my life who are amazing at giving gifts. My mother's love language is gifts and they're rarely expensive, but what she gives are always well thought out and that's the same for my best friend. She always gives me something simple, but that clearly has me in mind when she tells me.

And another friend of mine so thoughtfully creates her own wrapping paper and homemade cards that are also gorgeous that when you put them together, it feels like a crime to tear into them. It's okay if you're somewhere on the spectrum, we all are. And regardless of where you fall in the gift giving spectrum, giving gifts truly is a wonderful way to show your loved ones that you care about them and that they matter to you.

But I want you to imagine for a moment, if these gifts that you are about to give and the gifts that you give throughout the year for anniversaries or birthdays or other kinds of celebrations, what if you gave those gifts and you handed them over with a side of resentment? What if each gift your loved one opened from you came at such a high cost from you that you couldn't even enjoy their acceptance of the gift? What if your gift giving was done so much and so often that you had nothing left to give?

I think you can see where I'm going with this. Yes. It's an analogy.

Today, I want to tell you so much about the best gift that you could be giving, not just the season, but for years to come. It's a gift that keeps on giving.

It's the gift of your true self.

Imagine just for a moment, what could change for you if you had a strong sense of knowing who you are and what matters to you. Imagine how much more confidently you could make choices. Imagine how your habits could better be transformed in ways that are meaningful and helpful for you. Imagine how your life could be enriched by having interests that you love to prioritize. Imagine how your relationships could be transformed if you brought a true self to them. And imagine how your responsibilities could shift if you showed up to them as the whole person that you are.

In my mind responsibilities, especially are gifts that we give to others through our actions.T he things we do around the home for the ways we maintain our families and our workspaces, they are gifts. And we can't do them when they're handed over with that side of resentment or anger or emptiness. S

o many of us right now are living, but we're not alive. We are giving and giving and giving, but we don't have a real self to give from. Is that you?

Six years ago, that person who gave and gave and gave without any reserves inside of her, someone who felt lost and empty and was giving with a set of resentment and loneliness and despair. . . That was me. And I realized that not only was this way of giving hurting myself. I was also hurting my family.

And at first it was so confusing for me because I didn't understand why I was giving in this way, but over a series of moments, I learned what the reason was and what I needed to do about.

Let me paint the picture for you. At this point in my life, six years ago, I had three small kids ages four, and under two of whom were struggling with some undiagnosed special needs. Brad worked 80 plus hours a week. My daughter called him Brad for two years instead of dad, because we saw him so rarely. I lived far from my family far from support, and I really was on my own all day, every day with every need that me and my kids faced and all the big picture stuff, it takes to be a parent and to run a family.

At one point, I remember very clearly sweeping the floor for about the 10th time that day. And as I was pushing the crumbs into the dust pan, I stopped and I realized that I was oozing resentment and anger, and that my thoughts were on this running track. "I am the only one who has to do this. This is all I'm good for. This is my life."

Yes, it was not a good moment, except this wasn't the only moment I had like this. It was a series of moments like this all day, every day. These thoughts and these feelings, I actually wasn't wrong about them. The way I was feeling that anger, resentment, it had become my life. It had become my identity.

Over and over, I found myself in these moments where I was not myself. I was somebody else, somebody I did not recognize. And it didn't take much to tip me over the edge to reacting in ways that were not myself. Whether it was a spilled cup of milk, a shattered bottle of balsamic vinegar, a tipped over a bottle of bubbles.

It did not take much to send me over the edge and sometimes, and probably most often I could hold that rage. But other times I found myself lashing out at my little kids in ways that were not only out of character, but made me feel so ashamed and desperate, especially because I finally found myself yelling at these little innocent kids.

After one incident like this, I remember going to the bathroom and trying to collect myself and looking in the mirror and not recognizing who I was anymore. And it wasn't just the tired eyes and the messy hair. It was something so much deeper and something that really terrified me because something was missing.

Some one was missing. And it was me.

 In that mirror. I was looking at a reflection of an empty shell of Monica. And I knew in that moment that the reason I was feeling all these feelings of a rage, of apathy, and anger, and sadness, and loneliness, it all came back because I was gone. The real me was lost.

 I didn't know the first thing about how to get her back, but I knew it was time. I knew that my kids needed me, the real me. I knew that my husband needed me. And I knew that I needed me.

The climax of all these moments built up the year before I turned 30 and something about this approaching milestone forced me to pause a little longer at that mirror and take real stock. I had to ask myself some questions: Was this who I was now was? Was this my life? Was this who I wanted to be?

I decided to embark on what became a years-long experiment in finding myself again, and all outside of the all or nothing perfectionistic extremes that had controlled so much of my life leading up to that. What took place was messy. It was fun. It was hard. But in doing this work to rediscover who I was and who I wanted to be, I, I found my identity again.

I found myself again.

And just one year into this experiment, something unexpected happened. And it was just another moment in a normal day. Another moment of sweeping the very same linoleum-laid ,dirty kitchen floor. And I was again, stopped in my tracks by a thought, and this thought was, "I am so fulfilled."

