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Finding Yourself in Your 30s: Your Inner Child Has Been Your True Self All Along
15 Plays10 days ago
How many of you are in your 30s rediscovering old hobbies from childhood - things you were into as a kid that now bring you so much joy again? Same here. I think this whole phenomenon is part of a healing arc so many people started in their 30s, and it's about radical self-acceptance.
Here's what we're exploring about finding your true self:
- How we lost ourselves in our 20s (work, hustle culture, Girl Boss era exhaustion)
- Why your childhood self was uninhibited and freely expressed joy without shame
- The 30s awakening: realizing what you were doing isn't working anymore
- How rediscovering childhood hobbies is radical self-acceptance (not regression)
- Fighting hustle culture by prioritizing joy, play, and things that bring you happiness
From understanding that as kids we didn't overthink what brought us joy to recognizing that Girl Boss culture left us drained and searching for balance, this episode celebrates the healing journey of coming back to yourself. Your inner child knew your true self all along - you just lost touch with that part of you.
Subscribe. Share. Remember that your childhood interests revealed who you really are.
Small steps, big healing. Keep growing! ✨
Join the conversation! What childhood hobby are you rediscovering? DM me on Instagram @YourCoachMari - I want to hear what brings you joy!
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Growing With Soul'
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello beautiful souls and welcome back to the Growing With Soul podcast where we explore the moments and stories that shape who we're becoming. I'm Marisol and this is where I love to have real conversations about growth, self-discovery, and learning to put yourself first.
Putting Yourself First: A Journey of Self-Discovery
00:00:18
Speaker
Whether we're diving into books that change our perspective or unpacking personal experiences that teach us something new, this podcast is for women who are done playing small and ready to embrace their own journey.
00:00:30
Speaker
If you've struggled with putting everyone else first or battled self-doubt, then you're in the right place. This isn't about perfection. It's about the messy, beautiful process of growing into yourself.
00:00:43
Speaker
So come grow with me.
Reflecting Joy: Returning to Childhood Hobbies
00:00:46
Speaker
How many of you are in your 30s and rediscovering old hobbies, like hobbies from your childhood, things that you were into as a kid that now bring you so much joy that you would have never thought that you'd be into these things again?
00:01:06
Speaker
If that's you, same here. I am one of you. And honestly, i think that this whole phenomenon, because I see so many people talking about it online as well, I think that it is part of like a healing arc that so many people started or began in their thirty s and definitely part of the like radical self-acceptance that goes along with healing.
Accepting Change: Identity Over Time
00:01:32
Speaker
So let's go ahead and like talk about that and talk about that self-acceptance arc, that cycle. And I think just how fucking cool it is that so many of us are going back to a part of ourselves, not just like our inner child, but I feel like it's so much more than that. I feel like it's finally accepting a part of who we really are.
00:02:00
Speaker
So definitely who we are as an individual ebbs and flows, like our identities, our likes, our dislikes, all of that ebbs and flows. And, you know, what we like, I mentioned, what we like, what we dislike, what we value, what we're interested in.
00:02:15
Speaker
All of that shifts and changes as we grow and develop as individuals. Like obviously, if you are growing and healing and learning, you're not going to be the same person that you were two, three, 10 years ago.
Workforce Impact: Losing Personal Interests
00:02:30
Speaker
You know, you're going to be a little bit different. However, There definitely comes a time in a lot of our lives when we just kind of begin to conform or simply lose that joy, that fun.
00:02:51
Speaker
For one reason or another, often i would say the most common reason is that we begin working. Like so many of us lose our hobbies, our interests because we join the workforce. I would say that that happens a lot, especially to like college graduates who go into the workforce for the first time. You're working full time for the first time.
00:03:15
Speaker
You have a commute. If you are like a lot of us in alley County in California, your commute is going to take forever. You're in the car for at least two hours a day.
00:03:27
Speaker
There isn't really time for much anything else, really, other than work. Maybe you go to the gym, maybe not. But fun kind of falls to the wayside.
00:03:40
Speaker
With that being said, though, that like again, that's like the main thing that happens where we like lose that little bit of ourselves. For others, it can stem from people pleasing.
Teen Expression: The Role of Peer Pressure
00:03:49
Speaker
I know I've talked about that a lot on this podcast, but it can come from people pleasing, wanting to fit in. So you start to conform a little bit more. And then, like I mentioned, for a lot of us, like this shift happened in our twenty s The thing is, like, as a kid, we didn't really think about, like, self-acceptance or anything like that. As a kid, especially if you're in a healthy environment, you're just freely expressing whatever comes to mind. um You're freely expressing yourself. You're freely expressing your interest in what you like. And you have no qualms about it. No qualms about what brings you joy.
