Hello and welcome to another episode of the Wild Freewell podcast.
I am here to chat with you a little bit about another reframe I think that's come up for me.
So I have been processing a lot lately and one of the things that's come up for me has been,
I mean honestly no,
Everything has been coming up for me.
I feel like I've been in a period of like really questioning absolutely everything that I think and I believe and I've been going through,
Yeah I mean like a glow up in some ways.
I have a feeling that this is not the podcast that I set out to record today but anyways yeah there's been so much going on lately and some things in my personal life have gone sideways and it's been really difficult to deal with the sidewaysness of things that have happened.
I think there's been some ways where I feel like I've been mistreated by people and that has been really hard but it has really led me to an interesting,
To a really interesting space.
So without getting into details of like what happened,
There have been like especially over the last couple of weeks some instances where I was not being respected,
My space was not being respected,
My desires,
My wants were not being respected,
Neither were my needs really to be honest with you and even the things that I was asking for they just,
It was kind of all falling by the wayside and it didn't feel particularly good and I'll be really honest it's been a while now that I've been struggling to get back to to the person that I used to be and I hesitate to say this because I don't think that we should be going backwards,
I think that we should always be moving forwards but there are things that existed in my life,
That existed in my personality and in my field before that I have become very disconnected from and it's been kind of an uphill battle trying to get reconnected to not to get back to because I don't think that's the right thing,
I don't necessarily want to go back to the person that I was but I definitely want to reconnect with some of the energy that I had before because I liked it,
I liked that energy,
I liked the fact that you know maybe I did things a little bit differently.
So just to kind of break this down,
A long long time ago it was circa 2015 2016 I remember being in a conversation with people and basically them coming to me and telling me that I needed to be more nice and this was like a really pivotal moment for me it's really interesting I don't know if you ever take the time to reflect on your life,
I'm sure you do if you listen to this podcast because you wouldn't be here if you didn't but I don't know if you ever look back over things that have happened and like see that something was like a massive turning point whether it's for better or for worse but like there's these moments where you're like wow that that is the moment that everything changed and this conversation that I'm about to have with you which is not the podcast that I set out to record today but the the conversation I'm about to have for you with you was a very pivotal moment that took me about let's say if it happened in I think 2016 so it took me about eight years off my path so I have spent the last eight years trying to undo what happened in this one moment so I had a conversation with my then partner and some other people who are really important to me and basically the conversation was Alacia you're not nice and you need to be nicer and I didn't believe it then and I have never believed it since because for multiple reasons one being that I think nice is a non-word it is a non-adjective it means absolutely nothing it is not kind it is not caring nice means something different and nice for me at least it means something different and nice in terms of women especially when it's placed towards women it means obedient and subservient and being a good girl and doing what is expected of you and making sure that you're not ruffling any feathers and that you're not making people uncomfortable and for me I don't want a single woman in my life especially this applies to everyone but I don't want a single woman in my life to be trapped by the myth of niceness because it means absolutely nothing it has no value in my opinion okay because kind means something else I have never been rude well I mean like in small instances yes and maybe even when I was younger more so like when I was a teenager perhaps but like at the age that I was at which was 26 at the time when this conversation was happening I was not being rude to people but I was making people uncomfortable because I had an attitude that did not subscribe to the status quo and the norms of what society expects of us so what I mean by that is I have never been somebody who tolerates a lot of drama or bullshit I'm just not here for it I don't want to have drama in my life with friends with anything uh with partners I don't like playing games with people I prefer to be honest not rude again and like always within like a certain limit but I don't there's a lot that I don't tolerate and that I don't tolerate being mistreated and so on and so forth and this conversation because it was with two people who were two of the most important people in my life at that time was like earth-shattering to be honest with you I felt extremely attacked and um I felt like I felt deeply misunderstood and I felt like it was a very punishing conversation and since I've gotten critiques on the podcast about saying that I think that other people should do things my way which which I really don't feel is true because I believe that there is no such thing as truth it's one of the things that I talk about on the podcast all the time you have to take everything that you hear every single word from every single person from every single outlet and filter it through your body and your truth and your values and see if it aligns with what you believe to be true so I don't think that someone else should feel the same way about nice as I do this just happens to be what I feel and I think that the word has become a trap for most people and that that really needs to shift and there's also something to be said for like I know that other people have said on on various other podcasts where I've talked about like the opinions of others that like we need to be willing to take into consideration what other people are saying to us we need to ask ourselves like is there any truth in this and that's exactly what I'm reflecting here for me there wasn't necessarily truth in this what my experience of this was is that my behavior at the time made people deeply deeply deeply uncomfortable because I didn't