My life was not dramatically different on the outside anymore. I still had little kids. I still had little help. I still had huge responsibilities. I still had mundane chores. S

o what had changed? I had. And it wasn't so much that I had changed. It was that I had to become myself again.

I knew better who I was. I knew better what mattered to me. I had an identity again, and because of that, I was full. I was full of myself and I had more to give.

 An even bigger contrast for me happened after the birth of my fourth. Life wasn't easier then. In fact, many ways it was harder than it was during that climax of anger and resentment and sadness.

After the birth of my fourth child, my oldest kids' special needs were only getting more difficult. We were living through a botched kitchen renovation where so much of our money was essentially stolen by a worker we trusted. Our newborn had to go through an emergency, life-saving surgery and he had months of complications to follow. Life was still hard, but I was so much stronger.

I was amazed by how I was able to show up to the heart of everyday normal mundane things in my life in comparison to how I had been just a few years prior.

And that has only grown from there. I've been able to give more to my kids and to our home and to my responsibilities, to my spouse, to my faith, all because I've had something to give from.

Before I was giving from an empty well, and not only that, it wasn't just empty. It was leaking. There was no solid foundation of having a clear identity, a clear sense of self. So not only did I have nothing to give from, things I were throwing in with frantic ways of trying to care for myself, were just going into an empty leaking well.

I had to repair that foundation as I filled the leaks. And as then, I was able to add in other ways to find fulfillment and to grow and, and allow interests in my life again, and goals and, and habits, and it just built and built and built. And my well became full.

So even though life was hard, and even though what was being drawn from that well was very demanding, I had it, and it was there to give from.

Think about what could change for you if you stopped giving from nothing. Think about how the resentment, the loneliness, the anger, and the exhaustion are getting in the way of you showing up for your responsibilities in the ways that you want.

And then I want you to bring to mind how having your own formed identity, a strong sense of knowing who you are and what matters to you, is the gift that you need to prioritize this year. It's a gift for your loved ones and a gift for yourself.

That first year of growth and life-changing progress I shared with you has now turned into six. Finding your identity is not something I can teach you with three easy pointers here. I wish I could, but I can't. Instead, what I have for you is a six week course that takes you down a six part path to help you find yourself again.

And that is in my course, "Finding Me." I'm not going to spend the rest of my time talking about this course specifically, except to say that the next few weeks are your last chance to get the course before it doubles in price on January 1st. There's a lot more that is coming in the course. And if you get in now you have lifetime access. So that is one thing I want to bring up.

But instead of going on and on about the lesson breakdowns and the things you learn and all the other sellsy types, what I wanted to do was to allow women from our community to share what has changed for them once they gave themselves the gift of knowing who they are.

Before I share those voices, here's my most important thing I could teach you. I guess that's the only real pointer from this episode. Take the course. Don't take the course. Truly what I care about most is that you can be motivated from this episode to take action, to uncover and embrace your identity.

And I hope that these women's voices. I can help you find the energy and the will to take action and create momentum to do just that.

First up you are going to hear from a woman named Sarah. She's going to share how anchoring into her identity helped her be more confident in what her needs were as well as how learning to find fulfillment in exploring interests she had helped her start a path to healing and recovery from some mental struggles she was facing.

"Hi, this is Sarah and I wanted to share what I have learned and gained from the "Finding Me" course that I have completed. I reviewed some of my journal entries since it had been a few months since I had done the course and I pulled out some themes that shared how my transition started to develop. And the main thing I walked away from the program near the endwas how I had a greater self awareness of myself.

"I had a greater sense of what I wanted and what I valued and who I really was. And I started standing up for myself and those values. I also became aware of both the good and the bad and myself and having an awareness of truth about oneself is, is a difficult thing to swallow, but it also helped me to improve and really, really see things for what they were. And I think that benefited me as well as my family.

"And and then also a great pivotal part of the finding of course, is the do something list. And in this list I had put, you know, things that I wanted to do. That I felt like, oh, if I had enough time, I would do this.

"In one of those items, I decided to water color. I actually went through in my journal entry and I had written in about the self awareness. And then I also had another entry where I had started in the morning, an entry with my feelings of the day and how the day was going to go. And then my evening entry and the morning entry said that toda, started out rough with very whiny children. They feed off of each other's whining. And I just said, everyone is sleep deprived. I don't know how today's going to go. And maybe I needed to switch up my night routine. And that was what I wrote for the morning.

"And then in the evening I said, today was okay. I got a lot done. I did a lot of my program and I water colored with Kristin for an hour. I think. My rest of my day seemed to go better. I was able to process through that hobby and process by doing something that fulfilled me, how I was feeling. I wrote, I feel healthier emotionally and physically.

