#56: Being a Black Sheep

- Welcome back to the greatest project podcast. My name is Kelly Poole and I'm your host. A couple weeks ago, I had been asked a question in one of my like question boxes on Instagram and it was how would I go about coaching my 21 year old self and this doesn't necessarily need to be your 21 year old self. I want you to sit with me through this episode and just think of maybe this is a current version of you and something that you need to hear and things that maybe you're slowly starting to implement into your life, been getting a lot of feedback and messages from you guys about just becoming more aware of your emotions, feeling in your body, even at life, been asked a lot of like, what does that even mean to like feel in your body? And 21 year old me also had no idea and I'm not saying ages to compare apples to oranges and any capacity. Like ages literally just a marker of the amount of time that you have been on Earth. We all learn lessons at different paces in different seasons of our lives and I'm somebody who deeply believes that there are souls and older souls and younger souls and I think I had always kind of had a little bit of an older soul which leads me to one of my points which is I guess we're all start having a conversation this morning with a 21 year old girl as she is in college currently and she ended up joining the program and she and I were having a conversation on this concept of like she was very, very mature that doesn't mean that you don't need help and sometimes maturity can come off as somebody who is just not controlled by their emotions to other people. So you might be having an internal experience that feels really big and really heavy and really dense and like you are potentially struggling but to the outside world it looks like you have it all together because you have developed a system within yourself to continue pushing forward. I was somebody like this. I remember a couple of years back I had been posting on Instagram and the amount of people who DM me were like oh you look like you're doing so good and this was before I knew that social media was fake and I just remember feeling so heavy anytime I got a message that said that because I felt so destroyed on the inside I felt so weak. I really didn't like my life. I really didn't like myself and so the thought that it looked good and I looked strong in the outside was really difficult for me and it was one of the first times in my life I had one of those realizations like oh I don't want to pretend to be anybody I don't want to pretend to be strong just because I know how to show up and how to work hard and how to get things done and get good grades and go to the gym and take care of myself doesn't mean that I'm not emotionally or mentally struggling and I really was at the time but I didn't look like it on the outside and that is something that when you are mature young or maybe you just have this thing that drives you I had I have one of my wounds was always that like nothing I did was ever good enough so to me there wasn't an option to not show up I still had to show up and so again that's where people can get confused about you potentially doing well or you being mature when in reality somebody's maturity is you being able to look at yourself and one ask for help but to say I have no idea what I'm doing right now or you know what I really am struggling right now and I feel like I also when I was younger didn't know how to let two things be true at the same time it was to me I really wanted to fit into one certain box and one certainly like I am sad than I am sad and I can't ever experience joy and that's just not the way the world works at all the world is a million shades of black and white and so something I really struggled with was putting myself in these boxes and then being confused by I would experience moments of joy and then I would discount everything else so we have a tendency in our humanness to want to make sense of things and and using the word and letting two truths be true at the same time is really confusing and it actively takes that practice and so you might be really mature and you're emotionally struggling right now you might be able to execute on the physical side of things and you're mentally really struggling right now and you're actively seeking support and one of the conversations that she and I were having and it's really the title of this episode and if you've listened to my last one I talked about that, a reframe that I've recently come to is like you're not a black sheep, you're a unicorn and I have definitely identified as a black sheep my entire life I just felt like I was too big for the bounds that I was in I feel like the word stuck really sticks with me from like 16, 17, 18 I just felt stuck where I was, I felt like I wasn't growing I felt like I wasn't around people who deeply understood me and this doesn't, it's not a necessarily bad thing and this is what I've kind of come to in my age of neutrality apparently a lot of what I teach and talk about is stoicism which it really is like seeing everything is and then we decide is it good, bad, right, wrong? We are the assigners of meaning to it and I had these realizations in the last couple of years that it's okay that some people don't want to go to the depths of conversation, it's okay that not every conversation I have with people goes to the absolute depths even though that is something that I'm so excited and so willing to do tell me how you think the universe works, tell me how you think you work, why you do what you do, why are you actively still choosing to act that way? Like all of these just like deep rooted mindset emotional, somatic spiritual things I love to actively talk about that and I even remember like through high school not feeling like I fit in I always felt like