What Defines You
Contributor: Lacy Phillips
Photographer: Lacy Phillips
When I'm working with clients, I am always silently watching for what defines them. The shackles of personas they've picked up along the way which create the box in which they live. This is not a bad thing by any means as it offers an illusionary sense of safety.
What defines us is usually created by the programming we receive. All the subconscious beliefs along the way - from outright to subliminal (essentially everything we've been exposed to) - which tend to create the structure of our subconscious mind (beliefs). And a lot of my job is to sift around to detect which ones aren't serving the process of the individuals I work with - especially pertaining to what each are calling in.
We all have layerrrrrrrs of persona definitions. Masks. When we begin to question them, we gently raise the lid and let just a glimmer of light in (new potential, freedom, perspective) - and more importantly an opening for new manifestations. But these ponderings of self are journeys. They aren't overnight. And A LOT of ego die-off takes place before a shift in perspective can ground.
Because we are in Gemini season - the ultimate proponent of a second perspective - it's an incredible question that might be sitting on the seat of your subconscious mind right at this very moment. What defines me? But the better question is, what doesn't define me?
I have a few clients going through this right now. It's definitely a common energetic theme this month. And It's usually in the darker (feminine) moments of life that allows space for this true self inventory. When one is feeling the urge to ask, and chisel away these personas, it's when I know that something greater, usually something the client hasn't expanded fully into is ready to come through.
Just in the last month, I saw an incredible partner come through who didn't fit the bill at all of what one woman had been programmed her whole life to believe she "wanted" due to her upbringing. Another received a dream job at a tech company after she chiseled away the rigid persona of her identity in the "safe" medical field. Another young male client was met with the most random opportunity to live and work in New York after chiseling away the persona of his poor French childhood that didn't know such opportunities were possible (for him).
I remember sitting on the beach five years ago and having an epiphany. I told my then partner, "I'm a mold breaker. I'm here to teach people that they don't have to live by society's mold, and in fact when they don't, and they get closer to their authenticity, that's when the real magic happens." And it's everything I've done since. I'm not a spiritual teacher. About 10% of what I teach people is even tied to spirituality. I have zero interest in that very limited box. Nor do I identify with it. I am a person that advocates for each's individuality and wholeness - which entails their unique polarity. I'm an advocate for them grounding into their most realized, owned, and confident dark and light. And I'm an advocate of supporting and processing all the limits, bullshit, and disillusionment they have been told, or continue to tell themselves along the way.
My whole life has been one big journey of breaking the mold. I, myself, have gone through MAJOR cycles of this exact journey of breaking my molds and taking off the masks that were programmed into me. I can't wait to keep processing them until the end of time! Some I've processed along the way:
1. I'm not an academic, therefore I didn't attend college when all my other peers were; and pressure from my parents with the threat of no help was at stake. The structure of school and academia never inspired me. But I constantly self-educate.
2. I'm not a hot chick. This has gotten me into societal confusion since the beginning of time. It's what held me back from booking most auditions - when I was an actress - when most character breakdowns read "hot chick". My picture got me in there but the moment my energy entered the room, it was deeply apparent that I resonated with more of the androgynous to masculine strong woman. This was equally confusing as a young tomboy.
3. I'm not popular. Though I've always found myself in "those crowds" wherever I go; the moment I sense that someone is genuinely not safe, doesn't want the best for me, or is mostly operating on the material plane (hustler, catty, ungrounded, fully ego driven - terminology introduced to me by Danielle Beinstein), my energy literally retreats from them. This has kept me a lone wolf in elementary, high school, in acting, to my current industry. I'm far too truthful to myself and authentic to fake that. And it leaves space for the token few genuine and ultra interesting souls to come through to form my intimate community.
4. I am not a feminist. Though, I'm FULLY aware that movement means women's equality and I'm an advocate for women's equality. The movement associated with it still feels limited when the message could be bigger and more encompassing. I'm much more interested in the in-between gender neutral, race neutral, sexal orientation neutral conversations. I believe that a matriarchal society would be just as harmful as a patriarchal society. The word feminism itself already excludes the other sex. I'm an equal-ist. I believe in the healing, elevation, and opportunity for both men and women (plants, earth, animals, and everything in between), starting with the little ones.
5. I am not an opportunist. My whole life I've been dangled with shiny opportunities that seemed like the road less traveled; however, to my soul they would have been a road far traveled away from my essence, integrity, and authenticity. The big names of press I've turned down, the opportunity to turn this journal into a "major digital publication", a former book deal opportunity, partnerships, and partnering for events that feel fast, lack integrity and don't align with my authentic values would make the average up and coming blogger's mouth drop.
6. I'm not poor. I grew up with two struggling young 20's parents that constantly worried about money. I continued that cycle for a long time. Until I broke it and expanded out of it.
And these are just the superficial societal ones. Not the deeply personal ones. Most of these took months to fully process the layers attached to them. I still process them. The ego, the identity they might have given me. The second guessing myself, the lack of security, the war within myself if I could really trust the Universe this time yet again (or would it be the time it would fail), the darkest before the dawn, and at last, the cocoon before the butterfly.
My essence is all that defines me. It's all that defines us. Anything else is just a persona, a mask, a projection, and something to deconstruct. And one day when these definitions stop serving me, I'll challenge them too. We are moving energy that is constantly in flux. That is what makes me an incredible manifestor. It's what makes my clients that manifest well great manifestors.
And the beauty of this is that every single person's essence is total unique, in need of a completely unique experience and life.