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Episode 16: Opening Up — An Invitation to Live Beyond the Armor
4 Plays18 hours ago
In this episode of Don’t Trip on Your Cape, Alex Embry and Leslie Arboleda explore what it truly means to open up… not in a performative way, and not by exposing your wounds to the world, but by loosening the armor just enough to let real connection in.
Through stories about leadership, apologizing without losing authority, parenting with integrity, living on the cutting edge of authenticity, and trusting unconventional inner guidance, they unpack how strength and softness are not opposites. They are part of our wholeness.
They reflect on breaking generational patterns, disarming inherited trauma, and how one person choosing to show up vulnerably can shift an entire system.
This episode closes with two powerful questions:
Where are you ready to be seen?
And who might feel safer because you went first?
Opening up is not about tearing down everything at once. It is about living beyond the armor in small, courageous ways that ripple outward into workplaces, families, and communities.
Links
Don’t Trip on Your Cape
https://www.donttriponyourcape.com
Can We Grok?
https://www.donttriponyourcape.com/can-we-grok
Aligned Living & Leadership
https://alignedlivingandleadership.com
Mush Love
https://mushlovellc.com
A Human Being With Love
https://ahumanbeingwithlove.com
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction & Theme of Opening Up
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Don't Trip On Your Cape, the podcast where Leslie, the founder Align Living and Leadership, and her amazing co-host Alex from Much Love, dive into the very things that weigh us down, only to reveal those burdens are actually our greatest strengths.
00:00:12
Speaker
Together, they help listeners recognize that what feels heavy is often just your own unique superpower in disguise. So grab your cape, and let's explore how to wear without stumbling.
00:00:22
Speaker
Hello, everybody. Welcome to this episode of Don't Trip on Your Cape. It's March and we have a new theme. The theme this month is opening up and we're super excited to get into it. So let's go. I'm Alex.
00:00:32
Speaker
And I'm Leslie. So I'm really excited to
Leslie's Journey of Self-Acceptance
00:00:36
Speaker
think about as we move into spring, what it means to open up, you know, and I think a lot of us think about opening up maybe from the perspective of moving forward. But for me, I was thinking about opening always begins with understanding where we're closed.
00:00:55
Speaker
And I know you and I have talked about this from lots of different angles over the last few years. When did you learn it was first safe to be fully seen?
00:01:08
Speaker
Recently, and only in the last couple of years. and I think the the foundation of that for me was I think I was trying to be seen, but you can't be seen until you are who you are.
00:01:19
Speaker
And so, so much of it was incrementally trying to be myself and then not being seen for who I am. I think that that's often where you start is, you know, I'm not being seen and then trying to find those people. But once you start to find there, at least for me, it had to be me seeing me so that I can be seen and show up as myself.
00:01:41
Speaker
and then finding the people that are capable of seeing you. and I think an intrinsic part of this that was really important as far as my own journey and I think that we miss sometimes is when you're wanting to be seen and needing to be seen is a human thing that we we need in connection. You have to find the right people who are capable of seeing you. That
Alex's Armor and Isolation Experience
00:02:01
Speaker
is for me, the hard for was the hardest part because of you know where I started and then a lot of the places that I had to get to to find myself and everything. so the safety that you're talking about isn't just you have to find within yourself first, but then the people that are capable of it in it and making sure that you know that if they're not seeing you, it's not always about you. It's got to be the right alignment in both cases.
00:02:25
Speaker
I agree with all that. I think for me, the experience was a little different in that I spent so many of my my younger years not even realizing that other people weren't seeing me.
00:02:38
Speaker
the way i saw myself. And I would miss those cues because i was so confident in who I was and also obtuse at who i how I was being received.
00:02:52
Speaker
And certainly in my adulthood, being able to pan out even further and realize that is often the source of breakdowns in relationships is whether you're feeling unseen or whether you're being unseen, the outcome is still the same.
