Episode 2 — Freedom From Who They Needed You To Be

It didn't happen all at once. It happened slowly - one small adjustment, one swallowed feeling, one softened opinion at a time - until you'd become so good at being who everyone else needed that you stopped knowing who you actually were.

In this episode, Cherie gets personal about why so many women end up living inside a performance instead of a life, what it really costs us to keep shapeshifting for everyone else's comfort, and what freedom actually looks like when we start coming back to ourselves.

It's not a dramatic reinvention. It's quieter than that.

It starts with just noticing.

If this episode made you feel a little more you… share it with someone who needs it too.

Follow Own Your SASS so you don’t miss what’s next.

I’m Cherie Faus-Smith, and I create bold, safe & supportive spaces where women are heard; not fixed.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hey sassy friend, let me tell you something because around here we don't skip the important parts. Can I ask you something personal? Who were you before you became who everyone else needed you to be? Not who you are at work, not who you are as a mom, a partner, a daughter, a friend. You. Just you. Take a second with that. Because for a lot of women, that question doesn't have an easy answer anymore. And that's not because you lost yourself dramatically. It's not because something catastrophic happened and you woke up a different person. It's because it happened slowly, quietly, one small adjustment at a time. You softened your opinion here, you swallowed your feeling there, you showed up as whoever the room needed because that felt safer than showing up as yourself. And you did it so many times for so long that just became who you were, or at least who you thought you were. I know this intimately because I spent years being whoever the people around me needed me to be. The good daughter, the agreeable partner, the one who kept the peace, the one who made everything easier for everyone else, and I was good at it. I could read a room before I even walked into it. I could sense what someone needed from me and became exactly that before they even asked. I thought that was a gift, and in some ways it was, but it came at a cost. I didn't even realize I was paying. Because every time I became who someone else needed, I moved a little further away from who I actually was. And one day I looked around at my life, at all the versions of myself I'd performed, and I didn't know which one was real anymore. That was a lonely feeling. And if you've ever felt that, I want you to know you are not alone in it, and there is nothing wrong with you. You were just trying to survive, and surviving sometimes means shape-shifting. But here's what I want you to hear today. Surviving is not the same as living. So, how does this happen? Why do we spend so much of our lives being everything for everyone else and so little of it just being ourselves? Because we were taught that love was conditional. Maybe not in those words, maybe nobody ever said it out loud, but we felt it. We felt it when we were praised for being agreeable and ignored when we had something difficult to say. We felt it when we expressed a feeling, and we were told we were being too sensitive. We felt it in relationships where love felt like something we had to earn, perform, maintain by being exactly who they needed us to be. And so we learned. We learned that being ourselves was risky, that full expression came with consequences, that it was safer, easier to just become whoever kept the peace. But here's the truth that nobody told us that's not love, that's a performance. And you cannot find freedom inside a performance. So, what does freedom actually look like? Because I think we have this idea that freedom is this big dramatic moment, this grand declaration, this total reinvention. But that's not what I've experienced, and that's not what I see in the women I sit with. Freedom is quieter than that. Freedom looks like pausing before you automatically say yes and actually asking yourself, do I want to do this? Freedom looks like letting someone be disappointed in you without immediately trying to fix it. Freedom looks like introducing yourself and meaning it, not the version of you they're expecting. You. Freedom looks like sitting in a conversation and saying what you actually think instead of what you think they want to hear. It's not loud, it's not dramatic, it's just honest. One small honest moment at a time, and those moments add up. So here's what I want you to do before the next episode. Just one thing. This week, I want you to decide the moments where you're about to become who someone else needs you to be. Don't change anything yet. Don't force anything. Just notice. Notice when you're about to soften something true, notice when you're about to swallow a feeling, notice when you're performing instead of just being. That's it. Just notice because awareness is where freedom begins. You can't claim something you don't know you've been giving away. So start there. Notice, and then come back and tell me what you saw. And that's where we'll land today. I hope something in this episode made you feel a little braver, a little clearer, a little more like you. Because that's all this is, really? Me sitting with you, reminding you that your voice matters, your feelings make sense, and you don't have to shrink yourself to fit into anyone else's comfort zone. Not anymore. If today's episode stirred something in you, share it with a woman who needs to hear it. She's out there waiting for exactly this. And if you're ready to be heard, not fixed, not coached, not advised, just heard, you know where to find me. I am Sherry Fowl Smith. This is Own Your Sass. And sassy friend, you belong here.