I had to be somebody else in order to be liked by the group and it wasn't until I figured out how to surround myself with people who made me feel like my version of life is normal and that's the life that I've chosen to build now is really intentional about I want to be around people who don't gossip, I want to be around people who prioritize their health and their wealth and I want to be around people who dream big and allow themselves to be delusional and I freaking love my sister, she's funny, we are total opposites, we have the same sense of humor, total opposites and she always jokes, she's like I don't get why people pay you and she's obviously very supportive of me and so I understand her intention in saying this and this is a great example of somebody can say something and I might be a part of me is hurt when she says that I can acknowledge the hurt in me and they want to defend and the desire to prove why, why somebody should pay me why somebody should take me seriously and then I realize I'll always be her sister to her and she will always just see me as her little sister which is totally okay, but she was telling me this morning when we were talking about I'm like I don't get why people pay you to challenge them and tell them the truth, like don't they have somebody in their lives who's gonna tell them the truth? I was like yeah maybe they do have somebody in their life who is honest with them and maybe they've never seen this path be walked before, maybe they've never pursued different or maybe everybody around them just drinks every single weekend and that's all they like to do and they like their 95 and they're comfortable in it which is fine, that is great and that is good and that is fine and maybe they want more for themselves and they've never been able to experience it and as somebody who walked a path of being around people who drink every weekend, pursuing a 95, going to school, getting a degree and then did a total 180 of my life and really walked the quote unquote like lone wolf path for a little bit until I was able to find people and a community that season supports me it can feel like the weight of the world and I of course it was the kid who felt like nobody understood me and it was mentorship and somebody leading the way for me a third party person who I have no buy into my clients lives if they succeed it doesn't affect my life if they fail it does not affect my life I am here as genuinely a sounding board I am here to have them be able to borrow my belief borrow my reframes, borrow my mindset and so maybe you are somebody who like you're trying to explain to people and again like think of that even that little part of me that wanted to prove to her I wanted to over explain to myself that is how 16 to basically 22 year old me felt is just like I wasn't taken seriously like nobody understood me like I needed to prove myself I needed to prove my worth in order to be seen in this capacity and so there's this version of me that again like growing up just so desperately wanted to prove these things and it's cool now to be able to see and like here and feel and watch that again I just deeply struggled with like why can't I be like everybody else if you are unfamiliar with my college experience I actually was enrolled in a total of five colleges that is correct I graduated in three and a half years I did not party in college I started my in-person training business at 19 and I did three bodybuilding preps at 18 19 and 21 and if you know anything about a bodybuilding prep you're not really drinking I also had no desire to because I was bodybuilding and I cared so much about my physique looking a certain way and I deeply struggled with this for a really long time I was like why don't I like to drink and go to these parties the way that other people do and it is something that I have only recently come to I'm like oh you guys are going to the club I don't want to come you're going to the bar don't want to come want to go talk to strangers don't really want to come I am I thrive in a one-on-one setting or small group setting I love getting to like deeply and intimately get to know somebody and it's not something it's something that I struggled with and wished that I wasn't like that for a long time again I just like wished like I had a normal college experience with everybody else stuff And I wish that I was able to drink the way they are and party the way are and like why don't I like the things that everybody else likes I spent a large majority of my younger years trying to make myself be the way that other people were And if I could go back and coach this younger version of me It was because I didn't have any worth in myself didn't have proof at this time that like me being odd or being different was Okay, and now I think back it from the lens of like I was always just trying to fit into the wrong box And I even cut myself doing it now sometimes of asking myself like what really matters to me Am I spending my money on things that matter to me am I spending my days and my time on things that matter to me and getting to like Reconnect and going to nature really Reminded me and showed me that that's something that I genuinely love so much is going to the mountains I would much rather spend a weekend with no cell reception than be at a club And I don't think that that's weird or different or it makes me better than anybody if you like going to the bar Go to the bar if you like go into the club and your social butterfly and you like to go to your raves and whatever it is Go I personally fucking hate it and it's my nightmare and I spent so long trying to shove myself back into that box And so I would really work with a younger version of me or even the current parts of me that felt like I needed to be like everybody else either to be Liked by them or to maybe I thought