00:03:14
Speaker
And how do you shift how you orient yourself in those relationships so that it comes together, the reception and the broadcast, um,
00:03:25
Speaker
you know i' I have certainly shared. i'm I'm super easy to lie to because I am so transparent. I just don't realize a lot of times that people aren't saying what they mean and meaning what they say, or they're not picking up what I'm putting down because I think I'm doing it so clearly without really realizing that we're all living life through our filters. We're all living life
Armor's Influence on Self-Expression
00:03:50
Speaker
through the lens of our own lived experience. And you know i I love thinking about the cycles and seasons of life, whether it's the you know the annual cycle as as we're moving into spring or whether it's the human cycle at the different developmental stages that we go through in our lifetimes. For me, the opening up piece has not really been about safety so much, but to your point,
00:04:21
Speaker
finding an aligned community where that transmission is so organic and so ease-filled and doesn't require so much effort, doesn't require so much recalibration.
00:04:36
Speaker
um i think that's kind of what's come up for me as we were kind of thinking about this this month's topic and and what that really means and how it how it really shows up in our lives.
00:04:48
Speaker
What version of you do you think formed in response to those moments, both the moments of feeling unseen and and these these newer moments of feeling seen.
00:05:02
Speaker
Very early on, I think, society, depending on you know where you're born, and your experience is where very different to mine as far as you felt seen potentially by your your family, especially your mom.
00:05:17
Speaker
and then later by your stepdad and stuff but even so being seen in the world was was difficult so either way no matter what if you have it or not when you go into the world often we tend to start armoring up we and renee talks about that a lot about armor as these blocks we put up a part of ourselves and for me the reason it took me so long is basically I was walking armor, walking around with like every part of me covered in some ways. And I call it the mirage because it's like this projection field of that you create of this fake identity that you're walking around in.
00:05:55
Speaker
And what it built for me was, you know, inside me and outside me was the same, two very different person, but inside me was trying to navigate outside me all the time. So there was this gap that started to form between me and me for a very, very, very long time.
00:06:13
Speaker
And because of the armor, you know, that I was inside trying to project this field of, I couldn't feel anything except for, you know, her stuff, but it wasn't actually mine. And it starts to really,
00:06:25
Speaker
dampen you and deaden you, depending on how far you lean into it, obviously, you know, different experiences, but for, it started to create this dichotomy between me and me, and then this field, but the gap between it.
00:06:40
Speaker
And to me, what I've learned is the gap between you and you, you really, you and Mirage, you, that gap is pain. And so I was walking around, armored up, full of pain. And that's pretty much what it created in my reality was this dissonance between me and my life and every single part of me. And that armor is really important to start to understand how you're armoring up. and It's protective. You're doing it because it serves you in the moment, especially in my case. If I had not armored up, I might have been dead, like literally, or never left the house or something. It was a really difficult situation I was born in.
00:07:19
Speaker
So that armor served me for a very long time, but eventually it stopped serving you and then you have to look at it. But that's kind of
Shedding Armor for Vulnerability
00:07:25
Speaker
how it showed up in my life. And and the life it created for me was a a life of dissonance.
00:07:30
Speaker
I love that you brought up the projection field because I think especially both of us with five line activations in our human design, we are living in the projection field and we are hardwired energetically to reflect back to other people, the projections that they're thrusting on us. And I think that part of your story you just shared really demonstrates that, that it's other people's projections on us is part of how we justify armoring up.
00:08:01
Speaker
And I think when I was thinking about that too, as you were talking, For me, the armor is just another example of our conditioning, right? And we we talk about our conditioning and human design a lot about how it's the stories that we learn, especially very early on in those formative years, that starts to create our armor and feeling unseen and our authentic expression, we slap on a plate. you know Feeling unappreciated or criticized or judged, we slap on another plate.
00:08:36
Speaker
And that armor does serve us. And it is you know just quite literal, like literal armor is intended to protect you from harm. i think the same is true for our psychological armor.
