The Mask and the Mirror: Seeing Yourself Clearly After Betrayal (Episode #74)

There's something about you that I can't help but smile when you smile and laugh when you laugh.

Welcome to the human intimacy podcast. Dr. Kevin Skinner. Marianne Michaelis. It's summertime and lots going on, and today's topic is a topic where I think, Marianne, if our listeners really get into it, they'll understand a lot about what they're personally experiencing. And what we're going to be talking about is lost identity. Whether I'm dealing with addiction, whether I'm dealing with betrayal, or even in our coupleship, we've lost the identity of who we thought we were because of the acting out behaviors and how we respond to this. So what are your initial thoughts, Marianne, on this concept of a lost identity?

Well, as we start out, first of all, I'm super grateful to be here and welcome to our listeners and viewers. And I think this is almost universally applicable in so many ways. Not just talking about lost identity, but also really finding our identity as we heal, as we recover. How do we find who we are? You look like you have something to say, so go ahead there and I'll jump in in a second.

Yeah, what I was going to say, Marianne, that concept of not only lost identity, but when we heal, when we recover, and when we reclaim our lives, our identity, we have an identity. You cannot heal without an identity.

And take that a little bit deeper. You cannot heal without an identity and you cannot have connection if you're living in a place of dishonesty and falsehood and secrets and lies. And you can't have real relationships if you're in that place. And I want to slow that down because I know, as I say, that there's a lot that if I've been living my life hiding and in secrecy and afraid that if people really see me, I've built this false identity, this fantasy world, and I'm not experiencing the world in an authentic way, which means none of my relationships are authentic because I'm not letting myself be seen or felt or understood.

The concept of human intimacy is letting people into me. See, so just recently I was talking with an individual who'd experienced betrayal. And when I brought up the idea of talking with friends or family members or trusted people, it was almost like this shell shocked look of, I can't do that. I can't. Right? I mean, if they know what will happen if they know. And so there was this tremendous fear, like, I can't let people know what we are experiencing.

Well, and even just who I am, I have clients who will be in my office Saying, good people don't do the things that I've done. So how do I reconcile who I am and what I've done? This is really common.

Well, and that identity, that concept of that identity is, I can't be seen if people really knew me. And that's a very common thing that we hear with people who've been acting out is I don't want people to see, because if they really knew me, they wouldn't love me, they wouldn't like me, they would judge me, they would put me down, whatever that is.

Yeah, take that. And let's take that elevator down just a little bit lower. The very first step of working through unwanted sexual behaviors is working through the denial. It's not even just if other people knew. It's that reconciliation with myself. I've been telling myself justifications and minimizations, because if I really looked at what I was doing, it doesn't match who I am, who my values are, and I don't want to see myself doing that. And we build up some pretty big barriers. We don't want to see ourselves and claim and take responsibility for our actions just because it's not even about what other people think. It's about what I think about me. And that's where the shame is so deep.

Yeah. And what I would say to that, Marianne, is something that I think is really important. I think there's events that we lose our identity on. Let's just go back to early childhood. Let's say that my first exposure is to pornography or some sexual act. I'm six years old, eight years old, and up to that time, I'm just humming along elementary school. I'm good. And then something happens that I'm going to call as traumatizing. Having a sexual experience with a neighbor. And now you don't know how to make sense of it. And now I'm in a situation where nobody knows, and I have these feelings. And I'm curious because, like, that. That was. What was that? And so now I'm, like, trying to recreate it, or I'm trying to figure out how to get that feeling back, which is not uncommon, because in my research, after discovering something like pornography, people generally go back to it within a month. And so just putting this in the context, where did my identity go? I might have been a happy, go, lucky child. And now I have this secret, which I think is a part of taking away our identity. And I'm scared. I'm afraid I don't want to be seen.