that that would finally make this feeling inside of me go away and be entirely normal But the thing is is like The lens I get to see everything through now I can't change the same way that you can't change what you were meant to go through Like it's not like oh what was wrong with me at 21 it was what was I experiencing And now my job is just to approach everything that was behind me all of my experiences all of my lessons everything I've ever went through With tenderness and forgiveness and a lot of the times and something I struggled with for a really long time was I deeply hated myself I was one so utterly mean like myself talk was horrible but I also held Everything I did every mistake I ever made Why didn't I know better I should have known better you're 21 brother you know nothing I'm 27 and I know even less now. That's genuinely how I feel I feel like the wiser like wisdom is literally just realizing how much you don't fucking know You're 18 and you look I know everything fuck my parents. They don't know anything. Oh my god Have I ever talked about this on the podcast? Okay, dramatic pause side tangent Okay, okay, okay, okay, I'm fine. We're gonna talk about it I finished my sleeve at 21-ish 22 Anyway around that rough time. I'm 27 now If I could go back I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't have done it I have these two side-by-sides photos and I post them on my story one time because when one my hair is bleached blonde And I just look angry at the world when I was 21 I Felt so broken on the inside and this is like the big it was like the beginning of me really like turning a corner and discovering myself But I felt like I needed the world to think that I was strong and one of the ways that I did that was by Being tough on the outside and I think tattoos are beautiful There's still so many tattoos that like I would have just done it different mine feel like they don't belong to me Because they don't they belong to a younger version of me who was Angry at the world and one of people to think she was strong and Again, I'm not mad at the art. I think the art is itself is beautiful But it doesn't feel like me anymore. I feel like genuinely Through the last Couple of years. I've just let go of the pain in my heart I have been hurt by the world like most of us have and I got so Unbelievably tired of holding it. I got so unbelievably tired at being angry I got so unbelievably tired at being sad and being mean to myself and making everything I do not be good enough and Through a huge piece for me was My one of my bodybuilding preps and I've talked about this before I went to this like NLP Retreat situation dang and it was the first time in my life. I made peace with my emotions and I'm telling you I Decided it was okay to feel and I decided to stop hating the fact that I was a deeply feeling human being Who had these emotions and was mushy and gushy and has passion and range and yada yada yada we've talked about all of the things And so as I've come to realize who I am and that you don't need to like all the parts of you to love them But it is my like this is who I am it is not going away That is who I believe my soul is and then you get to change your relationship with yourself and with the parts of you that you Maybe don't like so much or you have a lot of resistance to and as I have really softened my heart once again It has made me no longer relate to my tattoos And the way I see them in the world and I think it's so incredible When I was angry at myself for a long time forgetting a sleeve and now And even now to this day when somebody comes up which happens literally every day like multiple times a day So it's one of those things like I have a reminder of an old version of me Written on my body for other people to make comments on every single day is what it feels like And if I was not to make peace with this that I made a decision at a very young age And now I'm going to wear not the I mean the consequences like it's the cause of act to wear the consequence Of it literally on my sleeve So I have no other option but to soften to this version of me to not be so angry anymore to not hate it anymore And if you are somebody who is in the position of maybe you Are currently in a struggle or currently navigating something or making peace with parts of you Improving your mindset whatever it is as it like as an older me was It happens slowly over time I wish I could tell you that there was a book. I read a podcast. I listened to a switch. I flipped But there wasn't it was just this insane Relentless commitment to returning to love always And really under like I thought everything was so permanent when I was younger any mood. I felt I was a great I'm fucking stuck in this mood forever. I'm a sad mad angry piece of shit And then you learn to ride the wave of your emotions You understand that they no longer last forever and if you go back and listen to my podcast as I was navigating my breakup. That's not two and a half years old One of the promises and commitments I made to myself was I will fully feel everything I will not reject any certain emotion I will not be angry that I'm still thinking of him. I will not be angry that I am still sad I will just be sad when I feel sad and I'll pick myself up and keep on moving I will use the word and I can have a broken heart and show up for my clients I can feel sad today and still do what I said I was going to do and again There are so many uncomfortable emotions and 99% of people's issue is okay Think about it like this Matter energy is never created nor destroyed right if you emotion is energy in motion If you have an energetic emotional response to something and you do not express it that energy is what is inside of you And then you're confused as to why you have ibs why you have sicknesses why you Aren't creative why