feel that I needed to morph what I wanted or what I felt or what I desired and I didn't need to morph my my trajectory my path my plans in order to make other people more comfortable now that is really difficult for most people who have spent their lives living in the status quo I have so many examples from my life with people from like for example another generation um talking to like my generation or younger and even we could take a second and I will actually now to break down this discussion about Millennials because a lot of people say and often that Millennials are lazy and they don't want to work and they don't want to do this and it's not okay and blah blah blah and I mean there are people in every generation that don't want to work so inevitably there are Millennials that are lazy and that don't want to work but I think there is a fundamental difference between Millennials and Gen Z and other generations and I think that difference is intolerance I think that Millennials and younger generations are intolerant of doing things the same way that they have always been done just because they have always been done that way okay and think about that for a second because this this conversation comes up a lot especially in regards to work so once upon a time you got a job whatever job you got and you were happy to have that job and that job provided for your family and you worked that job probably for 30 plus years and then you retired and then you started living your life so if someone from an older generation has always lived that way and then they see somebody who's under the age of 30 let's say and they are switching jobs constantly they're not really committing to one company and one path and they're not living a traditional life you can see how that would be really triggering because it goes against the values that the other generation had right because the other generation valued loyalty and stability and security and the younger generations have other values they believe that they have more opportunity or more possibility that there's always jobs available that they can switch if they feel like it and there is a little bit of from my perspective and my analysis of talking to people about this conversation especially like from different generations there is a little bit of this well I did it this way and maybe it was hard for me and I suffered and sacrificed and blood sweat and tears and all of that and so you need to too and who are you to walk another path who are you to do things differently than I did when I had no choice but to do it that way and I very much believe that the generations prior to mine and to the the younger generations genuinely felt like they had no choice I really do believe that I think there was a lot of pressure from family society and culture to live this way and I think that is really fair and I think that there are also negative aspects to Millennials and Gen Z as well I don't want to make it seem like I'm more on one side than the other because I'm not I think that the younger generations in general we tend to have maybe we tend to be a little bit loose and fast with our morals and values and there is something to be said for that as well and also the impact of social media but if we start talking about that we're going to get way off topic so bringing it back this idea of like you know the status quo and like social norms and like the way that things are done we see that play out in many different ways and we can look at it from a generational point of view which I just did but in this instance and the example that I'm giving I really feel like the people that I was talking to felt like they needed to approach life in a specific way and because I was not approaching my life in the exact same way it was not okay because it made them uncomfortable because when I was younger I genuinely believed that things were always going to work out for me and like that came across I think in an arrogant way and that might also be true because I was younger so there is really a chance that that that is how it was perceived it was never my intention but I can understand how there would be a misperception there but I genuinely believed that you know things were just going to work out and if I wanted something I could work for it or I could get it and it would all just kind of come together in the end I really genuinely believed that and I did not believe that the problems and the situations other people found themselves in were necessarily going to apply to me not because I felt better than it I just felt like but that's not my reality that's not my truth and this conversation was very destructive for me this conversation about how I'm not nice coming from two of the people who matter to me the most it was it was it felt like an attack and it really made me question okay well if these two people are saying it to me then it must be true and I just threw everything that I believed out the window and I really began on a path of what has been quite literally eight years of almost like consistent self-sacrifice so this conversation became the narrative that ran my entire existence and let me break down what happened to you from this point in 2016 I had this conversation in Canada okay I moved to Italy with my then partner and I became a part of his group of friends and all along I have this new narrative of like I'm not nice running the show and it is constantly in the background of everything that I do and so when I find myself in a situation in which multiple members of my partner's friend group begin mistreating me repeatedly and consistently I felt like I was doing something wrong because if they're mistreating me it must be because I'm not nice because that became the only story that existed for me it was the only reality and it overshadowed absolutely everything that prior to that conversation I believed to be true and I don't blame these people by the way for this conversation because everyone is doing the best that they can with what they have available to them and this conversation it was up to me to hold a boundary and to say that's not true and that's not mine and I appreciate that you guys are reflecting this back to me but I don't accept that as reality and instead especially because of the age that I was at as well um and because of the position that these people held in my life I just kind of trusted that they knew better than me and I allowed it to completely demolish any boundary that I may have had and and I'm not particularly great with boundaries as you will see as the story continues um so yeah