"Honestly, I had been experienced a lot in a lot of depression before doing the "Finding Me" course. And I'm sure a lot of women relate to that feeling of just not knowing what it is that drives them to do the hard things. And anyways, I feel like this was my road to recovery. That is huge to get a grapple back on your life and, and taking care of you and taking care of your family. So there is much to be said for the "Finding Me" course in and how it helped me to discover my own needs and my identity. And that is just what life is all about for me. Yes. It was a very great experience for me."

One of the things that surprised me the most about what changes when you have a strong sense of knowing who you are, is that it helps you with decision-making. When I was doing a lot of surveys and questions on what would change for women if they have a stronger identity, decision-making came up over and over and over again.

We will hear next from Kelly. Who's going to share how anchoring into her identity changed her ability to show up to decisions in ways that were really.

"Hi, my name is Kelly. In the "Finding Me course," there were many opportunities to ask myself questions. As I took the time to reflect, I was able to narrow in on my personal values of compassion, spiritual connection, learning ,adventure, and health. When I'm making decisions, I can ask myself if my choice is aligned with one or more of those values.

"And if so, I can move forward. If I hit a certain direction and it doesn't feel right, I can see that it is usually due to something being out of alignment.

"I'm in the middle of a big decision right now I'm deciding whether or not to start a career. The biggest realization I had was that whether or not I decided to take a certain job, it's not the job that will define me, but how I show up as myself in that job, I can be in alignment with my values, no matter where I go.

"And what I am doing and feel fulfilled because I am in alignment with my values. I am grateful for that knowledge. And I am able to look and see how I handle myself in certain relationships and also be able to see whether or not I am showing up as myself. By according to those values that I have realized are what make me, me. Thanks, Monica."

I'm so grateful that each of these women were willing to lend their voice. And for those of you who have been listening to them and finding yourself reflected in their struggles,and how you are ready ot transform in the ways that they have . . . For those of you who can fully embrace now, just how much identity matters and know that there are some changes you need to make, and that can happen through better knowing who you are . . .

If that's you, I invite you to take action today by enrolling to "Finding Me" especially before our prices double on January 1st. The good news is it's self-paced you can buy it now and take it later. It's designed to take six weeks, but since it's self paced, some women take longer. Some women take shorter amounts of time to get it done.

Additionally, you get lifetime access to all of the course materials, including all of the updates and additions that are already in the works. And this includes some exclusive guest taught masterclasses that you will find from experts that you know, and love like the class we have only as part of this course, a special bonus class that is taught by Dr. Julie Hanks about how to practically get more support with your household responsibilities.

As a special bonus before our prices go up for those students who enroll by the end of December, they will all get a special private masterclass on decision-making taught by me.

 One last note on this course in "Finding me," you will not find prescriptions on how to be a certain kind of person. Instead, you will find a path that you can revisit over and over. You'll find tools and you'll find guidance all to help you anchor into your values, to live in alignment with your true self in ways that work for you and your season of life. Again, it's the gift that keeps on giving.

 Here's what one recent graduate had to say about the course. Her name is Annette, and she said,

"This course gave me the self-awareness. I need it to be able to live in alignment with my values. When I took the course, it was like putting on glasses and finally being able to see so many things that were right in front of me, that I was completely missing. It turns out in my search for me and my purpose, I had wandered way off the path and I was looking in all the wrong places.

"Finding Me gave me the big picture I needed to get back on track and helped me reframe this. Since taking the Finding Me course, I have felt fulfilled. I no longer feel like my identity is captive to my roles, responsibilities or misidentified.

"I have been able to chisel myself out of the cage of shoulds I was living in. I have come to appreciate my roles and responsibilities and no longer be resentful of some of them. And I have learned to bring myself to those roles and responsibilities instead of allowing them to define me. I have learned how to articulate my values.

"It makes it so much easier to set boundaries, to make decisions and priorities. Guilt no longer guides my choices or prevents me from living authentically. It's amazing how much better life feels when you are living in alignment with yourself. I knew that to be true, but I didn't know how to get there and Finding Me showed the way."

Thank you. And your words were equal parts humbling and hope-giving for me, because this is the experience I want all women to share in, as they take this course.

You can get it now by going to aboutprogress.com/finding me.

I'll end oon a more personal note, if that's okay. This year has been really hard. It's been really hard on many levels for me and for my family.

When I'm in the middle of something hard, I don't often share a ton about it, but just know it's been hard and I can not understate what a difference having a strong identity has made for me to get through this past year. It's been the only way I've made it through the many years of special needs with my kids have years of hard work of criticism I've gotten, of self-doubtand comparison I've trudged through. Of the ups and downs of my mirror. And the tug of war with my faith. And with the recent move and how it was so much harder than we expected. And some of the lowest lows that we've had this past year, just on the business side of this podcast, I cannot understate how identity has carried me through at all.

I want you to know yourself. I want you to be full of yourself, and I want you to have that self so that you can better give to your responsibilities and to the people who matter most to you. Identity is the key.

Thank you so much for listening to the show and for sharing it with your friends who need it. And for taking time to leave reviews and ratings.

It all means so much to me. Now, I want you to go and do something with what you learned today.