you're having all these blocks why you're angry all of the time why These things continue to happen to you and you don't feel like yourself you feel out of integrity You feel out of alignment All of these different pieces are simply because you are not expressing your emotions And your expression of emotions might be feeling discomfort It might be feeling angry might be feeling annoyed It might be feeling awkward it might be feeling embarrassment any of these things Too many of us are way too comfortable Just avoiding being triggered And being triggered it could look and feel like anything to you And so again like me even said I was so excited when I realized I wanted to sit down and record this episode now because I see This younger version of me differently and to ask me how I would go back and do it different one I couldn't possibly I could not possibly have done a single thing different Maybe I would have done More in the sense of taking a risk sooner I could have played big sooner. I wish I would have traveled sooner But even now it's things that like I've sold or traveled to Europe and I did two weeks in Hawaii And I still am little scared sometimes like it is so normal and I think people assume I remember when I moved into this apartment one of my friends was like Oh like change is easy for you like oh you must not like really feel anything because like you've moved so much You moved across the country yada yada yada oh my god the move into this apartment was so hard All changes heart it never changes. I just know that I'm gonna make it through and it's gonna work because I've stacked that evidence And so maybe you're in a position where you just need to stack evidence And sorry that you were looking for a way around doing the damn thing there ain't no way around doing the damn thing If I could go back and tell me one I would do things sooner so I could get through the suck faster You want to know how to get better at something do it more more often more reps more reps play the fucking game But I see this version of This younger version of Clark 21. I see this 21 year old version of me so differently now like I can see Why she was hard to the world like it makes My heart hurts for that version of me. I see why I wanted to be in control I see why I got so much worth in my body during that time. I didn't fully Understand how to separate the two and that was still a time in my life where I was doing a lot of things for attention and for validation and now my views of that has like really deeply changed and I genuinely believe like one of the things is just time and yet here older people say that and you're like hey fuck that I don't like that but where are you going you're here so lock in for the ride and enjoy it and I wish I think if I could go back and be like enjoy all of those pieces and chapters maybe a little bit slower maybe just be a little bit more present I get why I wanted to be impressive to people I get why I wanted to be seen as smart or seen as intelligent or I don't know for a huge part of my life I just wanted to be seen as like pretty enough and hot enough and sexy enough and now I'm like okay it's so funny I also see why I didn't know how to feel my emotions felt too big and I didn't know healthy ways to express them and again sometimes that's where coaching comes in or having somebody who just really sits and says like I see you I understand you because you're ego especially when I was 21 and I didn't really understand ego your ego wants you to think excuse me that you are so unique and you're the only person who's ever experienced what you're experiencing when in reality you don't know how many people felt sad or like the black sheep or distant or misunderstood fucking everybody ever people just aren't having conversations around it and so that is literally why I want to podcast and I want to talk to you guys to show you that it is so normal and if the just then genuinely the difference between me and you if you are somebody who is maybe like an old version of me is I just have compassion for it now I'm not angry at myself for feeling any certain way that's genuinely the difference and I don't have a negative relationship or view of emotions or self sabotage or whatever it is I just seek I seek to understand and that is why NLP if you read the book the difference that makes the difference is so important because it's really just about staying curious as to people's mental models that's literally all I do as a coach is I stay curious to your frame of thinking and is that frame of thinking serving you yes or no if yes cool keep it if no let's get rid of it let's change it let's poke holes in your logic let's get to the bottom of it where did it come from how does this serve you because we've talked about okay all self sabotaging behavior behavior serves you in some way whether consciously or unconsciously most of the time we are unconscious to it um Peter Crone has a phenomenal he's fucking phenomenal if you don't know who that is if I could get him on I will find out I'm speaking it into existence I will get Peter Crone on my podcast that's so scary to say okay that's fine he has this phenomenal episode where he's just talking about like do not worry about stuff of your subconscious and unconscious it will come out it will come out it will come out when you are ready it'll come out when you're not ready and it will it will show itself so do not worry to go digging like shadow work is such a big thing which is a beautiful thing like I think all of us me included need to look at our shadows and look at where we're snappy and mean and judgmental and yada yada yada and trust that through time things will always reveal themselves in a way for you to be able to move through it I understand why a younger version of me um under like felt that being different was