it just it just all kind of got excessively out of control it just kept getting more and more out of control because I was found myself now in another country with no family and no friends of my own embroiled in a group of people that are treating me relatively consistently like garbage with a partner that had no intention desire or capacity to defend me so I was very much going this alone and then at the time there were also some instances with my partner's family my then partner's family who were kind of like taken aback by my Canadian-ness at the time because like I viewed things like but I mean stupid things differently than they did like for example like leaving the windows open in March because it's warm outside like in Canada this is normal in Italy it is apparently not that normal because you know it's it's March and we don't do that in March because it's not summer and it's not spring and it's not whatever so like yeah it was just really it was just really interesting and I and I came up a lot against a lot of like blocks and then because of this conversation that I let really seep into my essence and who I was I kind of just began people-pleasing and letting go of all of my own values and all of my own beliefs about what is right and what is true and how I deserve to be treated and the things that I am worthy of I just let it all go and I just started kind of accepting whatever was coming to me and I'm going to be really frank what was coming to me was either not good or not a whole fuck of a lot there just wasn't anything that was that was coming that was really particularly good and so um this kind of continued on for the entirety of my previous relationship more or less and it got to a point where I was being mistreated so frequently and I wasn't able to get the space and time that I needed to distance myself to be able to heal that I eventually had to have a conversation with my partner where I was like listen your choice but it's me or them because I can't do this anymore and I would not want to ever be in that position again I would never want to have that conversation with another partner it's deeply unhealthy ultimatums are garbage but at the time I had absolutely no capacity to be in that situation anymore and find any kind of peace because we are talking about years at this point when we finally had this conversation I think we had been together for four years so it was four years on and off of this constant sort of like commentary or being ignored or being treated whatever like like us like I didn't fit and I didn't fit in like I really really didn't fit in I was definitely a square peg in a round hole and I said that to my partner I said you guys are trying so desperately to chip away at me until I fit in and I am never going to fit in because I'm not a round peg I am a square peg I'm never going to be exactly what you guys want me to be so I really did have that conversation and I did try over the years to get myself back on this path and I think that if I am totally honest about the reason why my previous relationship ended it has more to do with this situation with not feeling accepted not feeling welcome constantly feeling like an outsider constantly feeling not good enough constantly being made to feel not good enough and then my partner never defending me and really not being on my side I would I would say that that is the number one reason why I left the previous relationship just because I couldn't take it anymore to be in this I couldn't take the fighting and the constant trying to make somebody understand my perspective and understand why I'm not doing well and I just ultimately chose to walk away.
Fast forward to last year and I end my previous relationship and very shortly thereafter I find my current partner and that is maybe not the ideal amount of time to heal I did not really have a ton of time for myself to really kind of get sorted and that is okay because what I found is is magical and it is different and I wouldn't change anything about what I went through for anything but I do find myself now in a position where I have to pick up the pieces that I didn't necessarily give myself a chance to sort through previously and I will be totally fair like relationships bring up a lot of really beautiful things they also are really triggering people always say like relationships are containers for growth and they're the thing that pushes you to heal most often and I totally agree with that that being said I can also see how healing within a relationship where you need to take someone else's feelings and time and resources whether that be emotional or time or whatever into consideration is a lot more complicated it would be a lot easier to heal when the only person that you have to take care of is yourself obviously now that's not necessarily how my story was supposed to unfold and so I find myself in this position but even within this relationship there have been a lot of shades of the same thing where I am people-pleasing I have tried to make myself as small as possible to not ruffle any feathers and to not cause any problems and to make sure that everyone else is really comfortable and really happy and just like trying to be perfect over and over and over again consistently and it got to the point where it was really starting to break me down because I felt like I wasn't getting anything so much so like I had just dishonored like not been honoring myself really at all on a macro level maybe there were pockets or instances of me honoring myself but not in a real tangible this has fundamentally changed sort of way and I think too when you ask for nothing you get nothing and I think I spent the last little bit of my life in this current iteration asking for very very little and getting very very little because I mean to a certain extent you do you get what you ask for and you get what you think you are worthy of and I was trying to make everyone else's life easier by making my life extremely extremely complicated in terms of time and resources especially like emotional and mental resources and just trying to make everybody else comfortable while not even remotely honoring myself and it's part of the reason too why this year the podcast has been so erratic because it's been very difficult to find the space to self-analyze to come up with ideas to figure out what I want to say and how I want to show up in the world because I haven't been showing up for myself so it's very difficult to show up for other people or show up in a tangible way when you're not showing up for yourself also in a tangible way.
