The Things We Were Taught to Be… And What They Cost Us

Introduction

There are so many things we are taught as children that we rarely stop to question.

Not because they are true. Not because they fit who we are. Not because they make our lives easier.

We do not question them because they were repeated so often that they became part of our identity.

Be polite. Be nice. Do not upset anyone. Do not be too loud. Stop being so sensitive. Do not make things awkward.

Over time, these messages became lessons. Then they became behaviors. Then they became who we believed ourselves to be.

We trained ourselves to fit in. We trained ourselves to avoid punishment. We trained ourselves to become acceptable.

And that leaves us with a difficult question:

How much of who you believe yourself to be is actually true?

I think that question is being asked all over the world right now.

The Identities We Were Taught to Carry

We are living through a moment in history where people are challenging the identities they have carried for generations.

All of those messages that were thrown at us to make us conform, fit in, and walk the expected path are finally being questioned.

Because many of us are realizing they do not fit anymore.

We are realizing that we are not happier. We are not more successful. We are not more loved. And so much of what we were taught to do was really about avoiding punishment.

As the world changes, our curated identities are starting to chafe.

We are seeing this everywhere — across social media, in the news, in celebrity culture, in politics, and in our own relationships.

Whenever someone’s carefully managed image begins to crack, the world reacts.

We wanted the portrait. The caricature. The easy version of who they were supposed to be.

But no human being is one-dimensional.

We do not come into this world with one fixed set of identity traits and stay that way forever.

That is not how being human works.

The Trap of Curated Identity

At this point in our existence, there is so much information showing us persona branding, image management, filtered perfection, and carefully edited lives.

Whenever those images start to crumble, it makes us ask uncomfortable questions about ourselves.

Do we do it too?

Are we being ourselves?

Are we behaving as our true selves, or are we behaving in the way we think we are supposed to?

Are we managing our identity so people will not judge us?

We say we want authenticity. We crave authenticity. But then we punish it when it does not fit the illusion we were expecting.

We want the perfect woman. The perfect man. The perfect soldier. The perfect son. The perfect partner. The perfect leader.

Those portraits are not real people.

They are two-dimensional images we have been trained to admire and perform.

So we have built a trap — not just for ourselves, but for each other.

None of us can meet the image we were taught to curate, and then we punish one another when the fractures start to show.

The Exhaustion of Performance

For years, we have been trained to build an image.

The woman. The son. The husband. The professional. The spiritual person. The strong one. The quiet one. The agreeable one.

We built brands out of ourselves.

We curated and manipulated our behavior so we could control how people saw us.

But it is exhausting.

I am tired of trying to be perfect. I am tired of trying to be polished. I am tired of feeling like I have to protect myself from the world. I am tired of feeling like I have to control the way other people feel about me.

And I think a lot of people feel the same way.

Because when we are playing pretend with each other, we cannot truly connect.

Real connection requires truth.

If we are not being ourselves, if we do not know who we are, and if we do not know why we are here, how are we supposed to connect with anyone else?

It becomes an illusion. A play. A matrix.

We are pretending to live instead of actually living.

The Fear of Being Judged

The fear of judgment is real.

I am not trying to minimize that at all.

As much as I would love to say I do not care what other people think, I do. It is something I work on.

Doing this podcast and starting this spiritual business has opened me up to more visibility, more judgment, and more opportunities to be misunderstood.

I am constantly faced with the image I am putting out into the world — the way I look, the way I sound, the words I use, the mistakes I make.

But I am not going to let those fears stop me from being myself.

Because pretending is exhausting.

So ask yourself honestly:

How tired are you of the persona you have to put on?

What version of you goes to work?

What version of you shows up with your family?

What version of you appears online?

What version of you exists in your relationship?

How much of that is actually you?

The Work Persona

Think about the clothes you put on for work. The way you walk. The way you speak. The tone you use. The jokes you make or do not make.

Many of us drift into caricatures of ourselves because the fear is so ingrained.

If you went into work tomorrow and stopped pretending, how would you be received?

If you refused to perform for even one hour, what would happen?

That fear is legitimate.

For much of my life, I prided myself on being a chameleon.

I could walk into almost any situation and feel comfortable because I knew how to pick and choose the character traits that would work in that room.

But a dear friend eventually called me on it.

She helped me realize I was not adapting from freedom. I was adapting from fear.

I was more concerned with how people saw me than with whether I was actually being myself.

And then she asked me something I could not ignore:

“Do you feel connected to anyone in those situations?”

And she was right.

I did not.

The Family Persona

Family situations can be some of the hardest places to be yourself.

The fear of being misunderstood by people you love can be overwhelming.

Think about who you become in family spaces.

Do you change your tone?

Do you curse less? Or more?

Do you become smaller?

Do you become louder?

Do you step into an old role before you even realize it?

These are versions of ourselves. Chameleon identities. Situational selves.

We take the room, read the expectations, and shape ourselves to fit.

But that fear is becoming harder to carry.

Many of us are overwhelmed all the time, and that makes it harder to keep pretending.