00:08:50
Speaker
We put it on so that we can feel protected from those things that feel harmful. and it is a form of intelligence, right? to your To your point, we are, as human beings, we are hardwired to survive.
00:09:05
Speaker
And as conditioned human beings, we armor up for that same reason. But I think when we can open up and shed that armor with the confidence that we'll still be productive protected because we are confident in who we are and and how we show up in the world, i think that's the difference. At least for me, that's the game changer. And I think there's lots of different kinds of armor, right? Whether it's the armor of being a high achiever, right? or Or the caretaker or the funny one, right? You and I were were just talking before we recorded, right? Like people who show up as the class clown, that's ah that's an expression of armor and it serves them because they can be the one who who cracks the joke or be the one who receives the attention, even if it's redirection, um you know, those kinds of things. I think for me,
00:10:01
Speaker
One of my expressions of being armored up was was independence, the hyper-independence. I'm going to do it myself. And maybe I'm going to do it myself because someone else can't do it as well. Or maybe I'm going to do it myself because little me didn't feel like someone could do it. And so I had to take on that role.
00:10:19
Speaker
you know Even I think being the strong one. can be an expression of showing up armored up because we are all human beings with these emotional feedback systems, right? Our feelings include the ones that hurt or make us sad or show up as disappointment.
00:10:42
Speaker
Renee talks specifically about that, about armor and needing to show up as the one who gives rather than receives. She says if you place your identity and as part of being the giver, it's really not about giving because you're doing it for yourself. but it She says it's one of the key parts of knowing you have trust in a relationship. and i Always go back the relationship with yourself as well.
00:11:06
Speaker
Trust in order to be honest, trust in order to be able to show up as who you really are and be able to, that armor is important, but being able to look at yourself underneath it is really important.
00:11:20
Speaker
And it's not... a bad thing too. I want to make sure that I'm i am sharing that, right? Like armor is adaptive brilliance when it comes to the human condition, right? It it protects the tender parts of us that we don't feel yet resourced to protect ourselves.
00:11:38
Speaker
And I think that really plays in nicely to that idea of our strength as well. When we can, excuse me, when we can protect those tender parts with self-awareness, excuse me, and confidence.
00:11:56
Speaker
Women can protect those tender parts with self-awareness and confidence and certainty that they are a beautifully unique expression of our contribution to the collective, then it feels safe to take off those plates and to relinquish those rolls of armor.
00:12:18
Speaker
You know, no one wakes up guarded for no reason. That's not how we come out into the world. no But we learn it for very important reasons.
00:12:30
Speaker
And a lot of us through our learned and lived experience, we feel like we've earned the privilege of putting it on. But there's a real portal to full self expression, think when we release it.
00:12:50
Speaker
Yeah, because for so long, you know, it is protecting you. And it is so important to, you know, if you're in a battle or here, no matter where you start out often, for a lot of us, especially if you're different, or you don't fit in, right, or you're just on the cutting edge of humanity going to push the whole universe forward, you're
Vulnerability Leading to Deeper Connections
00:13:11
Speaker
going to have these dissonances in your life that you build armor around.
00:13:16
Speaker
And that's, you know, as you said, it is absolutely human adaptability at work. And that's a good thing. We need that. But the next level that we need to step into is not owning that armor as a part of our identity for the rest of our lives.
00:13:34
Speaker
for For me, my armor was, you know, a completely different person than I was. You know, she had a name, she had a whole identity and people and life.
00:13:45
Speaker
And that armor served me for so long. And I'm grateful that she did that for me and that I was able to have that expression of myself in order to protect me.
00:13:56
Speaker
But today that armor would feel so heavy and so burdensome. And not only would I be hiding underneath it it would be suffocating to the point where now it would feel like death. And so it it would not serve me anymore. But the armor, I didn't wake up one day and go, okay. fuck the armor, I'm out. It doesn't work like that. it's It's often one piece of armor at a time, the same way you put it back on.