Cut to two weeks ago shit hits the fan in my in my relationship and like just in our entire world in general so many things happened out of the blue and that's really been the story of the last three months but the last two weeks have been the breaking point of this.
The last two weeks my co-worker my partner's co-worker is out sick so he's working alone and his time is even more stretched and we had other familial responsibilities that we had to take care of and one of my friends was coming to visit me and there was a lot of things on the go and of course keeping in in line with this you know Alacia needs to be nice and you have to be nicer and you have to make sure that you're you know doing everything for everybody else and like why can't you just be a little bit nicer keeping in line with that theme I was sacrificing even more of what I wanted and one of the things that I found most frustrating is that I have not asked really for anything except for this trip with my friend I asked for it to be just to have the time and space to be able to focus on that I really wanted my partner to be able to be there too because we've been together for for a very short amount of time I don't live in the country where most of the people I know live so he's had very little interactions with the people who who've known me longer who know me well and so this trip happens and unfortunately he basically isn't able to spend any time with us because of a million things that are going on in our world and this is the beginning of the end for me in terms of a breaking point like this is essentially what this trip represented was me like literally excavating below the rock bottom that I had already thought I had arrived at I really thought I can go no lower I have nothing else to give and this week I was asked to give up even more and I just thought I am so done with this and I one of the things I want most from the podcast genuinely is I want to save you time I want you to listen to the stories that I share whether they be from my life or from clients or the reframes on thoughts I want you to avoid ever getting to this position that I am describing right now because it sucks it is immensely powerful there is nothing more powerful than a good rock bottom because when you hit rock bottom or if you go even deeper than the previously imagined rock bottom as I did over the last couple of weeks I think that it is a catalyst for change like none other but but if we are doing the other things I talk about on the podcast if we are taking care of ourselves if we are setting boundaries if we are honoring ourselves if we are showing up for ourselves if we're exercising and eating well and you know like giving ourselves time to process and time to rest and doing the things that we love if we are taking care of ourselves rock bottom becomes optional you do not need to find yourself in the position that I am now describing and I hope you never do to be honest with you I really hope you don't not because it was particularly painful I think I've had a really good attitude about this because I feel genuinely like there have been a series of things that have happened over the last couple of weeks and I am grateful for every single one grateful for every single quote-unquote bad thing that has happened because it has fundamentally shifted something within me I can I could feel it I could feel almost like tectonic plates shifting into place something fundamentally changed for me where I reconnected with that energy from eight years ago that was like this is bullshit and I am done and that for me is honestly it's a miracle I feel very much like I have experienced a miracle in all of these kind of horrible things that have happened do I wish that they had happened not necessarily especially with the discussion about my friend's trip here because it was the first person that had come she was the first person that had come to visit me in my new house in my new city because I've moved recently to be to be with my partner and that meant a lot to me and I felt like because of the emotional turmoil and drama that I was experiencing in my private life and personal life and family life there was no way for me to be fully present with her and I feel too guilty that I took maybe took something away from her I'm not certain that she feels that way and I do think that there's also a perfectionistic tendency that's showing up here but it has it has it hurt at the time but it has been so pivotal in making this shift because I really feel like nice Candice because that's what I call the other version of me I suppose like I have two names Candice Alacia and I go by my middle name Alacia and whenever I feel like I'm referring to an older version of myself I tend to call her Candice so I definitely feel like nice Candice has died she is gone and I am so grateful for that because nice Candice served no purpose in my life she was not helping me get what I wanted she was not helping me show up in the world in a way that I feel is conducive to bettering the world bettering my relationships my friendships my connections like helping me show up at work like like nice Candice was also sad Candice because she was feeling crappy all the time and feeling never good enough and like she didn't deserve more than the crumbs that she was being given by people and that was for years for years that underlying story right was running my life so I feel like I am in the middle of a renaissance to be honest with you I feel very much like last year when I met my partner he brought me back to life that relationship our relationship our love and the way that we approached each other at the at the very beginning it really really really brought me back to life and like saying this now makes me tear up