Episode #29 – Embodying A Newer Version of You

Transcript

Hi everyone, welcome back to another podcast. This is your girl Glennavelle Manarang. Welcome to Soulish Femme, if this is your first time tuning in to my podcast, I would like to welcome you. In today’s topic is titled, “Embodying a newer version of you.” Embodying is to represent a quality or an idea exactly. One of the trickiest parts about healing is trying to rebuild yourself. It becomes tricky because before the abuse had taken place in your life, you have embodied innocence and you viewed it as a friendly place to be in and you would not have ever imagined that someone will take advantage of your innocence and rob you of your dignity. You walked carefree and your childlike spirit was intact. You were calm, happy, and venturing into to the world. You saw the world full of possibilities.

However, the day you have been violated and have endured abuse, your world came crashing down. The time when that abuse happened, the person that you used to be before it finally hit you, you became enraged. And sometimes when you’re enraged, it doesn’t occur in the midst of the abuse. Rather, it manifests the moment you remove yourself from it. You could say life has forged you in the fire. Additionally, you may be wondering why is it so hard to embody the older version of you after you have got out of the abuse.

Why do you think that is? In my own theory, I believe that it is the way because you realized that if you remain innocent, too kind to people and stayed naive, then you might be abused again and again and that people will take advantage of you once again. that you have promised yourself to never allow that experience to happen once again. So it is about your fear and the lessons you have learned when you when you realize that I’m not thus there’s going to be a constant struggle of trying to embody the old version of you and the version of you after you endure the abuse. Abuse has its funny way of changing your DNA and how you view yourself and how you perceive the world.

This is why it is tricky and it takes a lot of inner healing. It is hard to pick up the broken pieces by rebuilding your life before and after the abuse had happened. At some point your life is fragmented and there are times where you feel lost and confused by trying to understand who you are now after the abuse. Granted, you know that you are never the same again. You know that what was done to you shattered your reality about life and people. So the question is it possible to embody a newer version of yourself after the abuse? And the answer is yes.

Although it is a process, it takes time. It is about learning from the abuse that not everyone has good intentions at heart and not everyone cannot be trusted again and that trust is earned also by learning to place boundaries. One of the ways that you can create a newer version of you is when you remove yourself from a toxic environment. You cannot grow from a place where you are being abused from. It will continue on. But removing yourself from people who have done you wrong. You have a better chance of healing properly for you are not constantly reminded of that familiar place where the abuse had taken place.

The environment that you are going to be healed from does matter. When I escaped and removed myself from the abusive man and abusive person persons in my life because there were more than two people I was involved with. One of the wisest things I have done was lived on my own and not dependent on them financially by getting myself a job. And one of the reasons why for so many women or perhaps men who cannot escape from the abuse is because of financial control. Sometimes narcissistic people will use money to control you.

However, it is important that once you remove yourself from that abusive person, you now can start rebuilding a life and start healing from a place of understanding and grace. So another point I would like to make is that to embody a newer version of you is to replace any negative beliefs you have about yourself after the abuse. Once you have removed yourself from the abuse, it is natural that you will rem be reminded of certain memories that will remind you of your past. It is natural that you’re going to have relapse. It is natural that you’re going to feel sorry about yourself. You feel disgusted about yourself and you will live in a constant guilt and shame that you have forgotten to love yourself but inflict more harm to yourself.

So when I got out of the abuse, the problem with the abuse is that sometimes we are not from a place of healing yet. We are still a place of destructive because there is a process of an abused person trying to heal from that abusive relationship. you are actually going to sometimes numb your pain. People route into addiction. You become addicted to excessive shopping perhaps or drug use or alcoholism or gambling or being overly sexual even if I could not afford it. I was overly shopping because I did not realize I thought that I would feel much better once I removed myself from the from the abusive relationship.

However, the manifestations and the pain are going to just show up in a different way once you live on your own because here you are by yourself and trying to figure out what happened to you. You’re trying so hard to rebuild a life around that. However, if you don’t have the right tools, if you are if you are still not really self-aware of trying to come of a place of your ready to be healed, you’re going to actually make the wrong decisions. So in my case, I was actually getting into debt. I was more addicted to shopping and getting overly scheduling myself because I did not want to look at myself in the mirror. I was running away from my pain.