We do not have the emotional bandwidth anymore.

We are tired.

Too tired to keep playing the part.

What Can We Put Down?

Many of us are starting to ask: what can I give up?

What can I stop carrying?

What identity is too heavy now?

Recognizing that much of our behavior comes from fear can help us set it down.

It can help us lighten the pack we have been carrying.

We have been conditioned by childhood, family, careers, media, government, religion, culture, and society.

That conditioning is not inherently evil.

It helped create culture. It helped us adapt. It helped societies function.

But the purpose was not always to help us as individuals.

The purpose was often to create conformity.

We were taught that acceptance equals safety.

We were taught how to follow.

We were not taught how to express ourselves.

We were not taught how to stand as ourselves.

The Instagram Face of Life

We are tired of the shiny persona.

The fake perfection. The snake oil. The Instagram face. The ten-second clip where life looks beautiful because everything outside the frame has been edited out.

Your life can look perfect for ten seconds.

But nobody sees the editing, the filters, the staging, or the emotional cost behind that moment.

That is exhausting.

And I do not want to participate in it anymore.

Because all it does is stop me from finding myself.

When the Mask Comes Off

I saw this clearly at SOF Week in Tampa.

It is a very intense environment. A lot of testosterone. A lot of money. A lot of men in dark suits. A lot of elevator speeches and business energy.

It is not fake in a malicious way. I understand why it exists. People are there to do business.

But by the end of the week, everyone is exhausted.

You can see the smiles becoming more forced.

There was only one moment that week where I felt like I could switch off the persona and simply be myself.

It was at an event for women in special operations and those who support special operations forces.

When I walked into that room, something in me took a deep breath.

Every woman there had prioritized some passion, strength, or calling over being accepted.

They had all bucked the system in some way.

They had held true to themselves in spaces where the world could easily reject them for it.

I felt kinship with them because that has been much of my life.

I have been in many rooms where I was not wanted.

And I knew before I walked in that I would not fit the caricature they wanted in that room.

Becoming Yourself Makes Some People Uncomfortable

The more I have fought against curated identity, the more I have looked at my behavior and asked what is actually true.

What about me is real?

What about how I behave is truly mine?

The more I have become myself, the more uncomfortable some people have become around me.

Becoming yourself does not always make you easier to accept.

Sometimes it makes you harder to categorize.

And people often prefer categories.

When we come into this world, we are born with unique traits. Then nurture, conditioning, trauma, culture, and expectation start shaping us.

We are trained into becoming “good little followers.”

But our real identity still leaks through.

If we allow ourselves to be defined only by what society, religion, work, family, or culture finds acceptable, then we are not fully living.

We are not experiencing life to its potential.

We are not learning as much as we could.

We are not growing as much as we could.

And we are not connecting as deeply as we could.

Because we have been taught that being accepted matters more than being true.

Survival Strategies Become Safety Blankets

The survival strategies we learned early in life can become safety blankets.

At some point, we may not even recognize we are still wearing them.

This is why we have to consciously pick them apart.

We have to ask how many of our personality traits are real and how many are adaptations.

For example, many women are taught to be non-confrontational.

So we say, “I do not like conflict.”

But is that true?

Do I actually have a problem with conflict?

Or was I punished for being disagreeable, direct, or outspoken?

For me, I do not actually have a problem speaking my opinion.

I have a trauma connection to conflict.

I have been punished enough times for being different, rocking the boat, or voicing my thoughts that now, when I feel pushback, my body responds.

When someone gets aggressive with me, I can feel my body closing in on itself.

That is conditioning.

That is not truth.

Learning to Catch the Response

I have had to teach myself to recognize when I am having a trigger response.

I have to notice when my body is reacting before my mind has had a chance to process what is actually happening.

Then I remind myself:

This is not who I really am.

This is not how I want to behave.

I am not afraid of conflict.

I am not afraid of disagreement.

I am not afraid of someone judging my opinion.

So when I catch myself closing in, I roll my shoulders back, take a breath, and remind myself that I am safe to speak.

That is the work.

Not pretending the conditioning is not there.

But catching it and choosing differently.

Introvert, Extrovert, or Conditioned?

Another example I have been thinking about is the way we categorize people as introverted or extroverted.

We love simple buckets.

I am outgoing. I am quiet. I am loud. I am shy. I love people. I need to be alone.

But any time we reduce ourselves to simple categories, we risk cheating ourselves.

Are we really introverted?

Or were we taught that speaking up causes problems?

Are we really extroverted?

Or were we rewarded for performing socially?

How much of what we consider personality is actually conditioning?

The more I have examined this in myself, the more I have realized I am not simply introverted or extroverted.

I am both in different circumstances.

I love talking to people. I can also find people exhausting. I enjoy connection. I also love being alone.

Your true self is never two-dimensional.

It cannot be fully captured by a personality quiz.

We Are Done Pretending

This persona performance is tired.

We are tired of maintaining versions of ourselves.

We are tired of managing perception.

We are tired of staying consistent with what the world expects us to be.

That image is not freedom.