And what's interesting is I'm hearing you talk about that, Dr. Skinner. As a parent, I think about my kids, and I think about. As a parent, oftentimes, you know, when something happens with your kid, you look at your kid and you're like, something's not right here. Something's off. Something happened. But as a kid, we're like, oh, no. Like, I gotta hold this in. I think this perpetuates even into adulthood. I gotta keep this secret. And if I do, nobody will notice.

But.

But we do see it and notice it from the outside.

Might I say that the attuned parent.

Does.

Because I think some individuals and families are so busy preoccupied with other stuff that I might not see my child go into that place. And again, no judgment. It's just I think that that's also a situation where there's sometimes we're not attending to each other.

Yeah. And I think that goes for an attuned spouse as well. And on the other hand, I have clients who are just like, I was so blown out of the water. Like, sometimes there are signs, and sometimes there aren't signs.

A few years ago, I was talking with a friend, and her son had found a device and for four or five years was viewing pornography, had no idea. No idea. And I think that that's what we're talking about is this again. In today's world, it's so easy to have these hidden secrets, these things that parents don't know because they're so easily accessible that we can lose that identity early on. And now parents are like, are you okay? Yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine. Is it school? Did something happen? And I'm so scared to talk about it. That's where we see the lost identity right there. And that's just if it's, I don't know, pornography or if it's some other sexual activity being abused.

So I want to ask some questions about this, and for our listeners and our viewers, there's no script right now for this at all. And so we may come around full circle. But the question I'm wondering about is you're. In my generation, we have a lot of shame around pornography, around unwanted sexual behaviors. Culturally, there's a different level of shame. The Barna research study back in 2016 found that kids said they found it more morally reprehensible to not recycle than to look at porn. And so as we're talking about how this changes us and these secrets we're holding, the question I'm wondering about is, do you think that like generationally, that's different. So a kid today, because they're inundated with it, it's ubiquitous, it's everywhere. Does that change still happen?

From my perspective, I would say still most 16, 17, 18, 24 year olds, they're probably not openly saying, hey, want to come look at porn with me? It's still a solo event in most cases, not always. So if it's done in secrecy and I don't want people to know, then I would say not a lot has changed. But now that's not, that's not everybody. But I think the upcoming generation is more open to it. I. I've talked with lots and lots of single adults and I asked the question, how do you perceive it? And I think that's different than maybe my grandparents and even my parents generation where, you know, you'd walk into a store and come out with a paper bag over your head and you know, secretive behaviors. But at the end of the day, today's generation is much more open to it and like you said, a more reprehensible not to recycle than to look at porn. So yes, we have a shift, but it's still not something that we're socially. How do I say this embracing in the way that I'm openly saying, hey, you wanna come have a porn party with me? That's generally not what's happening.

Okay. And so as you're saying that, and I think this is a great discussion just to explore as you say that, then that just brings up for me Brene Brown's work. Shame thrives in secrecy, silence and judgment.

Right?

Yes. So it still sounds like it still fits in that as we're talking about how it impacts us, how we carry it. Even young people, I think was what we're saying is even young people, when they're being exposed to it or when they're experiencing pornography or other things, there's still that maybe that inborn like this isn't something good that I want to tell everybody about. There's a loss of identity that happens somewhere.

Yes. And let's speak specifically to that. Identity is something that we have to form. You cannot not have an identity. You perceive yourself in social situations. I am. Finish the sentence. Socially, I am comfortable. I'm uncomfortable. I am smart. I'm not smart. I'm good at math. I'm not good at math. All those are identity forming. I'm not like others. You can hear the statements, I have friends. Yeah, we have a lot of fun. Right. So an identity is something you Cannot, not form. And when we have those types of secrets, when we have experiences that hold us back, then absolutely, the identity begins to shift. Because in secrecy and in silence, I don't want people to know how I see myself or who I am.

Therefore, I will be quiet. I will maybe hold myself back. I'll either be outwardly quiet or else I'll be inwardly quiet. One of the two. But I'm going to be avoiding in some way, shape or form, because I'm not showing up all the way.