so lonely I understand why I wanted answers so immediately you want to like know why you're like to have your whole life figured out again the more I figure out the less I figure out that I figure out and there's no purpose in shaming a younger version of me for any of those things the same way you right now maybe you're navigating and experiencing something there is no need to shame yourself for any of it because what is that shame doing for you it's not really doing fucking anything well what it is doing for you I'll give you a little free coaching here it's keeping you exactly where you are and the thought of change is uncomfortable and we are hardwired for comfort always your brain seeks out comfort always it likes predictability the hell that you live in of suffering and shame and guilt and you're like why can I get out of this why can I get out of this brother you want to stay there because it's so predictable you know the pain there's no new pain and so you've found coping mechanisms to deal with it this is so side tangent but somebody had touched me and they were like um discipline is when every day looks the same being stuck is when every year looks the same or something along those lines and I was like damn that's really fucking fire and I was like that's so true because my days look pretty similar but then year over year massive progress which is fucking incredible so I view everything that I'm talking about in this episode from the lens of like I just know things now that I couldn't have possibly known then anything any person that's like ever hurt me it's always so funny because I'm not angry at anybody and the over the last two years I had made it a really big point to go back through and apologize to a lot of the people that I've hurt because you're shocker news flash sometimes you're the villain 21 year old me I will say was more more villain leaning I was hurt and I hurt other people in that process in figuring out who myself was and for a long time I made myself feel like shit about that I made myself feel like shit and I was like I'm a bad person I'm a terrible person no one should be my friend why would anybody want to be around me why would anybody like me and it's like hey actually at some point get the fuck over it it happened it's over you're not making it any better by continuing to put bad into your life and into the world so strap your big girl panties on realize that you're still playing the victim that is still you throwing a pity party and me making myself feel like a bad person didn't add to the world so I just decided one to forgive myself for what I didn't know at the time for how I chose to survive in a situation I had never been in before and then to move on and be good again and make the world a better place I think true strength is somebody who has been hurt and still chooses to see the good in the world and so I don't want to call her weak because I love her but a 21 year old me was she didn't know she didn't know how to have a soft heart and be good to the world and so maybe a version me an older version of me feels the same way about me if I was 21 or if I was coaching 21 year old me I would stop trying to rush her into knowing who she is there are things that you have to just live long enough to learn and that you genuinely only learn from experience and one of my favorite quotes is you don't learn from experience you learn from reflection of the experience there are so many things and so many pieces that I've just had to experience and put myself in the position of and fuck around and find out Gary Vee talks a ton about it and I wish I could speak more life into it specifically I'm still only 27 so I'm I'm I'm still fucking around and find an out and you should too at 21 you just haven't met all of the versions of yourself because you haven't been in enough rooms to even create those versions of yourself you haven't loved enough people you haven't made friends with enough people and especially as you like navigate into making friendships in your later 20s that's also really difficult and really hard and navigating breakups and then being single for a really long time and like okay relationships are hard is there something wrong with me because I can't get into a relationship yada yada yada when you're 21 you haven't lost enough and moved through it and not numb through it and I think that is the difference between somebody who is young and going to keep making the same mistakes is okay there you go if I could go back and coach a younger version of me through something I would ask her to find the through line of the lessons because lessons will continue repeating themselves until you learn until you learn from them and then only then you are quote unquote freed from them and by freed from them I mean it's going to happen again and you are going to need to choose differently I remember in my apartment at 20 years old I had a whiteboard by my like front door so leaving the door and for as long as I can remember it had two quotes on it one or your daily habits moving you forward or in circles and the second was something along the lines of like being triggered or finding peace isn't not being triggered it's being triggered and being able to move through it it's like I've had this intention and this focus on knowing myself meeting myself processing through things but I didn't have the tools or the skills and a lot of skills are had from learning how to ask better questions maybe that's what I would go back until younger me it's not that you're not getting the answers you're just not asking the right questions you silly gifts I would figure I would tell her that life's not as serious as she thinks it is you'll fuck everything up and you can fuck everything up and then you can start over and when you've stacked enough evidence that you are capable