because it I was so I was so just I was dead I really was emotionally there was nothing left there was no space to dream there was nothing for me I didn't know where I was going I didn't know where I what I wanted nothing felt safe it didn't feel safe to dream it didn't feel safe to want things all of this because of like the impact of my previous relationship so even when in meeting him and then he's already got this trip to Asia planned and then all of a sudden he's inviting me to go with him and it's like something that I've always wanted to do was go to Asia and and finding a way to make that work it allowed me to believe in possibility again and that was the first step and these last two weeks have been really the second step in just this kind of really snap back into who I know I am and who I am is somebody who one of my co-workers one of my old co-workers said to me suffers no fools and I'm not mad at that listen I'm not mad at that like I understand how it sounds and I'm not concerned at all because living like that is what allows me to live well I am able to live as my best self when I live that way and I understand that this podcast is probably going to be super triggering for people because I am saying a lot of things that people do not believe is true for them and so when I say you know I deserve better or I am worthy of more it makes people very uncomfortable when someone says that because then they automatically say well that person's really arrogant no that person understands themselves and what they want and whenever we get triggered by something like that it is because it is triggering in us something that we want and we feel we can't have I have had this experience so many times with people that I follow on social media where I felt this sort of how dare they and anytime you hear that I promise you it has nothing to do with them or rarely has much of anything to do with them and it has so much more to do with what you believe to be true for you and I would encourage you that if that comes up look at that part of you with so much love and tenderness because it is calling for you to pay attention to it it wants you to look at it it wants you to recognize that actually you do deserve so much more and I believe that for me and I believe it for you we all deserve to be happy to be well to feel free we deserve it it is the fundamental core values of my life and it bleeds into every aspect of my business I cannot remove these things from what I believe to be true about the world and I allowed myself to get drawn off my path for about eight years more or less and I don't want to I can't say yet that I am grateful for it I'm sure I will arrive at the point where I am right now I'm thankful though for what has happened that has led me back to it that has led me back to who I believe I am at my core which is somebody who has an inherent self-worth and an inherent confidence and believes that she is willing she is worthy and deserving of the things that she wants in whatever aspect that might be and to be honest with you I don't want extravagant things and I haven't been asking for anything huge like I asked for time and space and I can promise you that like those are the two fundamental things for me to live well and I wasn't getting them it has been basically since last year late last year that I have not had any time or space to really just focus on me or what I want and because of that the podcast has suffered like you know everything has kind of taken a back seat because I have been so focused on people pleasing and showing up for other people and I can't and you can't and nobody can because we all deserve more because we all deserve to focus on ourselves we deserve to have a portion of our own time within the limited time that we have here on planet earth to focus on ourselves I believe that to be true for every living breathing human being including animals including plants we can throw everything in there I believe that so so much to be true and and it took something it took a lot of like drama to really help me understand that I am done and that I need to be really much more firm with my boundaries and when I say I want something or when I say I need something that I do my own part to make sure that I get it what do I mean by that I mean I asked for the trip with my friend I asked for time but when somebody asked me to somehow morph that and shift it in order to accommodate them I automatically said yes and I never held a boundary saying like this is it's not even okay that you're asking me to do this right now because I've already asked you for something months prior to the conversation that we are now having so I asked for time and space with my friend in 2023 and someone came up to me very last minute and asked me for something during that same weekend and it's like but you knew for months that this was happening so that should have never even been a discussion that should have been honored because I deserve to have that honored because I'm not asking for something ridiculous and there wasn't necessarily this emergency that really deserved to be honored right and so in not honoring that and in giving up a little bit more of what I wanted I just reached my breaking point because I gave more when I already had nothing left to give and at that point I just realized I'm not doing this anymore I can't do this anymore and other things happened after that and it just became this discussion of like no I really am I really do deserve more than this I really do deserve more than what I'm getting and it took getting nothing in return from the people in my life for not really getting the support or the love or the attention or whatever that I needed while I am being asked to pour all of this love attention and