00:14:26
Speaker
Maybe one or two, maybe you just look underneath and put it back on for a minute. But it starts to be an opening up to see who you are underneath. And I find at first it's really scary, but then it becomes a lighter. You're like, I'm going take this piece off. And you walk around a little lighter. and Then what I find after that is you start to have that new disruption of, oh shit, I feel a little vulnerable. I feel naked. And also maybe you haven't cleaned up in your outside world the people that put that armor on you, you you know, the reason you put that armor on.
00:15:02
Speaker
So you have to have a different sort of substitute for armor, which we can talk about for me, you know, authenticity we talked about in Raven's episode is more powerful than love.
00:15:14
Speaker
But it also stems from love. It's the like she said, it's the gateway to love. So that authenticity of being able to show up as you are and remove that armor, it'll start to feel lighter in and of yourself. And that needs to be your measurement rather than the outside world. And then you can start collaborating the outside world to the new measurement of this lighter new version of you.
00:15:34
Speaker
Yeah, those those survival strategies aren't intended to be lifelong identities. They serve a purpose at the time. for sure. And there's nothing wrong with them, but we are also meant to adapt, right? That's part of the growth cycle. And I, I love that. i love that vision that you just painted of taking it off and just kind of peeking under and then putting it back on.
00:15:59
Speaker
I think that's, that's a really powerful image for me because I think that is also part of our adaptability is we may be unarmored, in certain communities.
00:16:10
Speaker
And we may know that it is an adaptive strategy to put it back on and protect ourselves in different communities. And you know hopefully the aspiration for me over here is that one day we'll live in a collective community where we all get to show up vulnerable because the reception of that authentic expression of who we are will be supported and received.
00:16:38
Speaker
So will you go ahead. I was just going to it's not, it's not a ah an authentic expression to have armor in places that you're not safe.
00:16:52
Speaker
And I think that's important to say, especially as like, you know, trans people or any of us that are in actual danger sometimes. soon You know, I pass as a dude these days, everyone knows I'm non-binary and that is who I am. I'm never going to change that. But there are times when I travel to the South or other places when it is absolutely a protection to show up as the guy. And that that is not an inauthentic expression because my family and my friends and the people that love me know who I am. But sometimes you do have to put the armor up in this space, this real 3D world that we live in. And just acknowledging that you're not not being an authentic expression of yourself because it does sometimes feel that way is something that I just wanted to be able to say because you as long as you're doing it in your real life and you're doing it in the places that the people that love you, it's okay to put that armor on to protect yourself when you absolutely need to. And like you said, the goal is eventually we don't have to, but that's why we're here and we're we're having these conversations.
00:17:54
Speaker
And that's a perfect segue to the turning point, right? Like there there comes a moment in our lives when we realize that the thing protect that's protecting us is also isolating us, right? We feel said for for for both of us, I know that included times when we were feeling misunderstood, right? When we were feeling unseen.
00:18:19
Speaker
maybe exhausted for holding it all together. I know as a parent, that is definitely an an expression of my awareness that I've got to armor up. I've got to show up in this particular way because I have these grander goals of supporting other people in my community.
00:18:43
Speaker
And I think you made a really valid point there too, that it's not a it's no wrong expression. It's not even an inauthentic expression, but it can feel really limiting and it can feel really isolating.
00:18:57
Speaker
Yes. I wouldn't want to have to live my that my life that way on a day-to-day basis. As I said, that doesn't feel... authentic. And even in my real life, when people call me I'm like, it feels a little bad because it's not who I am. i don't feel seen. but And you know the closest people to me don't call me he.
