Aloud: Things We Aren’t Supposed To Talk About: What Happens When We Are Ourselves

Hey, everybody. Happy Friday from Cadre and from Shannon at aloud. You know, I've been doing most of my lives from outside, and I am exploring St. Paul, Minnesota, and it's too cold today. And so this is not quite as beautiful a setting. It's my kitchen. But that's the deal today. So happy Friday. All right, guys, so today in today's livestream video, we. Well, so, Shannon. So I'm Shannon from aloud, and so allowed exists to really talk about taboo topics. And what that means is to, you know, we're socialized not to talk about things that are hard or strange or might make us feel weird as humans.

And so I like to talk about those things because that's what I probably care about the most, is connecting with others. And so to get to connection, you have to talk about reality. And so that's what we're going to talk about today. So I've been doing a series called how to stop living in survival mode. And so, just to reiterate, too, I'm not a therapist, but I'm a person who's been in therapy for seven years, and I have anxiety and CPTSD and a bunch of things. I'm also a caregiver of a son with autism.

Okay. But I'm not a therapist, but my series is called the seven, the seven things, the five things that I learned in seven years of therapy for how to stop living in crisis or survival mode. So you can go back and watch those. The first step is to know. Know that something's wrong, to pay attention to your gut and have this feeling of, like, all right, there's, you know, the ways that I'm showing up in the world don't feel like me. Number two is to say it out loud. And so that is saying it out loud, manifesting it in the world, both to yourself.

There's power to yourself. But then if you said it to someone else, too. Right? Like, what might happen if you shared this thing that you know to be true out loud? So today we're going to talk about step number three. And I want to preface this all to say it might take you years to do these things. It took me years to do some of them. Go back and watch my other videos if you want to hear those stories. But so today's is called noticing. So here's the thing about noticing. Noticing is really meaning to pay attention to what happens if you start to live in alignment with the thing you said out loud.

All right, so I'm going to give you an example. One of the things that I have learned about myself and I learned in therapy is that I think a lot about roles that I take on and what good versions of those roles are. So one of the roles that I think about a lot is what it means to be a woman. And that has been something that's been a part of my life for a really long time, both in relationship with others. So, you know, I'm heterosexual. So in my romantic relationships, in my familial systems, what does it mean to be a woman?

What does it mean to be a woman relative to being a homemaker, what do I think about that? Also professionally, what does it mean to be a woman professionally? I've sat in a lot of rooms with just men, and what does it mean to show up in those rooms and how am I supposed to behave? Right? Like, what's a good version of me? My truth was, I know that being a woman looks like a certain thing, and you can apply that to whatever role you want to. And so today, today I think I'm going to apply it to what it means to be a woman at work.

So being a woman at work, being in a professional setting, means that there's a good version of that. And so being a woman at work means being strong, right? So having a point of view, but also not too strong that you're a b****. It means looking nice and dressing up. But does that mean that I have to wear dresses and heels to be good, right? To be like that strong vision and version of myself? And so those are things that have sort of been in my head and swirling around in my head. And so in my mind, what I've come to this place of is I've noticed that I want to be me.

And so in the past, I used to do a lot of, you know, I dressed up and I did, and I still do today, but I used dresses and heels and all those things to sort of get some power, I guess I might say it. And so over time, I've noticed that that's not really who I am. That's not who I am. And so when I say that out loud and I start to manifest in the world, manifest that in the world, and then I start to notice what happens when I do. And so that's the third step, right? So how do we. What happens if we just are ourselves out in the world?

And so I've been doing that, and then what I do is I notice what happens when I do it. So I can notice what happens in my body. That's one thing. This is really something I focus a lot on in therapy, is you're gonna feel things in your body. For me, anxiety shows up up here. I start to go like this when I am scared or sad. It shows up in my stomach. It's like that uneasiness in my stomach. There are times when I start to feel like if I think that I'm not good enough, in a moment, I'll feel really small.

Like I can feel my body trying to shrink into itself. So that's just it manifesting in your body. That's that connection between your body and your brain. But now. So when I go out in the world now, and I was just at an event on Monday night with a professional association here in town, and it was a lot of men and me and some other women, but not a lot. And I was really paying attention to, like, do I have to be, like, cute and happy? Do I have to be, you know, if I wear a suit coat, is that too professional, or is that me trying to look like a man?

Or is that not sexy enough? And so these are just things that I noticed. And so I wore what felt good to me, which was pants on a shirt. And, you know, I thought about it, though, right? I also thought about it, and I thought, I'm gonna wear this, and I'm gonna see how I show up in the world and see how that feels. I'm gonna notice. So that is, step number three, is you just pay attention to how you feel. So why this matters is it's going to give you information, and you can gather that information as long as you need to before you do something.

So there might be a day where you feel more comfortable, and you're like, listen, I'm going to put on a dress because I'm going to feel better with that today. I don't want to deal with this feeling of trying out this new version of me where I don't have to show up that way. That's okay, too. So it's just really that exercise of when you have the strength, when you have the ability to go out into the world and manifest the thing that you said out loud, notice how it makes you feel. Notice what's good, notice what's bad.

Pay attention to your body, pay attention to your posture and. And where you feel feelings, and just pay attention to it. Right? And so what you're really doing is testing that thing, you know, inside of you to be true. So, for me, that thing was, I can show up as me. I don't have to necessarily wear dresses and skirts and makeup and curl my hair to be worthy. So I noticed that I said it out loud. Excuse me? I knew that was true. I said it out loud. And then I just started to notice what happens if I do it.

And what I did notice on Monday was that as I went more into myself and I relaxed into myself and stopped thinking about the norms, the social norms of what we're supposed to be, I had a good time, and I connected with five people because I was being me. All right, friends. So that is the tip of the day. That is step number three and how to stop living in survival mode. But you can honestly do it anytime. Start paying attention to your body. Start paying attention to how it feels if you are you, and just gather that information and jot it down and you can start to learn from it.

All right, I hope you all have a beautiful, beautiful weekend. We'll see you back here on Monday. You're doing an amazing job being you, so keep doing it. You are valued, you are valuable and good exactly as you are today. And so I hope you all have a great weekend, and we will see you on Monday.