Breaking Free From Your Boxes

This episode breaks down some of the common boxes we tend to put ourselves in within the self-help community and how this bad habit can be diminishing, limiting and, over time, dangerous. I break down some of the boxes I've put myself into over the years and how I got out of them. I also talk about why we put ourselves in these boxes in the first place, how to use various systems to our advantage (instead of letting them use us!) and how to finally break free from our own limitations!

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Wild Free Will podcast.

I am looking forward to spending a little bit of time with you again this week.

I hope that you've been enjoying the past episodes and yeah just like if you have been following along for a while if you're able to subscribe or leave a review that would mean so much.

I try not to ask this too often but you know it's we live in a world that's kind of a numbers game and so any feedback that you can give me is greatly appreciated even if that feedback is a little bit critical but constructive then that would be really helpful too.

I'd love to hear what you think.

Today I am here to talk about this idea of kind of breaking out of our boxes and just getting out of the sort of restrictive themes and the restrictive circumstances and situations and thoughts and ideas that we kind of either put ourselves into or that we buy into.

So you can see this I think in the self-help in the self-help industry just a little bit like everywhere to be honest with you everywhere but what I really want to chat about today is the ways that we kind of take our tools and we we use them to kind of punish ourselves or diminish ourselves.

So there are so many systems that you can use on your personal development journey so obviously there's like self-help,

Self-help books,

Practices.

You could be meditating,

You could be doing yoga,

Kundalini yoga,

You could be doing like womb wellness,

You can track your period if you're a female or a female somebody who experiences periods,

You can look into astrology or human design or gene keys or you can do Myers-Briggs and you can do all of these all of these different like personality quizzes and it's so interesting because I actually when I set out to record this podcast I didn't even think about Myers-Briggs and I remember that there was a period of time where people would put their Myers-Briggs in like their profile like their Instagram bio or like they would introduce themselves that way and honestly yeah I'm going to be really real and I don't think that this podcast is going to hit well necessarily for people who are big fans of these systems but I just think that is fucking ridiculous.

I think it is fucking ridiculous.

I'm sorry.

Yeah I don't necessarily buy into the idea of Myers-Briggs.

I think that all of these systems are really interesting and all of them are intrinsically valuable.

I think that all of them have like their heart in the right place and I think that they are really interesting and when we use them as tools I think they can be really powerful.

That being said you are not meant to put yourself into a box and what I mean by that is you are not meant to feel a certain way if you are a female or a woman like a person who experiences menstruation.

You are not meant to feel a certain way because you are on day 14 of your period okay or because you track your cycle okay.

I actually use a period tracker called Clue.

It's my favorite.

It's kind of just really clean simple and just no BS and one of the things that they always remind you in this app is your body is not a clock so you are not necessarily going to feel the same way every cycle or feel the way that you are quote-unquote supposed to based on the majority of the data just because the data is there right.

The data is there to help us and it's there to kind of guide us and give us an idea but every person is individual okay and it goes beyond that too like you're not meant to be a specific way or to embody a certain behavior just because you are an ENFPJ whatever from Myers-Briggs.

I don't even remember what mine is to be honest with you but like and it's interesting in and of itself don't get me wrong like all of these things are cool.

It's when we use them to like limit ourselves because they do become limiting if we buy into them too much.

You're not meant to follow every single rule in human design like I have I am a 5-1 emotional generator and there have been aspects of human design that have been so permissive for me like they've really given me another way to engage with with who I am.