00:04:27
Speaker
As a teenager, that's when you start to see a little bit more like peer pressure and like peer judgment. People kind of find their niche, their group, but there's still a lot of judgment perhaps.
00:04:40
Speaker
Nowadays, maybe not as much because you can find a lot of community online and that wasn't as much as of the case, like for my generation, but the definitely not for like the previous generation.
00:04:52
Speaker
But still, as a teenager, you still have that potential judgmentalness, but you still find your niche group. And then, like I mentioned, it's in your 20s where like you don't really have as much community anymore because you're so busy working and you kind of like lose that part of yourself in your
Life Reevaluation in Your 30s
00:05:10
Speaker
20s. And then, bam, you're in your thirty s and you realize that all that stuff that you were doing in your 20s isn't working anymore. You need more joy in your life. You need more fun in your life.
00:05:20
Speaker
And You're going through maybe a healing arc as well, a healing journey. And part of that, like I said, is self-acceptance. So naturally, you find yourself gravitating towards things that bring joy.
00:05:35
Speaker
And since when we look back at ourselves as children where we were uninhibited, especially if we were in a healthy environment, then we can reconnect to those things from our childhood that still bring us joy.
Rediscovering Hobbies: The Healing Power of Reading
00:05:50
Speaker
So for example, me what does that look like? It is not a surprise if you've been here for a while, if you follow me on social media, that I love to read. i have always loved to read. Literally since I read that book with like the rainbow goldfish or whatever it was, where he like sparkly scales. Like ever since I read that book, I've been reading books like crazy ever since. And my in my like I would say preteen.
00:06:19
Speaker
Yeah, definitely like preteen, teenager. i was really into... vampires, werewolves, dark academia type stuff, fae fairies. What else did I read a lot?
00:06:34
Speaker
Shifter type stuff as well, which at the time I didn't even like realize it, but like, okay, so this TikTok popped up and it was a TikTok that I saw, I think last year and had made a comment on there. And then somebody liked to the comment recently. So I went back to the TikTok and I was like, what did I say that somebody liked?
00:06:51
Speaker
So this person had posted a TikTok being like, does anybody remember these books from when you were a kid? One of them was Hawk Song. And Hawk Song is basically like a hawk shifter and like snake shifter where they're like enemies to lovers basically. And then like, I think, i don't know if it's forced marriage. i don't I haven't read the book since I was like 13, okay?
00:07:09
Speaker
But like eventually like the snake shifter and the hawk shifter, like they have to get married and then like they fall in love. Oh my God. See, Guys, I should have known back then i was a romantic-y girly, okay? But okay but i i didn't I didn't classify it that way, obviously, back then with these young adult novels. But still, like this is stuff that I was into as a kid.
00:07:35
Speaker
And then now as an adult, after having gone through that, like in my 20s, I lose
Healing Through Hobbies: Reading and Writing
00:07:41
Speaker
myself because of work. But then also, spoiler alert or not so spoiler alert, I was in a very emotionally abusive relationship where I just developed depression and CBTSD.
00:07:52
Speaker
I they didn't enjoy anything in life. And then through my healing, I rediscovered reading and writing again. so That's where I've been talking a lot about like the books I've been reading now as an adult that have to do with vampires and werewolves and fae and shifters.
00:08:12
Speaker
So like given that I was reading Hawksong and literally like even within the last two years, Haldi Black, I read Tithe as a kid.
00:08:23
Speaker
Like, Rathorbe and Rye, my very first book boyfriend, okay? And i i need I need to revisit that story. I need to revisit Tithe because, you know, sometimes you got to hit up your ex. No, don't. Don't hit up your ex. I'm joking. I'm talking about a book boyfriend.
00:08:42
Speaker
Anyway, anyway, um all I'm saying is that I'm right there with you in terms of finding the things that brought me joy as a kid that still bring me joy today. For me, that happens to be reading and writing.
00:08:55
Speaker
For others, it can be a myriad of other things. And one of the things I think as well that like I see a lot of people in their thirty s now are really fighting against. And you know what? People, i mean, i think I think maybe the oldest Gen Z is in their 30s now.
00:09:16
Speaker
But even people who are in their 30s, maybe like mid to late 20s, I think a lot of them are really fighting against the notion of um like hustle culture and like having to always like be working nonstop and in that like hustle and bustle of life and really making room in their lives for actually enjoying it in some capacity.
Balancing Life: Rejecting Relentless Work Culture
00:09:39
Speaker
That can be for myriad reasons and we're not necessarily going to get into that right now because I do have thoughts about the failings of our system and how that is manifesting in people no longer believing in that like very boomer, like work nonstop, like live to work type of mentality and culture.