Or maybe even more challenging is I put on an identity that creates a double identity. Inside, I'm torn up. Externally, I'm an extrovert. I'm out there trying to prove that I'm enough. Trying to show that everything's good. And that's a very different world than it me internalizing it. I might still be internalizing it, but I'm putting on a completely different Persona to show that I'm good.

You know, one of the exercises I love to do in my groups is a mask exercise. And I ask my clients to. To just draw masks of what we're letting people see. Here's a mask of what everybody on the outside gets to see. And then here's the mask that's on the inside.

Yeah.

And then if they are open to higher power work, some of my clients will do a mask of this is how my higher power sees me. And that part is usually really tender and raw. But being able to sit and look at these different identities that we've created is really powerful, even just acknowledging it. So I'd love to invite our listeners who are here, our viewers, if you want a fun exercise, start checking out the different masks you wear.

And maybe a fun question. What is my identity when I'm looking at porn and. Or sexually acting out? And what is my identity when I'm not right? How do I see myself? Can I even see my identity without it? I've had so much fun recently on my online group. It's just so interesting to hear individuals talk about their identity without the sexual behaviors. And there's confidence and there is a sense of hope and a sense of joy. When you're hearing about three and four and five years of sobriety, you literally are hearing a very different energy than I don't know if I can get through this. I don't know if I can stop. I don't know. Right. And that's a different identity. It's fun to watch.

And I feel like I'm always going backwards. And there's there's two other parts that I see in the betrayed partner. When who am I? Everything that I thought, I believed and knew is gone. And who am I moving forward? And I don't have a template and what will that look like? So there's that part of it. And part of that may also be I'm angry and I'm not a rage filled person, but here I am with rage all of the time or doing things that, that I don't like. But then there's this other part of. I think it's a crossroads, whether it's a betrayed partner or whether it's somebody who's been acting out sexually. I think there's a moment where my clients, I see them sitting there going, who am I if I'm not these things? I have no idea. It feels so naked.

Ooh, yeah. So, so vulnerable. And now you're shifting into the betrayed partner lens. See, I have an identity prior to D day, right. A couple's identity. How I see this relationship and how I see myself. And it's not always that way because there's some couples that have had challenging identities, like, how do we fit together? That's not always related to betrayal. Sometimes that relationship identity has been like driving a clutch or a stick shift. It's just herky jerky and it's not smooth, but in some cases it has felt smooth. And it's like a shock, like what happened here. And I think we have differences of shock in how it impacts the identity. And so I don't know if I can talk about this. So. Silence, isolation, secretive. Again, many betrayed partners, I've had them say, 10, 20, 30 years of not telling anybody. Yeah, I mean, that weight of that kind of isolation and secrecy, what does it do to the body? It's so impactful in a negative way.

Yeah. The physiological changes can be dramatic. One of the examples I use with my clients is it's kind of like putting your car in neutral and put your foot on the gas and just letting it rev. It's just running and running and running. At some point, our body has to break down. If we're carrying that inside. I really love this topic in that sometimes if we're saying, hey, how do you describe that person? We talk about, like in the movie Elf, they talk about, oh, you're an angry elf. There are labels that we put on ourselves or that we take that people will ascribe to us. Oftentimes my clients will say, well, I got really good grades, like I was an academic or I was really Responsible. And while these might be some things that societally we say, oh, hey, these are looked upon, you know, very favorably. These may actually be our survival skills. And when I sit down with my clients and say, because you were so responsible, maybe you were responsible because your parents weren't functioning very well and you had to learn how to be responsible. Maybe you were parentified and everybody talked about what a great little mother you were. What, the caretaker? Yeah. What did you miss? What did you not get to develop? Because I look at these as survival skills.

Yeah.