One of the things that it says about my type in general is that we're meant to be asked like yes or no questions so if you ask an open-ended question I guess I don't know if this is true even for all generators or for generators in general but certainly if you ask me for an open-ended question I kind of go into overwhelm but if you say to me like for example food if you say to me what would you like to eat tonight it's like you can literally hear my brain is like struggling but if you ask me like do you want pizza or pasta or do you want pizza yes or no I can tell you so asking yes or no questions like that comes from this this segment of human design and that's been really permissive but I found that as I personally and this may not be true for you and it doesn't have to be true for you remember that your truth is your truth my truth is my truth and we're all just kind of having a conversation with this as I dove more into human design I found it extremely restrictive I really did not that I do not align with that system I haven't even dove into gene keys because to be honest with you it was just way too much to continue walking that path like there's just in my opinion there's too many systems for me for me there are too many systems and other people especially people who like practice or like teach or you know use human design within coaching or within their own human design practice are going to totally disagree with me but I think that there's too much going on and we are starting to use the systems to tell us and allow them to define who we are as opposed to using them as tools for bettering our life and like the same goes for astrology or any other system that um that kind of gives you this idea of who you are that's really cool if it resonates but what if there's something in your chart that you're reading that doesn't fit with who you are um or doesn't feel aligned and and who's to say even because there's so many different ways to view it so if we talk about astrology just for a second there are schools of thought that believe that your rising or ascendant sign is who you are meant to be that's who you're that's who they're sorry that's yes there are some there are schools of thought that say that your rising or ascendant sign is who you are meant to be that your sun sign is who you are and that your moon sign um is your kind of like your emotional entity and then there's other schools of thought that believe the opposite that believe that your rising sign is the way you present yourself to the world and your sun sign is what you're looking to incorporate and your moon sign still is basically to do with your emotional life and I find all that really interesting because at the end of the day these things are different for every single one of us and somebody believes one thing really strongly and someone believes something else really strongly there's also like the equal house system versus like the the other system I don't remember like the actual name for it but it's interesting we need to be taking all of these tools um that in any case are all man-made I think that's really important to say like human design is relatively new gene keys is relatively new astrology is not necessarily relatively new but all of these things are were created by humans to help us better understand life on planet earth and what an incredibly incredible and amazing thing okay that somebody saw patterns and saw these kinds of like saw ways that life unfolded repeatedly for people and created a tool that can help us navigate um kind of discovering like what we're here on earth to do I think that is incredible I think that these systems are beautiful I think the way we use them is screwed up that's the issue okay there's nothing inherently wrong with the systems I think that they are sometimes too much too in depth I think it's it's a lot because it takes away some of our sovereignty if we let it but it tends to when people really get into something they tend to be almost blinded by whatever system that they're in and they put themselves in this like little box because I could spend the rest of my life saying I'm a 5-1 emotional generator or I'm a cancer sun,