00:19:18
Speaker
But as a
Disruptions and Authentic Relationships
00:19:20
Speaker
form of protection, it doesn't feel bad. It feels protective. And that's a different expression. But my goal, in and I will say too, like that is that is only what it's like life or death sort of things. And I'm not afraid to make waves and be in a room and you know, be my full expression of myself if it's only going to make someone uncomfortable, because that's also not about me and that's about them. And that's ah another thing that I really want to be able to state and make clear is you don't have to wear your armor to make someone else comfortable. that's not a That's not something that anyone should have to do. You're allowed to be open and be your full expression of yourself and not just allowed, but encouraged. And that is your birthright to be able to do that.
00:20:04
Speaker
And part of opening up, the goal is that it doesn't make someone uncomfortable. It starts to make people feel more comfortable because you are who you are. When I did live in the South for quite a few years, I knew this woman who went to church and she was super Catholic and devout.
00:20:20
Speaker
She was actually the first person I ever came out to as non-binary because one day and went to her pizza shop and I went, I saw her all the time. And i worked there part-time when she needed me sometimes. and I walked in and she said, hey lady, and I made a face and I was like,
00:20:35
Speaker
And I always did it when she said it. And she said, why do you always do that? Why do you always make a face when I say that? And I said, because I'm not a lady. And it just came out of my mouth because I was in the middle of finally wanting to come out. It's a longer part of my story that I've told a little bit about.
00:20:50
Speaker
And she said, what do you mean you're not a lady? Are you a guy? And I said, no. And she was super, super religious. So this conversation was so weird for me. The fact that she even said, are you a dude? I was like, huh. and i And she said, well, then what are you? I said, I'm i'm both.
00:21:03
Speaker
Like, I have expressions of both. And she said, well, then what do I call you? I said, well, you can just call me Person or Alex. And she said, so if you come in and I say, hey, Person, is that OK? And I was like, yeah.
00:21:14
Speaker
And she didn't blink in bat and bat an eye at anything. And that conversation for me was so scary if I had thought about it and afterwards after I thought about it. But my authentic expression, we had had a relationship enough that she was comfortable enough with me and loved me so that when you do take your armor off in the right situations with the right people, it should have more attraction and growth and alignment. And the best part of that for me was she was the biggest advocate after that. And one time she came and she told me, I was in line with somebody at T-Mobile and the person in front of me had a pin on and it said they, them. And so then I started asking them questions and told them I knew a person who is non-binary and she started talking about how it should be okay and living in the South. And I was just like, this is amazing. So the goal is when you're not armoring up and when you are being the best expression of yourself and you do it with love,
00:22:05
Speaker
that is when we can have those bonds and grow and change because love really is, especially love of yourself and that expression of yourself. It's meant to bring us together.
00:22:16
Speaker
i love, i love that story. And I, I, that's a new one. I haven't heard that one yet. So that's part of why I'm loving it. Right. I'm getting to learn even more of, of a fuller expression of who you are. i think it also demonstrates really clearly how the disruption part of being armored,
00:22:35
Speaker
I am safe, true. And I'm also disconnected, true. And how do i loosen the armor in a way that can feel scary, can feel vulnerable, that I might not have consciously thought about if I stayed up in my head and really strategized how that whole conversation was gonna go.
00:22:55
Speaker
But then this delightful outcome of Shiva's an advocate you might never have experienced the support of if you hadn't been willing to connect unarmored and have that conversation.
00:23:10
Speaker
I think that's that's really just an interesting and powerful inquiry for all of us is what might happen if I loosen the armor?
00:23:23
Speaker
Will people respect you? Maybe, maybe not, right? Will they leave? Maybe, maybe not. But if we're not willing to move through the disruption, we already know the outcome of living armored and living unseen and not being fully opened up to ourselves and to the people that we're in relationship with.
00:23:51
Speaker
Yes. To your point, That same situation I was in, my significant other at the time couldn't handle me being non-binary.