My personality may be based on a whole bunch of different survival skills that aren't really who I am. So what did I miss if I had to be the parent? Maybe I missed a lot of spontaneity. Maybe I missed a lot of getting in trouble and learning and exploring and being creative. I didn't learn how to not be responsible. And so looking at, oh, what are some other areas that maybe I didn't get to develop? And maybe I really want to develop?

Because, you know, Marianne, this topic could be an online course all by itself. Let me explain what I'm thinking here. So just as an example, when I'm a child, I form an identity. How I perceive myself, how I perceive relationships, how I perceive the world around me. Safe, not safe. How I perceive myself academically, how I perceive myself in social situations, how I perceive myself in a spiritual context. As we get a little bit older, am I a jokester? Am I serious? Am I a computer programmer? Is my identity around an occupation? All of those things. And so when we say, who are you? My goodness, we're complex beings. I'm this and I'm that. I'm a therapist and a father. What else could I say? I'm also a person who grew up as a child with divorced parents. How did that influence my identity? I'm also somebody who has education, and I'm also a person who grew up on a farm and learned how to rogue potatoes. All of those are parts of me that are part of my identity. But when we work with our clients, usually there is a dominant identity that keeps them stuck. It's that identity of not being enough, not whatever enough, not good enough, not lovable. And we come back to a core belief of my identity. And so I might be all of those things that I listed earlier, but if I have a belief that there's something wrong with me, I might work super hard to prove to everybody that I'm enough because I'm trying to earn, so to speak, this concept of being enough.

So you're talking about a core self belief then. So under all these identities are the beliefs that I've created about myself, that I carry throughout my life through all of these roles. It's like an undergirding.

And if I'm not careful, that identity can literally bleed into every aspect of my life. And that's the danger of having unresolved, negative core beliefs that have been with us sometimes from childhood into our adult years.

I've had clients that I've worked with who've had a lot of anger. And anytime I talk about anger with my clients, I'm always saying, anger's on the top. There's always something. It's oil and water. It's what's underneath. We need to get to that. But I've seen clients struggle, like, to let go of that identity. When we say, what would it look like for you to not have this anger? It can feel so disconcerting. It's like, wait, what? What do you mean you're stripping away who. Who I like? I've been wearing this jacket for so long, it's become part of me. I don't. I don't know how to take this off. I had a client a while ago, say, Marianne, it's like, I thought I was a dog my whole life, and you're telling me I'm a cat. I don't know how to be a cat. I don't know how to be this other thing. We were working with her core self beliefs, actually. And looking at, maybe you weren't a problem. Maybe the people around you had a lot of dysfunction and you were actually trying to get your needs met. Changing those core beliefs, looking at ourselves through different lens, that's really hard work. It can be really incredibly disconcerting. And then we feel like, I know who I am.

Yeah.

What do I do here?

Right. And what you just described to me is so incredibly important because when we haven't felt or thought those feelings of a positive identity, it is threatening in some ways to feel like, what would it mean if I was enough? Would I stay in this marriage?

Oh, yeah, that's huge.

Or if I was enough, would I continue acting out? Sometimes I think those beliefs are that powerful that they dictate what we do and don't do, what we say and what we don't say.

Yeah, I hear you just ask those questions. And I can imagine all the clients I've worked with and listeners just sitting there going, oh, I don't even know how to think about this. I don't even know what to do with this. What do you mean? What would that even look like if I didn't have this? I have no template. I have no concept. I don't even have a way to even think about how I might be or what my relationships would look like, because it feels like it's part of me. And I think what we're saying is part of healing and recovery is really getting down to that deep core of what we value, honoring who we really are at a deep down level.

If I could add a part in there. So we've talked about, I've been in secrecy, hiding sexual behaviors, or I've been betrayed. And again, maybe even a broader looking at what do you think about yourself? What have you felt about yourself even before a committed relationship? Right. What was your identity before this relationship? Because then we go into the couple identity. Because when you get into a coupleship that forms its own identity, how we see this relationship and how we see each other and how we see each other in relationship to the world around us. And then when that coupleship is brought into question through some form of betrayal, I don't know who we are anymore, maybe because I don't know you as well. But now, how do we do this coupleship dance? So the coupleship loses its original identity and has to be recreated.