Libra moon,

Sagittarius rising I could say those things and I could use them to kind of encapsulate who I am but I am so much more beyond those things that does not tell the whole story of who I am and I think that that's really important and it's not just about the systems either like we can go back we can go way beyond that we could go way beyond all the ways in which we put ourselves into our own boxes that have nothing to do with the systems that I'm currently talking about how many of us say like I'm like I say I'm a coach I am am I a coach or do I do coaching for a living I work as a coach that would be a more correct thing right but even in our language we tend to identify as what we do for work which I think is a byproduct of the system that we live in but it can become really damaging because what happens if something changes and I can no longer work as a coach so now my identity is so wrapped up in this idea of me being a coach okay that I have to then rework the way that I engage with the world if that truth ever shifts for me so it can be really dangerous and it's other things too we can take this even really basic I'm a mom I'm a dad I'm a brother I'm a sister I'm a nurse I'm um I'm uh I'm trying to think of a of an adjective here just give me one second I am oh I'm stubborn or I you know how many times a day do we say oh my god I'm so stupid and and we're we're shifting gears a little bit out of boxes and into language and into this idea of like also mindset but we really need to be careful of what we put after I am okay I'm a Sagittarius I'm a 5-1 sacral generator I'm a projector I'm a Capricorn I'm whatever whatever it might be it is this language that is becoming pervasive in the self-help industry and if we're using it as a tool it's awesome if we are embodying it if we are taking it on as part of our identity I think we need to create a little bit of distance because we are not a system we are not a system we are our own individual people and when we when we use these systems to identify ourselves it becomes I think really destructive long term because it becomes limiting long term and I I really respect these systems in the sense that they tend to give us a huge permission slip okay and they give you a way to really tap into yourself because I remember growing up that I was like back in then we weren't talking so much about astrology in depth besides the people who were actually into astrology and there wasn't as much of a sort of there wasn't so much information about the differences between like being a sun being a rising sign being like your moon sign and so on and so forth if you weren't actively searching for it if you weren't really in that community now I feel like it's become a lot more part of our pop culture which is actually really cool I think that we're seeing the way that it's evolved and and the way that we're coming into a desire for more information about ourselves about the planets about the way that they interact with each other about the fact the effect that they the effect that they have on us I think that's really really neat and so I remember growing up I was a Cancer and basically the only thing that anybody ever said about Cancers was that they like sit at home alone in the dark shaking and crying all the fucking time and I remember that being so limiting like I really didn't like astrology because I felt like that idea of a Cancer because of when I was born just did not at all encapsulate any of who I am that did not tell the story of who I am as a person at all and it felt really like it felt really distant from the person that I was and it felt really distant from the person that I wanted to be now I remember when I was younger I always used to say I was supposed to be born on June 21st I was actually I was actually late by a while 8 days I was 8 days late so I was supposed to be born on June 21st so I remember growing up I used to say like actually I think I'm a Gemini because I related so much more to the archetype of Gemini this like kind of chatty sociable person I've never been very introverted I've never been blah blah blah blah blah or I certainly now I see the I see the evolution in my life I see that it's more of being like an I'm an extroverted introvert but anyways that's kind of diving into details that you don't give a shit about so sorry about that but I remember like having to create this story about how like because I was meant to be born on the cusp I was actually more of a Gemini because the archetype of Cancer did not at all explain who I was and when I grew up and I learned more about like rising signs and I learned that my rising sign is a Sagittarius which is the opposite sign I think of Gemini if I'm not mistaken so it's actually interesting how that ended up working out but my rising sign is Sagittarius and Sagittarius is this person who's like a constant seeker and wants to understand everything and wants to explore and go on adventures and whatever and certainly doesn't sit at home just crying all the time which is very much how at the time when I was growing up and we're talking like 15 years ago that's how the the Cancer archetype was sold it's like this moody crabby miserable sad little thing that just sits at home and and so like learning that gave me so much permission it just really made sense all of a sudden like I felt like I fit somewhere because looking at the Cancer archetype didn't make any sense but this also has led me to believe that the archetype of our rising is actually the way that we present ourselves to the world and our sun sign is what we are learning to embody so that means that like outwardly I project as a Sagittarius very outgoing very sociable very adventurous very spontaneous always wanting to learn and what I'm learning to embody are the positive sides of the Cancer archetype so learning to rest understanding that I am an introvert understanding that I do get time like I filled my cup gets filled from being alone that I need that kind of nurture and self-care and quiet and time with family and all of those things in order to function well.

