Masks Off: Inner Freedom For People-Pleasers and Perfectionists

If you want to know more about anxiety and mental well-being, Andrea Gonzalez is your person. She is a clinical psychologist who has so much wisdom. In this talk, we explored so many topics from tuning into the body and the breath to integrating all parts of ourselves. Andrea talked about the importance of having compassion for ourselves, as well as others, and that having this compassion really i...

We all have life situations going on and some of us handle them better than others. It can be hard and overwhelming to stay peaceful whenever we feel overloaded or bombarded with life. The key is to learn and cultivate a practice to be able to find peace and calm in your heart even in the midst of the storm. There are many ways that one can find peace and calm. Kim and Tia share some examples of h...

Are you an overachiever, a perfectionist, or a people pleaser? If so, it is very probable that you were a “golden child” when you were young. As the quote states, a golden child tries to please and satisfy at least one parent and usually it is a narcissistic parent. The golden child feels responsible for their parents’ happiness.  This golden child is often well behaved and fits perfectly int...

Our latest guest, Prachi Malhotra quotes, “drop the rope or you will get rope burn.” What does this mean? According to Prachi, if we don’t learn how to accept life and if we stay in resistance we will get “burned.”  Life is constantly changing and if we resist and don’t learn how to flow with life, we will feel sorrow and or suffering.  We have heard the saying that pain is inevitable, b...

Do you consider yourself to be controlling and sometimes aggressive? If a person confronts you, do you feel challenged and must dominate? Do you need things to be your way otherwise you will feel upset? If you answered yes to any or all of these questions you might wear the “bully mask.” To hear more about this mask and see if you identify with it listen in for more. “Be an encourager. The world h...

Have you ever experienced a time or maybe it happens a lot where you allow another to completely unravel you? Maybe you have been in a situation where you allowed another to control you or manipulate you into doing something you didn’t want to do only to feel totally triggered after. This is something that happens a lot in our relationships. The key is to own our part in these situations and to fu...

Are you able to be curious about the uncertainty of life? Or, are you the type of person who has to have everything planned out and be in control? When life throws you a “curveball” do you fall apart or can you get curious about this life situation and find the abundance or the gift that the situation has to offer? In this episode Sylvia shares her story and her son’s story and how they were able...

Do you spend most of your time living in your head? How often do you pause and check in with your heart? Do you pay attention to your body? It is normal to live inside our heads. We feel more in control when we live there. The problem is when we only live inside our heads, we ignore the heart and body. Whenever we are completely out of balance we suffer. To hear more about how we can create more b...

Are you the type of person that says “yes I can” or do you repeatedly say no I can’t? If you find yourself continually telling yourself that you can’t do something or that it is too late to change something in your life, you might want to take a look at your inner dialogue. Your critical self or limiting beliefs may be holding you back. However, it is important to use discernment and really pay at...

How do you handle stress in your life? Does it overwhelm you or do you know how to regulate yourself? How did the role models in your life handle stress? Most often we did not have role models in our lives showing us how to regulate stress and trauma because they themselves did not know how to self-regulate. To hear more about how trauma can be passed down from one generation to the next as well a...

So often when we are stuck in the muck of our feelings and or thoughts, we can’t see the gift in the lessons that are there. We want to avoid pain and move toward pleasure because our brains are wired that way.  So, naturally it can be difficult to see the beauty in our pain or difficult situations. When we do our work and we heal we can begin to appreciate those reminders. As the quote by He...

How do you respond to external pressures in your life? Do you have a negative “gloom and doom” reaction to external pressures? Do you have a positive perspective when you have an overwhelming amount of pressure in your life? There is a difference between good stress and bad stress. That chronic stress that lingers in our lives is unhealthy for us. However, having a dose of good stress is good for...

What is a conscious relationship? Do you have any conscious relationships in your life? Most of us were probably raised in unconscious relationships.  Carrie Jeroslow is a conscious relationship coach and we had such an amazing conversation on what these relationships look like and how to cultivate them. Carrie believes that we have more than one soul mate and that a soul mate is not necessar...

So many of us have experienced trauma as young children but we never thought of it as trauma. Usually when we think of trauma we think of some huge traumatic event. Gabor Mate actually explains that trauma is a disconnection from self. So, if we frame it this way, many of you may be able to think of many times throughout your lives when you disconnected from your true self. That is the trauma and...

Do you wear the rebel mask? Do you remember being told as a child that you were a “difficult child” or a rebellious child?  Do you know people in your life that might be considered rebellious? As the quote states,  a child is mostly rebelling as a reaction to feeling shamed for being who they really are. No one is born being truly rebellious or “bad”. People or children become rebellious...

Whether you have children in school or not, you will want to hear this incredible conversation with Carrie Jeroslow and Jen Zash. They came on our podcast to talk about their new book, “ A New Paradigm of Education.” They both shared their idea of what conscious education means and looks like. While it would be a monumental endeavor to overhaul the current educational system, it is not impossible...

In this episode Kim and Tia talk about the difference between storms that caused us to become resilient as a way of surviving versus storms that helped us build strong roots. The difference between which direction you go in is whether you are going within trying to learn from the storms or whether you are seeking external validation. The latter is going to have weak roots and will easily uproot in...

Do you find yourself trying to please others all the time? If so, how does that make you feel when you try to please someone else instead of being true to yourself? Nature certainly does not try to please. Nature is just nature. So why do we as humans feel that we need to please? Is it for protection? Is it just because we are conditioned to please? Or, is it part of our nature to please? To hear...

This marks the 100th episode of Masks Off! We have utterly enjoyed recording this podcast and hope that you have enjoyed listening. We appreciate all of your support. In this episode we had an amazing conversation with Jenn Taylor. She offered so much wisdom on how we need to listen to our bodies and our intuition to live a more authentic and fulfilled life. When we don’t tune in to our bodies and...

Do you ever find yourself having an expectation of someone or something only to be disappointed when that expectation was not met. As the below quote by Dr. Shefali Tsabary states, we suffer when our expectations differ from reality.  It is normal to have some expectations of ourselves and others and it is important to feel our feelings whatever they may be when those expectations are not met...

Do you ever avoid conflict with another just to keep the peace? In this episode Kim shares how she as a child avoided conflict in order to keep others from being upset with her. In turn she rejected her true self because she silenced her inner knowing and often did what others told her to do. This is often the beginning of losing our authentic self as we conform to what others expect us to do. To...

What does it mean to love yourself?  Are you in the habit of criticizing yourself or are you good at giving yourself compliments and self approval? Very often it is difficult for people and especially for women to have a practice of self-care. What are some ways that you can love yourself and care for yourself?  To hear and learn more about self-love and self-care listen to what Tanya sh...

Have you ever put yourself in the middle of other peoples’ conflicts when it was not your business to do so? If so, did you ever wonder why you tried to make peace when it was not your place to do so? Often we may wear the peacemaker mask because we feel anxious and our peace is in jeopardy. The truth is that we are the only ones that can bring peace to ourselves. Conflict is normal and natural. I...

This is such a profound quote by Rumi and one that can be so helpful for those that wear the perfectionist mask. In this episode Kim shares her challenges with a food program that she is on and how she realizes that she is wearing layers of the perfection mask. She shares her all or nothing thinking and when she is not succeeding one hundred percent then she can tend to fall into a pattern of just...

This amazing young woman, Eden Gold, opens up and is very vulnerable as she shares her story and now helps teens and young adults. She is determined to reach and help 1 billion teens and young adults. She has used her pain and her experiences that she experienced so far in her life to help others transform their pain and become more empowered to live a healthier life. We had a great conversation a...