I think that there's so many nuances here, aren't there? I think about my clients who, when their spouses are using healthy behaviors, there's this, I don't even know how to do this. I don't know who that person is. I don't know how to respond to them. I know how to respond to all the unhealthy. So in that coupleship, when one partner changes, it can impact how we change because we're a system. And that can be really disconcerting. Just as you're saying in that coupleship as well.

Because I'm uncomfortable with this. What I would perceive as a different you, a different us. I'll give you a couple pathways on this, not uncommon, where one or both partners begin to have a voice that they haven't had a voice of in the past. Maybe they start saying, creating a boundary. Maybe, yeah. Or I start being more authentic and honest about a relapse. And it's such a shock to the system. I might like the openness, but I'm shocked about what you're saying and what you're doing and why are you doing this now? And I often hear that one from betrayed partners. Why are you doing this now? And Part of it is because I'm not going to have secrets anymore. I'm not going to live in this isolation anymore. And so it brings a whole shift to the relationship related to communication. So, Marianne, one of the things that I think is really important here is to identify maybe the identity you felt that you had as a couple before discovery. And it may have been rocky and ugly, or it may have been beautiful, who knows? But now the identity after discovery and where we want it to be, because it's going to need to be a new relationship. We've heard that from multiple experts, but I see that as a complete truth. This is a new identity as a couple.

I wonder, Dr. Skinner, in my mind, I'm thinking before I can even get to that couple part, I've got to break that down and do that internal personal work as an individual. Because if this started when I was seven years old, I've got to figure out this, this burden the seven year old's been carrying, these core self beliefs the seven year old's been carrying, this shame and secrecy and hiding that they've been carrying even coming into the relationship with those secrets. And my spouse has never known me because I've never really known myself either because I've had this weight that I've been carrying. I think we have to do some of that work and then we get into that coupleship and this is a process for sure.

I don't think you can really effectively do the coupleship without understanding your own identity. That's like bringing 75% of me and saying, well, this is me. But the other 25% I can't bring because I don't want that part to be seen. So I have to understand who I am and how that's influenced our dynamics. It's essential, at least from my perspective. Human intimacy. You can't bring 80% of yourself to have a humanly intimate conversation and intimacy in the relationship. It doesn't work very well because you feel like something's missing. I'll let you see a part of me, but I'm not gonna let you see me.

Or I can show up and I can say the right words, but it won't feel anything.

No, because it's, it's not genuinely the authentic real me.

We're talking about really a lot of self authenticity. But I wanna make sure we talk about one other aspect of this. When we start doing trauma work, one of the questions we have to ask is, is my client really like, what's their intent? Are they really motivated to do this, do they want to change? And we have to look at. Are there any secondary gains for staying where they're at? So if I'm working with a group of vets and their identity is wrapped up in being a wounded vet, and they've got a support group and they've got connections, and this is their identity, if we say, hey, we're going to do this great travel work, and you won't have the PTSD showing up for you anymore, all these things where you've been stuck, Sometimes when we take away those barriers and obstacles, it shows up, like, wait, I don't have my support group. I don't have my friends. I don't belong here anymore. And so sometimes we have to look and say, are there any secondary gains? Is there anything that I'm benefiting from by staying in this place? And I think that's an important part of this, is looking at our identities. Why? How do they help us?

I'm scared to not be who I've been. That's a part. I don't know. How will I show up? What will that be like? Will you even like that? Me?

Yeah.

Sometimes we become so accustomed to what we're thinking and feeling using Joe Dispenza's concept, we become addicted to our own thoughts and feelings. That concept just rings true in almost everything that we talk about because we become so accustomed to the way we think, the way we feel. And I would add to that the way we believe or the way we think and believe about ourselves.