Recently I had a conversation with an astrologer in one of the groups that I'm in and she was explaining that that is not true for her at all that actually our Cancer sign is like or my my sun sign is who I am and the Sagittarius so the rising is who I'm meant to be and that does not resonate for me at all it does not make sense of my experience my lived experience of these kinds of archetypes okay and this is only if you even buy into the archetypes in the first place because you may not but my point is is that every single person has a different view of every single thing on planet earth everything there is not one single universal truth period well I guess the fact that we're all going to die that's universal but aside from that that's pretty much it and so like these things can give you a lot of permission but then you'll hear somebody else say something different that completely contradicts what you believe or what made sense for you and then there can it can kind of take you down the spiral of questioning then what you believe but at the end of the day I genuinely believe this to be true so take this for what it is and if it resonates with you then rock on and if it doesn't then drop it that's totally fine but what you believe is always going to be the most important thing like it really does not matter what somebody who knows more about business what knows more about astrology or human design or Myers-Briggs or like period tracking or any of the other bullshit that we've talked about okay there is anything that I say is garbage if it doesn't resonate with you remember that so like hearing this other person who studies a very different kind of astrology than perhaps I've been into her description of my experience made no sense to me and a younger less sovereign version of me would have been like oh you know she's an astrologer though so she's probably right and like I don't know anything about astrology also true I do not know anything about astrology beyond like what I've shared in this podcast but that doesn't mean that it's not true for me because the fact that it feels good that it feels true that is the end that's the only thing that matters okay but I think going back to this idea okay we've we've covered this idea of it gives you a permission slip okay even being like a generator for me has gave me a permission slip to kind of say yes okay actually when you ask me yes or no questions that just makes my life so much simpler if you ask me an open-ended question it kind of sends me into overwhelm that's probably the biggest and maybe one of the only things that I took away from human design because then I found the system way too restricting for me personally okay so there is a certain amount of permission giving in these things and unfortunately because we are not in a space in general as a collective we are not in a space of deep self-worth okay we are not sovereign in general so we use these systems as a way to give us permission to be who we really are because we cannot be okay just saying hey hey this is who I am and that's the bigger question that came up to me as I was diving into some of these systems because I have read books in like the last couple years on human design and like really tried to understand more of it because I found it really fascinating but as I was diving into them I found myself asking why do I need another external source to tell me how I am and who I am what my purpose is and what I'm supposed to do why is it that I don't feel safe enough living that truth for myself because one of the things that I tell you guys all the time on the podcast is that you know nothing I say here is useful or interesting or or whatever beyond what is true for you so if you're resonating with my podcast it's because we vibe on some level so our truths somehow overlap you hear me say something and you think yeah that sounds absolutely right or the opposite is true I trigger you and I say things that make you either think or that repel you completely and all of these things are totally fine there is no right or wrong but why is it that we need someone else to give us permission to do things I think that is the bigger question beyond each individual system itself okay so who cares what system it is it doesn't really matter why is it that we need the period tracker to tell us that it's okay that we're tired because we're on day one why can't we just be tired why do we need human design to tell us that we that we we need to be asked these certain questions or like you know that we are people who can only work for two hours a day or that we have endless amounts of energy because we're a generator or or whatever why do we need these things why did I need astrology to tell me that I'm not a cancer and that I'm outgoing why couldn't I just be those things now I couldn't just be those things because the time period of my life that we're talking about was when I was 16 years old and like literally I'm lucky I put one foot in front of the other I think back then like I know that I definitely thought I was the shit back then but that was not I think the objective reality of the situation so I can understand why then I did not have enough of my own personality I had not built up enough of that foundation within myself which is normal because at 16 that's when you're like kind of figuring everything out right I didn't have that foundation to be able to tell myself like no it doesn't matter that the cancer thing doesn't make any sense like just let it go you know what I mean you are who you are and that's okay but because I didn't fit into this box it made me really uncomfortable I felt like I didn't make sense or I didn't fit in or and I had to create a story to justify why I didn't fit into this box and I think it's also really important to note that a lot of these systems are channeled or have been channeled by white men I just feel like that's a relevant I feel like that's a relevant piece of the conversation I'm sorry I know that that's going to piss off a lot of people who are really into these systems but I do think it is so important like Vedic astrology obviously not because it comes from India or that area of the world so it's obviously not channeled by white men but like human design and gene keys obviously have come forth from that space and so I think that that is something to be mindful of to be honest with you because that's just one perspective and yes they've been channeled and I understand that and I think that's really powerful and really good but I do think that there's something to be said I just feel like there's a little just dropping that in there like a little something to consider something to think about and then going even farther than this okay taking this beyond just the systems but I know and you know because you've been listening to this podcast that I suffer from like over education to a certain extent so not now but when