00:24:02
Speaker
This person I hadn't known very long opened up and it changed everything for us and it changed the other relationship as well. Many of the relationships I was in. but it became more authentic expressions in each and every place because of that disruption of being able to state it out loud. And I don't think we can always guess how it's gonna turn out. I i certainly didn't. If I had had to guess between you know this Catholic person, I barely knew it all. I mean, a little bit, but barely. And then this other person who I had been in partnership with for over a decade, I would guess the opposite. And so it was very interesting to me how it all worked out. And it was a beautiful, exactly what I needed, you know, looking back. But it was absolutely a disruption in my life that led to all the authentic expressions of the relationships and the things around me.
00:24:53
Speaker
And it is scary. It was absolutely journey to get to where I am now. But I look back at that moment and I don't know what made me do it in that second, except for it was supposed to be. It was, it came out, it was aligned and I was safe.
00:25:11
Speaker
And I'm so grateful to be able to look back, but also to have had the bravery in that moment. Sometimes you don't
Intrinsic Self-Worth and Resilience
00:25:20
Speaker
know where it comes from, but that love that I feel looking back for myself in that moment, I'm so grateful that I finally did it and was able to just have all of the things happen afterwards as they should have.
00:25:33
Speaker
Well, and Disruption often sounds like I can't keep doing this the way I have been. the Yes. so Right. Like that, that could be the disruption. It doesn't have to be some huge outward expression. It doesn't have to be active rejection. It could simply be that inner knowing of, I can't doing that. I can't keep doing this this way.
00:26:01
Speaker
And I think for us, especially you know those of us that are in this kind of regular personal deep inquiry, that is a huge aha.
00:26:12
Speaker
And it's intuitive. It's deep. It's not conscious. It's not you know ah this thing that we're like necessarily making a choice to do It's this inner dissonance that simply can't be managed anymore.
00:26:29
Speaker
Yeah. so Go ahead. It makes me think of Eckhart Tolle when his work of the ego, the way he discovered the ego, and he's like the founder of this for decades now. And his work, personal work was, he said, the statement came into his brain.
00:26:44
Speaker
I can't live with myself. And he said, if there's an i and a myself that I can't live with, there must be two of me. And this idea of the ego came out of it because he realized that the ego was just a construct he had built.
00:26:59
Speaker
an identity he had built. And this disruption, as you said, i can't keep doing this, often comes up with, it it brings in for me the idea of an ego, this idea of this personality, this person, this ego we talk about is like this big, you don't want to be your ego, but ego serves you. It's the thing that says, I am a human, i am separate from that person.
00:27:22
Speaker
You know, we've talked about it in reference to Boelty Taylor, you need your ego because it literally shows that you have a body and things like that. But your ego should be, you know, so a construct, something you build on purpose, with purpose.
00:27:35
Speaker
And so when you get to that point where I can't do this anymore, as Arkart said, I can't live with myself, it's because there's a part of yourself that has been armored underneath are armored over who you are underneath so that you're not showing up.
00:27:49
Speaker
That often is the biggest disruption of just something is wrong and being able to look at the construct of who you're building through the lens of ego, I think is so powerful because it's, it is often just a part of yourself that you're suppressing or not fully living into, or something that you've built that no longer serves you. Like you said, high achieving, you know, things like that, as simple as that can really change who you are when you just let it go. And I think the
00:28:21
Speaker
the armor also becomes such an intrinsic part of our identity that we are accidentally or unconsciously limiting our opened up expression of self right if i am if i am identifying as a heart high achiever and i fail in front of the masses that creates dissonance you know um as you were talking about ego and and kind of the eye in myself i was thinking of my yoga practice you know over the last 30 years.
00:28:54
Speaker
I've heard many a yoga teacher talk about the observer. And the observer part of us that's doing the observing is still not the complete expression of who we are. If I'm thinking about my breath or I'm looking at my reflection in the mirror, what's doing the thinking? What's doing doing the observing?
00:29:16
Speaker
That's the true part of our essence. That's really who we are. And I think um opening is not really necessarily a portal to emotional chaos, although depending on how many layers of armor we put on, it can feel that way.