So my crutch and my band-aid was going to school, getting a job, working so hard, going to the gym, hanging out with my friends, and partying at night, clubbing and drinking and promis being promiscuous because that was the thing about trying to figure out how you can heal. So I also picked on my hair. It did not dawn on me later on in life that it did not dawn on me later on in life that your hair has a correlation to our mental state. You remember me for a second. I was obsessed of getting a haircut every other week. I told you before, maybe if you’re here for the first time, one of my hair stylist, she was a Korean woman that I love so much just know how to cut my hair. She finally declined one day and said, “I will no longer cut your hair because there’s nothing for me to cut anymore. It’s already short. What would you like me to do? Your hair is already bub cut.”

But because I was taking on my hair because of my frustrations, I was actually carrying a lot of maybe guilt or shame on my hair that I was picking on it unbeknownst to me. I am saying this because after I removed myself from him or from that relationship, I actually loved growing my hair. I have stopped cutting it. It was kind of form of this place that I was trying to let my hair be the rebellious side of me because the man that I used to date was obsessed about having me having a long hair. And it was my way of rebelling that against him and says, “I’m not going to have a long hair because you’re controlling me. I I do not want to be controlled by you.”

So I would do the opposite and I would chop my hair off literally just to prove my point that you are no longer going to be telling me how I should wear my hair or I should clothes myself because when people are involved with narcissistic men, they will control you to a point where they will tell you what to wear and not to wear and how you should do your hair and how you should, you know, live your life and the colors of your nail polish. This is the kind of abuse or control that manipulative men and narcissistic men are doing. And I was rebelling it. I felt as though by cutting my hair to a point there’s nothing more to cut.

I was sending a message that you are not going to dictate or tell me how to live my life or tell me how to I become a woman or cut my hair. So, I believe that part of your healing journey is that knowing what you’re about and knowing what you really stand for and do not compromise. No matter what people may ask of you, if it does not resonate in your bones, you must not compromise and do it because the thing about people is that they will try to change you for who you’re not. And that is what you call brainwashing, indoctrination, and changing the identity that God created you to become.

Of course, your body image also plays an integral role in creating a newer version of yourself. Your body image consists of your appearance, your lifestyle, and of course, the way that you’re going to style your clothing. When you do when you don’t feel good about your life, you will neglect it. When you are pathetic, you’re apathetic about life. When you’re not pathetic, when you’re apathetic, you don’t have the energy. You’re always tired, lethargic. You will not going to put an effort. Most women who have been through abuse like myself. I had a time in my life where I was overeing. I was overindulgence, overconumption because I thought to myself, what’s the point of taking care of my body anyway? I am not worth it.

So, I’m just going to eat junk food and getting fat and whatever because I remember that I tend to overeat much of junk food. I hated my body. I was I had a very bad relationship with my body. I did not love what I see in the mirror. I hated how I looked. Mind you, ever since I was a little girl, I was always skinny. Migrating from the Philippines to the USA when I was 16, I was about 89 lbs. I was like a twig. Over time after the abuse had occurred that is when I started developing bad eating habits. I was overeing and very had addicted to sweets and I was just indulging to numb my pain and try to really just cover up the pain that I was feeling.

Then the moment I had a chance to indulge, I overeat and over consumed that I gained so much weight. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that just because you’re a chubby or you love to eat, it doesn’t mean it’s true for everybody. This is just based on my experience. So after a while when I felt sorry for myself and that’s exactly what I said that I cannot stand how I look at myself in the mirror, I went to the other extreme from being chubby and then I also developed another eating problem or eating. I’m not I don’t want to call myself eating disorder because it was not I was not anorexic or bimic but I was chewing gum so that I would not going to gain so much weight.

So in high school I remember that sometimes in lunchtime I would not eat. I would just chew gum. Over time I developed acid reflux because it was also my way of trying not to get too fat. So I was disgusted about how I looked. I was getting chubby out of, you know, getting all of this weight in my body and so I did the extreme. So, when you really have a bad body image and you don’t have a healthy image of yourself, when you look at yourself in the mirror, you’re going to do both extremes. One, I overeat, overindulged.