I was younger I spent so much time buying courses endlessly endlessly okay and like always like searching for this kind of external information because somebody outside of me knows better than than I do and it always depends on the intention that we put into this so what information are we looking to get are we looking to just kind of broaden our our our mindset or broaden our knowledge base or just be like kind of cracked open by something that we're reading I think that there are really powerful books out there or are we looking for somebody to tell us like how to go about doing things and there's books for that too obviously a cookbook is telling you how to cook okay I get it it's not like it's I'm saying that there's anything inherently wrong with any of these things there isn't but what is your intention behind it like are you trying to fix yourself are you trying to find a way to fit in because you feel uncomfortable with who you are because you haven't fully accepted who you are because you're not in a place of sovereignty because you're not coming from a space of deep self-belief and deep self-worth or are you already whole already full already complete as you are and you're looking to expand beyond where you currently are there's a huge difference in that in it's basically the discussion of how the cup is half empty or it's cut the cup is half full so like is your cup empty and you're reading something because you're looking for it to desperately fill that void or doing that course or following this person or looking into these systems or whatever are you looking to put yourself in a box because you're looking to belong because you're looking to fit in because you're looking to feel whole and complete or are you already complete are you already completely okay 100% 99% 89% like you get the gist the way you are and you are looking for something that expands your consciousness beyond where you already are okay and then also when we're talking about about things about like menstrual cycles I one of the things that I find really interesting about this is that we're looking for information about something that is already a part of us right so the power is within us to kind of search for our own answers and our own information and maybe we need the how-to maybe we need to understand what to look for we need to understand exactly like not exactly but we need to understand maybe a parameter of how to go about doing that but when something is a part of us it's not about this is supposed to happen to you at this time but it's about just being with the lived experience of what is happening to you right and that's true for all things being with the lived experience of who you are and what is true for you and that is always always always where I'm going to lead you back to now that's not saying don't work with somebody who practices human design don't work with an astrologer work with these people yes chase whatever lights you up but use it as a tool don't let it define who you are do not put yourself into a box because then what ends up happening is years down the road when the box no longer fits because you have evolved and shifted and changed as you inevitably will then you are going to have to unwind and unravel the the narrative of I am blank in order to become something new you are who you are okay I am let's say Alessia okay I am Alessia and even that can be unraveled we could have a conversation about that as well because what does that even mean okay but that's I am the essence of who I am I am all the little quirks that I have today and those quirks may be completely different I may lose some of them I may pick some up along the way so I really only am the essence of the person that I am in this moment and the next moment is different and the one after that is still and the one after that again it's we are constantly shifting even on a micro level and that creates a ripple effect it changes everything about our lives so there's no reason for us to put ourselves in these limiting boxes when the reality of who we are is infinite and ever changing can we be okay with that can we be comfortable with all of these things with us being ever changing with us being limitless with us being a piece of the universe of being in constant motion right and not needing to constantly obsessively label ourselves and put ourselves in a box just a little food for thought I'm really curious to hear what you say what you have to say about about what I've shared today this is actually a podcast I had planned from like last year so like almost almost three months ago and and it took me a while to kind of get it out because I felt like I needed to be in a more confident place to be able to express exactly what I wanted to say because I think that I've said a lot of triggering things I think I've said a lot of things that go against the the common culture and that also could be really considered critical of of like these systems I guess but I really want to I really want to clarify that I am not criticizing people who use these systems I think there is power in them especially practitioners I don't want anyone to think that I'm criticizing a practitioner by any means but I do think that we all need to be a little bit wiser in terms of giving our power away to a system another system because we're already giving our power away to the capitalistic system in which we find ourselves and we're giving it away to other systems that exist in our in our world right like even bureaucratic systems and administrative systems and so on and so forth like we are we are already so embroiled in multiple systems it just seems ironic that we would use another system as a path to freedom so anyways that's just a little yeah food for thought so please let me know what you think and if you liked this please subscribe and leave a rating if you'd like to connect with me more you can find me on instagram at candice alacia or on my website www.

Candicealacia.

Com and if you're interested you can sign up for my mailing list I will be sending out some goodies soon and yeah some maybe special offers and so on and so forth about ways that we can work together so if that's something that you're into then definitely look into that look into signing up for my newsletter otherwise I hope you're well I hope your weekend treats you fabulously and I will see you next week on another episode ciao

Reviews

“All models are wrong, some are useful.” A quote from a person whose last name was - wait for it - Box! 6.2 billion base pairs in human DNA don’t include all the significant variables, as the differences between identical twins attest. Your commentary is such a good reminder C.A. not to let any of the systems available to us define us, but instead to use them to seek insight and understanding where we can, and trust our hearts for the rest. TY 🤍🙏

😀 Very inspiring talk. Hits the point 🎯👍Many thanks for sharing 🙏🎈🍀