I hope I'm quoting this right, but I think he says about 90 to 95% of what we do, we're on autopilot. We don't have to learn how to drive our car every time we get into it. We don't have to learn how to tie our shoelaces. Every time we put our shoes on, our brain just knows how to do it. And so if I've been hiding for 25 years, it's really easy for me to hide. You know, I remember years ago talking to a client's spouse, and he just said, yeah, I lie all the time. I was like, well, why do. He's like, I have no idea. I just lie all the time. And. And that's just part of how he had become. He didn't know why he did. It just was easy. And it served a purpose for him at some someplace in time, but it became part of his identity.

So really important. Dr. Dispenza did say that about 90 to 95% of what we do is on autopilot. Which makes sense if you and I had to think about something new every day. How did you get dressed, how to drive a car, how to even prepare food, we wouldn't get anything done. So for simplicity purposes, when we've done something, our brain says, I know how to do that. I've done that before. And that's how it functions or that's how it operates. So when we create change, we have to turn off autopilot. We, we absolutely essential have to turn off autopilot. The way we think, the way we feel, the way we act, we have to do that in the change process.

I think as I'm hearing you say that, Dr. Skinner, I'm thinking, this, this sounds scary, this sounds hard. Because we're talking about seeing ourselves in a whole new way that probably seems unimaginable. I don't even know how to see myself.

So to what you just said, absolutely, I understand the hard. Can I reframe that? How absolutely exciting that I can think and feel and act and I can be different because that's the concept of neuroplasticity that gives every one of us the ability to change. So I recognize there is absolute fear in change because I don't know what that looks like. But when you start getting momentum and you stack one thing upon the next, what we call habit stacking positive, maybe it's exercising, maybe it's a thought exercise. Maybe it's doing some recovery work, man, I'll tell you what, when you watch people in recovery, that's what exactly what they do. So while it is intimidating when you get the ball rolling, you don't want to give it up. Why would I go back to that place in the book, PATRICK CARNES book Don't call it love. When they interviewed, I don't know, it was almost a thousand people who were in essay groups and they asked individuals who'd been sober for a year plus, one of the most common phrases they used is that I look back at my former self with disgust or disdain because I now see myself in a wool past versus now. Why would I knowingly give up that world? I would for sure because that world was dark and negative. And I want a world of hope and joy and creativity. And this is the real me going back to the identity what we're talking about. Who am I? It's who I choose to be. So for me, change is exciting.

I love that reframe because I can feel your energy, I can feel your excitement and saying, yeah, it can be. It can Be scary. Stepping into the unknown and stepping into the unknown can be so many things.

Look, what I get to do, I get to create a new self. One of my favorite concepts is we're always evolving. Whether we want to or not, we are always evolving and changing from the inside out. Our bodies, from a cellular perspective, they change. There is some thing fascinating about this human that's changing. And if I think different, if I feel different, I'm going to start feeling different. I'm going to start thinking different. That's the beauty of change. So when we talk about that identity, we don't have a fixed identity. It is a continuous creation. And that to me, provides hope.

And I would say we do have a fixed worth. I just want to bring that part in. There is that core of who we are, which is a person who is worthy of love and connection. And the rest is discovery.

So, Marianne, you just changed the topic, right? Because if we were talking about worth, you're always of worth. I don't care where you've been, what you've done, you are of infinite worth and value. Now, the identity is how I perceive myself. And in fact, I would argue that the stress we feel in life is when we move away from our worth because we know the truth internally and we are living a lie. When we put ourselves down, when we're not enough, when we feel like a failure. All the negative beliefs that we've talked about. Because the core identity, that is true. Infinite worth, value, incredible. That doesn't change.

I love these conversations. Dr. Skinner, what we're talking about here, we wrap up into internal family systems theory that we have a core self, and then we have wounding, and we have things we form to protect us, to help us navigate in the world that aren't always helpful or healthy. But our goal is to come back to that whole self.

Yeah. Yeah.