It is not real.

And the cracks are leading to exhaustion.

So let us be done pretending.

Where the Growth Begins

From a spiritual perspective, this is where it gets powerful.

This is where growth happens.

When you stop pretending, true connection becomes possible.

True happiness becomes possible.

Self-love becomes possible.

Identity becomes something you experience instead of something you perform.

I do not want to be “Chameleon Chris” anymore.

I understand why I did it, and I do not judge myself for it.

But it is exhausting.

I want to be me.

All the time.

I want to find myself in every experience.

I want to make heart connections with people.

Because we are souls having a human experience.

The Cost of Not Finding Yourself

When we incarnate onto this planet and never find ourselves, we isolate ourselves.

We say, “I cannot let anyone see the real me. I do not even want to look for the real me because it is too scary and people may not like it.”

So we water ourselves down.

And then we drift through life.

We become shadows of ourselves.

We are not taking full advantage of being here in the flesh.

We are not fully connecting to opportunities or people because we are hiding.

If this resonates, imagine that watered-down version of you.

Imagine the color stripped away.

The pixels blurred.

The image misty and shadowed.

Now imagine that version moving through the world.

There is nothing solid for people to connect to.

That is what happens when we hide from ourselves.

The Fractures Are Showing

We are seeing identity fractures everywhere.

People are angrier. More emotionally attached. More reactive. More exhausted.

Wars are breaking out. Conflict is increasing. Social tension is rising.

These are fractures in the identities we have been carrying.

We are tired of moving through the world like ghosts.

We are tired of feeling like our emotions and identities do not matter.

But there is no clear spotlight showing us the way out.

It takes patience. Practice. Heart. Awareness. And action.

Awareness Is Not Enough

Awareness is when you open your eyes to the fact that something is not real anymore.

It is when you realize something does not fit.

But awareness alone will not move the needle.

You need expression.

You need action.

You need embodiment.

You need to practice moving through life as your true self, one moment at a time.

A Practice for This Week

The first step is asking yourself what is not true.

Write down the characteristics you assign to yourself — the good and the bad.

Then write down the characteristics other people assign to you.

When someone first meets you, what do they take away?

How would people describe you?

Then ask yourself:

Are these true?

Are they mine?

Do they feel good?

Or do they feel like things I was taught to do?

The next step is harder but more rewarding:

If this is not who I am, what do I do differently?

That is the deep work.

It is the process of catching yourself and building new patterns in the brain.

It is allowing what you understand to become how you behave.

Keep What Works, Release What Does Not

The goal is not to reject everything you were taught.

Some behaviors may still serve you.

Some may feel aligned.

Keep what works.

Keep what feels good.

Keep what helps you live honestly.

But release what does not belong to you.

Just as those behaviors were programmed into us, we can unprogram them.

We can unhook from the matrix and become more honest.

Ruthless Honesty

A friend of mine teaches about the way of the warrior through an ancient Toltec tradition, and he speaks about ruthless honesty.

Ruthless honesty does not mean cruelty.

It means saying what you feel without guilt.

It means disagreeing respectfully without fear.

It means allowing people to misunderstand you without trying to control their perception.

It means not performing for approval.

It means staying connected to your authentic self.

Ruthlessly you.

Not cruel.

Just real.

From Matrix to Sovereignty

You do not need to be understood by everyone.

You do not need everyone’s acceptance.

You do not need approval to exist as yourself.

The only thing you need to do to move from the matrix to sovereignty is stop abandoning yourself.

Being your true self will feel lighter because it is real.

Because it actually fits.

We have been wearing clothes that do not fit for too long.

Reflection Questions

Write down your primary characteristics.

Then write down how other people see you.

Ask yourself which of those characteristics truly fit.

Then ask:

What was I repeatedly chastised for growing up?

What message did my parents, guardians, teachers, or community repeat in order to get me to fit in?

Do not be difficult.

Do not be emotional.

Do not be loud.

Do not be too much.

Whatever it was, write it down.

Then ask how those messages still influence your behavior.

Finally, choose one small expression of your authentic self to practice this week.

Maybe it is telling the truth in a situation where you usually soften it.

Maybe it is asking for what you need.

Maybe it is setting a clear boundary.

Maybe it is letting yourself be misunderstood without rushing to fix it.

Final Message

This is not about becoming a different person.

It is about noticing where you are performing and experimenting with honesty.

It is about seeing whether truth feels lighter.

The world has taught us how to build an identity.

But the deeper work is learning how to be ourselves.

Most of us were never taught that.

In fact, many of us were actively discouraged from learning it.

Learning how to be accepted made sense for a long time.

But the world is shifting.

We are being given the chance to become more honest, more expressive, and more free.

Maybe the most powerful thing we can do is stop pretending to be who we were taught to be and start becoming who we actually are.

If this message sparked something in you, sit with it.

Ask yourself what you are tired of carrying.

Ask yourself what you can stop pretending to be.

And if you need support with that work, there are tools available at Ascended Warrior.

Until next week, love and light.

Stay grounded. Stay sovereign.