00:10:06
Speaker
So I think especially for us millennials, we tried that, especially in the beginnings of our careers and in our 20s. And like we had the whole girl boss era. And now in our 30s, we're like, that didn't work.
00:10:18
Speaker
That was exhausting. I am drained. And And now we're fighting against that. So in our thirty s not only are we looking to find more joy in terms of like healing ourselves and our own emotional state and mental health, but also recognizing that the lives we were leading previously are no is no longer working, are no longer working. So we need more balance.
00:10:43
Speaker
So in terms of like, what are these other things that could potentially be bringing you joy now? For me, like I mentioned, reading, writing, but also art, like how many people are so wonderfully talented And like, what are some things that you can do? Like, maybe you resonate with it. Like, again, i can use myself as an example. I by no means do I think that I am a phenomenal singer. I don like maybe what i could be a decent singer if like trained. But like I was in two choirs growing up. Like I was in choir in my high school. I went to inaugural school and then the brother's school. I was in choir at the the brother's school as well.
00:11:24
Speaker
And like, again, i don't think I'm all that great of a singer, but it was a lot of fun. And it was a great way of expressing myself and like processing stuff and just enjoying myself.
00:11:35
Speaker
But I don't do that now. Like the only time i really get to sing is like maybe in the car, you know. But if you relate to that and you're thinking, you know okay, well, if my thing was singing when I was in high school or in college, like how am I supposed to incorporate that now into my life?
00:11:52
Speaker
You can still pay for lessons. Did you know that? People offer singing lessons if it's been a while. You can pay for singing lessons. You can do a class. It can be individual, but you can still do it. Same thing with a dance.
00:12:09
Speaker
Like, I know of someone who studied dance in college and then after college they ended up working at a nonprofit. They're not necessarily dancing anymore. They can do classes.
00:12:20
Speaker
You can do classes. Bring that joy into your life again.
Pursuing Joy: Embracing Childhood Passions
00:12:24
Speaker
Make a room for it. So it can be film, maybe making film. It can be any ah kind of kind of media that maybe you were into as a kid or had an interest in. a lot of people really enjoy like Legos and building things. Like, are you doing that now? Like literally, okay, I've never been into Legos or anything like that, but you know what I think is really cute?
00:12:44
Speaker
The like flower Legos where it's like a Lego, but like it turns into an orchid or like it's a rose. Like the flower Legos, I think are very pretty. And as much as I'm not like a building type of person, I'm like, oh, they're so pretty. Maybe I can give it a shot.
00:12:58
Speaker
I haven't bought one because I'm a little nervous that like it'll take me too long or i won't be able to like It'll frustrate me, essentially. It's like, it won't be working and I'll get frustrated and then I'll stop and then like wasted money. But if you were into Legos as a kid, then maybe getting something like that, like it can be beneficial or joyful, you know? Yeah.
00:13:28
Speaker
um And again, art painting, drawing, even coloring. If you loved coloring as a kid, go get yourself a coloring book, some markers, some crayons, some color pencils. If you want to get the fancy stuff, go to Michael's and get you some fancy coloring pencils.
00:13:43
Speaker
Like find that joy, whatever it might be. If you've already been on this journey, definitely let me know what your thing is. If it's reading and writing like me, oh my God, twins, let me know what you'd like to read. But if it's anything else, maybe something I didn't even mention, hit me up on Instagram, send me a DM, let me know what it is. Or even like in the comments as well, I know you can leave comments on Spotify, definitely let me know.
00:14:09
Speaker
But the thing about this is not only to share like how I've found joy in my 30s with things that I used to love as a kid, but also it's important to have fun and joy in your life overall.
Mental Health and Joy: The Key to Balance
00:14:24
Speaker
And I think especially in the United States and especially as adults, fun and joy is not centered enough in our culture, in our lives.
00:14:37
Speaker
So in this way, by finding maybe even little things that you enjoyed out as a kid that still bring you joy is a way to fight back against that. And again, I think it's incredibly important for our overall work-life balance and for our mental health as well.
00:14:54
Speaker
So are there things that you enjoyed as a kid that you enjoy now? Or are you developing new hobbies? Definitely let me know that as well. But again, if you made it this far, I definitely appreciate you. If you enjoyed this episode, if you've been enjoying the podcast, don't forget to subscribe and to leave a five star review.
00:15:13
Speaker
It helps us essentially bring more people into our community. And if you are looking for support this year, if you are working towards any goals or like some accountability, definitely hit me up. You can schedule your very own discovery call with me through the link in the show notes.
00:15:30
Speaker
Until next time, keep growing.