The second one, I over actually starve myself to a point where I would not eat something, especially when I was very depressed. I did not want to eat. I didn’t want to just do something with myself. There was a time that I was very sad and depressed that I could not move my body and I couldn’t work. I was very apathetic in life. I just want to give up. And so the problem with that thing is that’s the process of your brain trying to figure out what is happening to you because all of these things does not come to you when you’re in the middle of the abuse. This is after the effect. This is the ramifications of you trying to figure out who you are after the abuse.

As I said, before the abuse, you were innocent, gullible. You just believe everybody else that has a good intentions at heart. You thought that the world is a safe place to be in and you were just walking around the world with no clarity that people can actually hurt you, that you need to have boundaries and to protect yourself. And during the abuse, of course, you’re still in the face of frozen. Are you going to escape? Are you going to try to salvage yourself? Is this a place for me to really just get stuck? Sometimes people would say or ask me, why didn’t you just ask for help? I tried.

But the fear of that is the manipulation of people trying to tell you that no one’s going to believe you or if you’re going to say something to someone, bad thing is going to happen to you. So there’s always this fear of hesitation because the person who would do something wrong they’re always it comes with a threat and you will you’re actually stuck with that kind of being afraid that if I would say something then I might get harm in the process. So you just keep it to yourself for so long and of course the shame comes with it and the guilt.

And another thing part of body image and embodying a newer version of yourself is your style. Your style is your brand. You’re a walking brand or you’re a walking billboard. If you think about it, the style is not only limited to a piece of clothing you put on your body, but it says so much about your personality and how you want to showcase yourself in the world. The world is your runway from my own experience. I was able to thrive from the abusive relationships because I use fashion as my weapon. Despite the abuse that was happening within the walls of my house, I was still fashionable.

Every time I went to school or went to work, I somehow think that clothes have its magical way of transforming me into a different persona that I have embodied. Why do you think every time you watch Batman, Superman or Catwoman movies, these characters turn into someone else from their character, right? They turn into this heroic figure. their customs represented a heroic figure. In the same manner, when you try on a piece of clothing that you feel confident in and you know how to dress your body type, you will feel much better about yourself. That is why in school, one of my classmates would tell me I am always fashionable because I somehow convinced myself that if I can camouflage my pain by dressing up impeccably, I would be okay.

That people shouldn’t know about what’s happening behind closed doors. I used fashion or clothing as a masquerade to cover up what was happening behind closed doors that I did not want to be able to show my classmates or the people that did not that knew me in school or my friends that I was struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts. I was so good at having two kinds of persona living a secret life. One something that I exuded for the world to see. the happy, outgoing woman, the one that’s very kind and very friendly and very excited about life. But unbeknownst to the world or the classmates or friends who came in contact with me that behind closed doors at night time, I was actually struggling with how I can live in this world.

So this is why I really think that embodying someone that you want to become it it takes of it takes time and it comes down to your selfawareness. You cannot embody someone without knowing who you would like to become. Now you could say or ask yourself the question am I trying to become a hypocrite because I’m actually trying to become someone that that I’m not. Who am I who am I really right now if I try to become someone that I’m actually not? And that is very tricky question because I am still in the process of trying to to merge the there are two personalities that you’re trying to merge. one from the older version of you before the abuse because I want to keep her because I don’t want to lose sight of her innocence.

I don’t want to lose sight of her greediness. I don’t want to lose sight of her ability to get through life because without that older version of me, I wouldn’t be here because she is feisty. She is very strong. She did not quit in life and I want to keep that part of me. On another side, there’s another layer of me that she is now healthy. She knows exactly what she stands for and she’s not going to take nonsense anymore from people and she’s going to have healthy and clear boundaries and that is also one of the persona that I want to embody in myself.