Which is so. Yeah.

Marianne, as we get ready to close, who are we? Who am I? Who are you? To our listeners, who are you? Ask yourself the question. Look in the mirror. Listen to what you see. And in fact, if you want an assignment, take a couple minutes and write down some of your core identities. How do I see this? Me? And if you really want to try and exercise, try to look at the positive to negative ratio of how you see yourself. And I'm going to guess you spend most of your time on your negative identities. That's where you spend your time thinking. That's where we spend our time feeling. I'm too. I'm not enough. That's where we spend A majority of our time, unfortunately, we don't realize the identities that we do have that are positive. They probably get little mind time because we're just doing them automatically.

Could I wrap up with a quick story about this topic? Back in January, when we were in Washington D.C. and we were marching outside the Supreme Court, there were some signs that people had brought for us to use to march with. We talked beforehand, what are our signs going to say? And we'd had some fun working on the creativity of it. As we were rifling through trying to figure out which sign do I want to hold F and use? There was a sign that I saw and I was, ooh, I don't wanna use that sign. I don't even wanna get close to that sign. Yuck. And as we were marching, we were going along and then somebody said, like here. And we were moving signs and I picked up a sign and I had an emotional reaction, like a very strong. I was very surprised at the emotional reaction. This sign said porn hurt me. And I had not wanted to step into that. I wanted to wait. I didn't want to carry a sign saying porn hurt me, that it had impacted my life. I felt shame. It took me a little while. It took me a while to say, wait, this is part of my reality. Porn hurt me. It hurt me through all the relationships that I've had where it devastated my life. But I bring this up because there are often realities of who we are, where we've been, what has impacted us, that is part of our identity or that shaped our identity, that we are often very avoidant, that we are very uncomfortable to even pick up. And I noticed that in myself. And now today I can say porn hurt me. But boy, seeing those words and holding up in a sign, oh, socially, that was really vulnerable. That was really hard. But I look at that. Yeah, that's the reality. But there were emotions there. There was some work that I had to do there.

I love that story. Very real and personal. And so to our listeners, if I could just invite you to do something for us. Think about your identity. Sit down on a piece of paper and just go for it. Just, just do a self exploration look at what you think and feel about yourself. In six months, do the same thing. And then a year from now, do the same thing. Sit down with yourself. 20 minutes, 30 minutes, look at your identity and what you'll find is some things are changing, some things aren't. And identify the things that you want to change and then set some specific goals. I want to change this part of my identity, go figure out, look in the mirror. Who am I? How do I see myself? And a lot of questions. Do I like who I am? Do I like the way I am socially? Do I like who I am in relationships? Do I like how I interact with other people? Do I like my. The way I'm working? Do I like my hygiene? All of those influence that concept of your identity. But never, ever, ever, ever forget your infinite worth and value.

As we're. We're talking about looking at ourselves, I want to invite our listeners and viewers to take a minute to see yourself. Not just to look, but so many times, you know, we. We get ready in the morning and we comb our hair, we do our makeup, whatever we do. But how often do we actually take time to look at ourselves, look in our eyes and just to really see ourselves?

Yes.

Not just the looking, but to see deeply into ourselves and to accept at least where we're at in that moment. It's okay to be where I'm at right now. It's okay to say, hmm, I've got some things I want to change. But right here, right now, I'm okay right here, too.

Yes, I'm worthy, because that's the journey. You're always of infinite worth, but the journey is we get to be somebody that we're creating. We are all a creation, and we're constantly creating ourselves, and we're always the foundation. If we know our core, we'll figure out everything else. But if we don't know our core of infinite worth and value, then the wind can blow and we can end up not enough, a failure, unlovable. And that's when the wind blows and takes us away from our core identity. Let's make sure that we keep our identity. And to our listeners, don't forget how important you are.

May you have a blessed day.

Thank you very much.

When you smile and laugh, when you laugh, something surround you.

It's like you're shining, you're staring.