support into them genuinely being asked it's not just like I'm doing it because I think I need to or because of people pleasing there is a little bit of that as well but I was also being asked to give more than I had available while not really being given anything back and not that it always needs to be fair but it was already so imbalanced that asking them for this really just threw things super off kilter and it was not possible to come back it threw the trains right train right off the tracks but luckily the train found the track it actually wanted to be on so that's the golden that's the golden nugget or like the silver lining of this story is that like at the end of the day it reconnected me back to who I really really want to be and who I fundamentally believe that I am so if you are at a in a similar position where you are especially self-sacrificing people-pleasing if you are suffering from any kind of perfectionism and whenever you feel that trigger of like how dare she how dare she do that how dare she say that I want you to I want to encourage you to to look at the part of you that is hurting to look at the part of you that is reacting to that and it's not easy to do and it's uncomfortable as all get out but really look at that part of you and say hmm isn't that interesting that's all it takes isn't that interesting that I feel triggered when I look at that person why isn't it interesting that I feel triggered when somebody says that to me why why do I feel triggered what is this bringing up in me what do I believe to be true about me or about the world and then you've congratulations because you've hit on a limiting belief and you know because you listen to this podcast that limiting beliefs can be changed they can be rewritten they can be rewired and sometimes it happens really quickly and sometimes it takes eight years and a whole lot of bullshit along the way to get back to where you want to be or to get to where you want to be you know but it doesn't have to it doesn't have to if you're able to have those conversations and I think I started the process of getting to where I am today a year ago when I left my relationship that was the first step meeting my partner was the second step and all of the things that have unfolded along the year that we have been together now it has all led me to this space which is immensely immensely powerful.
I want to thank you as a listener for holding space for my story I don't tend to talk too much in detail about what I've gone through or what I or what I am necessarily experiencing in some ways because I want this podcast to be short this episode is very long for the the top for the timeline that I tend to keep because I want it to be completely actionable I want you to listen to the podcast learn something take something away and immediately make a change if you feel called to if you feel inspired to that is my ultimate ultimate desire for this space is that you are inspired to do what you need to do to feel better that you find a way to live wild free well because that for me and your version of wild free well not my version but wild free well for me is just it is everything it is absolutely everything it underlies every decision that I need to make and not always do I do that well but it's it's something that's important and my life would be a whole lot better if I was able to integrate that into every single decision and it's something that I think I will do moving forward because because something has shifted something has fundamentally shifted and things are genuinely going to be different now and I feel different now after all the things that I've been through and so thank you for giving me space to share my story and I hope that you get something from it there is a part of me that hopes that you don't see yourself in this story because I wish more for you I wish for you to be happy and to be well and to not hit rock bottom but I think that that is so much a part of the human experience that it's very difficult to remove it one way or the other so if you too find yourself in a rock bottom know that it is taking you exactly where you need to be and not only is it not actually a rock bottom it is actually a rocket launcher at the end of the day because when you hit that bottom when you think you can go no further it is the thing that launches you up to your next level faster than anything because you just something snaps and you just fundamentally shift it's like people who wake up one day and say you know what I'm not going to smoke anymore and then they never touch a cigarette again it's that decision it is that that fundamental decision that from this moment forward something is going to be different and in my case I'll be totally honest with you it was it was physical there I physically felt things shifting within me maybe it was something on a cellular level somebody who knows more about that than me could maybe could maybe enlighten us but I really feel like on a physical level something changed and I really understand that there is no part of my physical person my cells my entity my energy there is nothing about my physical being that will tolerate what I have been tolerating for the last eight years I can't anymore there is a it's just it's a no I am not available for that reality anymore until the next cycle you know because life but yeah I so thank you again I hope that you found something in this I wish you so much happiness so much wellness and I can't wait to connect with you on the next episode of the podcast if you feel called please leave a review or a rating or subscribe or follow or all of those things and if you want to reach out to me you know where to find me so sending you all so much love and I will see you on the next episode of the podcast.