As I said, embodiment is something that you must have a clear vision of what it is that you would like to embody. It is not by doing things. It is by being. It is who you become after the abuse. It is what you’re going to become. Who do you stand? What are you standing for? Are you going to be one of those people that are just going to stand for something today and then you’re going to compromise tomorrow just because everybody says this is the right way to go? You will know that you have become that person when somebody is going to ask you and going to say something. Are you willing to really let go of that part of you? Are you really going to stand for for what you believe?

Because people are going to test you whether you have really changed or become authentic of who you really are. There are people in our lives that sometimes I think God allows us to encounter whether we are true to what we believe in. And it’s actually is a test of your character whether or not you have embodied that version of you. As I said embodiment is selfactualization when you realize to yourself that this is I want to become. It is not just the clothing that you wear. It is not just the makeup that you put on your face. It’s actually an emotion. It is a being. It is a feeling to be or not to be.

Whether you want to be this sophisticated, elegant, timeless, classy woman or you just want to be a woman that is rock and roll, I don’t give a hoot or whatever kind of persona you would like to embody. It is act is actually yours to begin with. As I said, when you want to embody something, you have to feel it. It has to be resonated from a a spirit of authenticity and genuinity, you cannot fake it. It is something that you cannot superficially create out of an illusion because that illusion will be shattered eventually. Because if you’re going to walk around pretending to be someone that you’re not, and you have not fully embodied the ver the version that you truly feel on the inside, you’re going to be found out and you’re going to feel as though you are a impostor.

Because sometimes when you’re trying to recreate yourself, a different version of yourself, you feel an imposttor. I felt that for a while because now I’m trying to be calm, unbothered, have healthy boundaries. I’m not going to be easily pushed over. I’m not going to overreact to the triggers that I was used to because before that my old version was easily triggered. My old version was emotionally unstable. My old version was undisiplined. When her emotions, when everybody is triggering me, I would always overly react. I was reactive. I was impatient. I would get enraged.

However, fast forward, the more and more I have done the work and the more I have keep in touch with myself and introspected about how I feel of what resonates with me, I have now a better chance or ability to control my temper. The things that used to put me in a downhill path, now I can actually stay in the homeostasis. I can now say to myself, okay, this is just a phase. this two shall pass. I will have a better idea of how to regulate my emotions.

Sometimes I would go to the park and think or go to my car and drive away so that I can have a a clarity of what I’m feeling. I would journal, I would pray, I would go to my closet. So now I have a better understanding of how I can deal with my emotions. Before I would just go down to the rabbit hole of this is so stupid. I rather want to die. I would get into this overly dramatic, you know, drama queen yelling and screaming and crying and hysterically crying and put covers in my head and screaming on my pillow because that was a very reactive version of me.

And so when you truly know who you are and you have embodied her no matter what people throw at you and I said life comes with test people are used as an instrument whether or not you are truly sure that you have embodied that version of yourself fully. I think it is way of God or maybe you want to call it universe by testing your authenticity whether you are not fooling yourself or you just really are having this idea in your head but you’re not really fully developed her yet.

So please be patient with yourself if you have not fully arrived because as I always say it is a process. It is not something that you whipped and then magically you are her. It is something that you do you do day in and day out. It’s something that you practice.

And the only way for you to really embodied her fully is through the test through people because of course one time you probably got mad and you are you were got pissed off and your guards were down and you lose sight of that version of you. calm, collected, and unbothered. And other times she’s going to show up with calm, unbothered, and collected. And other times she’s not. She’s probably erratic, emotionally unstable. So, it’s going to go back and forth.

You’re going to have those moments of vacasillating between the woman that truly you would like to embody, and the version of you, the old version of you that she’s going to show up once a once in a while, the crazy one, the one that is emotionally unstable because of her pain. No, she’s not really crazy to a point because she choose to be. She just become disassociated with herself. I really think that I was overly reactive, impatient, and always trying to be easily triggered because I was still not healing. I did not tap into my self-awareness journey. I was still running from my pain. Did not acknowledge that I was actually abused. I was hiding from my pain.

I was actually numbing my pain by substances like addictions of you know alcoholism. I didn’t do drugs thank god. Uh I was overshopping overindulging overeating or went to the other extreme like not eat at all or being promiscuous. So those were the things that I used to do to just numb my pain. Every one of us whether you admit it or not you have your own crutches. You have your own to go of numbing your pain. Maybe for you it’s I don’t know watching things that you shouldn’t watch of which I used to.