of that you will then understand when you're young you just haven't succeeded enough you haven't failed enough you haven't changed your mind enough you haven't given yourself permission to change your mind enough you think everything is so fucking serious again I've talked about this in podcast episodes before, but I used to be afraid to post my opinion on social media because what if my opinion changes? Your opinion should change, motherfucker. I don't know where this, like a grudge is coming from. I would also, we kind of touched on this in the beginning, but really coached that version of me through inherent worth. So getting my sense of self, not from accomplishment, and as somebody who is, in fact, an NEM Grim III, and I like to achieve in this world, this is something that I'm still actively working on, if not getting worth through money or business or followers or being desired by other people, any form of achievements, being the mature one, being impressive on any of these people. Like, you can want to achieve extraordinary things, but you don't need accomplishments as evidence that you can like yourself. Like, for a lot of younger me, I was like, okay, when I have the body, then I'll finally like myself because I'll be desired by other people. And I think learning inherent worth is one of the biggest pieces of the puzzle is what is the driving force in factor? Take out any outside thing. Take out anybody who tells you you should want this. Social media telling you the life you should be living comparison, maybe your parents, what do you want? And when you're 21 and you don't know, you need to go experience then, try all of the things, be bad at things, be good at things, be okay quitting. I think that's a big one. I lasted six weeks at my nine to five, my first job out of college, December of 2020, COVID, cold calling. I fucking hated it. It was miserable. I knew I shouldn't have been there. The desire to not quit almost outweighed my intuition, saying this was not for me. And I can't imagine if I would have been slightly more conditioned to be a fucking square and just do what everybody else was doing and live in societal pressures, thank God. You know, I do give a fuck what people think, but holy fuck sometimes, no, the fuck I don't. And I'm so proud of myself for that. And you know my favorite thing to say, celebrate what you want repeated. Where is somewhere in your past that you have done something that you are so proud of the way that you showed up in that moment? I think the biggest thing that I would really like touch on and teach and coach that version of me through is just safety within herself to feel emotions and not need to hold on to them, not need to punish herself or use guilt. Like at the end of the day, the thing that happened to you happened to you. It is over. I remember I saw something, maybe it was Emma Chamberlain or something or Billie Eilish, one of them, one of the two, you get the vibe of the girl who was saying this. She was like, I don't wanna look back on my life and realize how much time I spent being sad. And the only way to release that is fully to go through it. And that's why I'm such the biggest advocate of learning how to feel your emotions, getting uncomfortable, learning to question things. A lot of my younger years, again, were really spent doing things for other people to be liked by other people so that people thought I was a certain way and did that. And then you realize that other people will never be in your body and they will never be in your mind. And at the end of the day, you will go home and your head will hit the pillow. And you will be the only one who hears the thoughts. And you will wake up and you will put clothes on a body that only you need to decide if you like. And you will go through a day that even the person closest to you could only ever know five percent of your thoughts and the depth of your soul. And so like, I know, maybe this is a rather heavy one, but I just wanna point out to whoever might feel like they are different and like nobody understands them and they are trying to understand themselves and you have this pressure and you're just trying to navigate your way through it. Like you are not a black sheep, you are a unicorn. Maybe you feel like a black sheep because you haven't seen anybody normalize what you're looking for, but what you seek you shall find. Put it out into the world that you wanna be around people who wanna talk about God or nutrition or wellness or bettering themselves or personal development or all of these things. When you sit in your house and you talk about how you're different than everybody, you're not finding anybody who's going to make you feel more normal. So then you're not nurturing these parts of you. And I call it like, it is like the lonely chopper that you hear a lot of personal development people talk about. But it's also, there's this gap. It's the grief and self-growth moving from one group to another. Of course there's a little bit of grief in it. But again, it's so new for me to really approach this from the lens of like, I'm a unicorn. I really love and cherish the things that I care about now and it has taken so fucking long to believe that those are the things that make me good. So time to answer all of these questions. Time being able to ask for help, being around people who inspire me, being around people who are delusional and big and take up space and thrive in so many ways and so many shapes and so many forms. Knowing that feeling deeply is in a weakness. Maturity isn't the same thing as having it altogether. You can remain present with yourself. Like, that's true strength. I feel like there's so many more things that I could go down the rabbit hole of, but that's the beginning of it. I love you guys. I hope you have a great day and I'll talk to you soon.