And these are the things that I think when we think to ourselves if we truly embodied it’s okay that people are going to test you. It’s okay that people are going to sometimes uh throw something in your face or say something because that’s actually going to test or confirm in your brain that you actually are not the same person anymore or you are not the person that you used to react with certain statement and I can tell that about myself because when I look at the things that I used to react before there are so many nuances that I was like that was really stupid for me to react that It’s not because it was by choice but it’s because it was a matter of my automatic reactive system that I was programming myself to react over the little things.

You know if person if the person tells me you look fat or chubby I would take it personally I would get so upset and internalize it and I would think about it over and over again. Nowadays I have a better tools of handling the situation and I would just tell myself it’s actually their opinion. It’s nothing to do with me. If that’s what they think about me, it’s actually them because they’re jealous probably of me. Because if you’re a person who are healed and you’re not wounded, why would you say things like that to other people?

And by the way, before you are going to criticize people’s weight, make sure you’re size zero and not size eight or six. Okay? So before you’re going to judge people, just a side note, that you are so chubby or you’re just overweight, make sure you’re actually size two or size zero, but you should not be able to judge people if you’re not even have that kind of a body or not fit because you don’t have you’re not at the place. It would be so absurd for you to judge and criticize people’s weight and you’re you’re overweight yourself. Okay, it’s like it’s ridiculous.

How am I supposed to listen to you criticizing me about my body weight and yet here you are overweight yourself? I’m getting on tangent, but this is I’m saying is that you I used to get so bogged down by those statement or people would say, you know, whatever you’re doing is so stupid and dumb. What’s the point of you podcasting? And I would just stop and I would be going to not produce and I would be stopping and going and I would have inconsistency because I I was so caught up in people’s opinions and ideas that I get so frozen.

And when you embodied a newer version of yourself, no matter what people say, you just accept it for what it is. Let it be. Let it go. Let let them express what they’re feeling. Right now you’re in a place of that’s your opinion. Thank you for your advice but I am not going to take it. Now you have a better idea that people will usually say something not based on probably uh what do you call this malice but actually maybe love but they don’t really want to express you. Maybe out of protection or maybe they’re afraid what if you fail and they cannot really tell you that.

Maybe they can articulate to you that the reason why they they question you if you’re really doing this is because they try to protect you or they’re trying to tell you that maybe you’re just not ready yet. But again, people can give you so many ideas or opinions about what you should do with your life. But as I said, at the end of life, at the end of the day, it is your life to begin with. You can take people’s advice as a grain of salt. It’s up to you to gravitate towards it. It’s up to you to embody it or apply it into your own life.

But if it does not resonate with you and it doesn’t really help you grow as a better version of yourself, then why must you listen to those wrong voices? Might as well drown them out and don’t even pay attention to those people. But my older version, I would get so overanalytical. I would like overanalyze. Maybe this person is right. Maybe she is right or maybe I should stop altogether because my idea is stupid. Every ideas I think started with stupidity when I think about it. When you think about an idea, people would always question you. This is absurd. This is crazy. This has never been done before.

And I think it’s because there’s going to be a resistance from people who have not yet seen the fruition. And the moment you have actually showed it to them and you have evidence to show it to them, then they can actually say, “Oh yes, now we see what you’re trying to do here. Remember what happened to Elon Musk as I’ve heard the story that he was actually told as crazy person for inventing or saying that he’s going to invent an electric car. Before it happened, people thought he was cuckoo or he just lost his mind because it hasn’t been done before until now that now who’s crazy now, right?

So, I’m not trying to promote Elon here, but I’m just giving you an example that people will project something to you because of their insecurities or because they’re trying to make you feel inferior and they don’t want to see you succeed because they can see that you have a potential. However, the only problem is they want to mute you and to minimize your potential because they don’t want to see you succeed. Because insecure people when they have nothing else better to do, they’re just going to loathe and they just want to wish that you’re not going to be able to become someone different from the version that you were before.