00:29:34
Speaker
But it's it's less about you know trauma dumping and performing vulnerably and you know dissolving all your boundaries. It's it's not that. It's about discernment.
00:29:49
Speaker
You and I have talked a lot about discernment over the years. I think it's one of our favorite words because it's just everything.
00:29:59
Speaker
it It really, purpose and discernment really for me are key to everything as far as you have to do things on purpose with purpose, but then have the discernment of knowing what's for you. And this opening up is making me think too.
00:30:13
Speaker
You know, the armor is where so many people are. ah um a grand majority of our world are very armored up these days. But what they're looking for is, you know, that purpose, the alignment, the harmony, the ease, the wellness, the happiness, all the things, the joy, which is where the vulnerability lives.
00:30:32
Speaker
but Those things cannot be accessed armored. because you cannot feel them. It's so hard to explain until you take the armor off and you can feel the thing, what it feels like without it, because you can't really understand how much you're dampening everything. It's the same as, you know, antidepressants and a lot of these things that a lot of us have been put on when we go through really hard things. They do help you with the difficult things. They really do. But they prevent you from feeling the good things.
00:31:04
Speaker
They prevent you from accessing the parts of yourself that you want to show, the parts of yourself you want to be lived for. And so it made me
Ego, Self-Discovery, and Authentic Living
00:31:12
Speaker
think of specifically a bunch of people that I've been working with and that come to me right now who are in this really dark space. I had someone send me a letter that they sent to their therapist, and it was just amazing.
00:31:23
Speaker
reading it over, it it broke my heart, just so much of the ways that they are in pain and it's all armored up and they don't have anyone to see them. And the the thing they are longing for and is hard to put into words because, it you know, i I don't know them. They have to know them first, is that depth of expressing who they are in an open way so that they can feel the love, so that they can feel all of the joy that they want to feel in their lives. They're aching.
00:31:54
Speaker
i mean, this person in particular is just aching for joy, aching for purpose and happiness and just to feel those things that we all hunger for.
00:32:07
Speaker
and she can't because she's so armored in her life and in her relationships and in her expressions and on medication and she knows all of this. But it's so scary because she doesn't even know where to start. And so we're working together and I've been talking to her in different ways and she's working with therapists and all different sorts of things because the ache that she really wants to feel is that opening up, that full self-expression of who she gets to be and being shown up in the world.
00:32:37
Speaker
And a lot of this with her, with other people, they feel like they they're having to um justify their entire existence. earn their entire existence in this world.
00:32:51
Speaker
And I think that that's a burden that a lot of us feel, especially when we don't know how we're going to make the money and pay the bills and do the 3D thing that is not easy, let alone on armor and figure out who we are.
00:33:03
Speaker
But it is really, once you start opening up and have those joy, and that's our birthright, but it does take it one step at a time and it takes a choice to be able to make it. And it's not easy to do for sure.
00:33:16
Speaker
Definitely not. I think two things came up for me while you were talking. The first is in quantum human design, we talk about nine different resiliency keys, like aspects of our resilience. And one of those nine keys is self-worth and knowing that you are beautiful and powerful and powerful and perfect just because you be, just because you exist.
00:33:41
Speaker
It's not conditional and it's not based on what you do or even how you show up for other people or any of those outside tethers.
00:33:53
Speaker
It is an intrinsic part of the fact that you were born and you exist right now. And I think so many people, especially people i I get to work with, pinch themselves off from their resiliency because they don't see their self worth as intrinsic just to that existence.
00:34:16
Speaker
And I think it it brought up something you said earlier too, about how you don't have to show up unarmored and make someone uncomfortable, but you also don't have to show up armored in order to make someone comfortable. And I think that's a really interesting dance we get to do in relationships is oversharing is really a form of dysregulation.
00:34:43
Speaker
And I talk about emotional self-regulation a lot with my clients. And even in as I'm starting to do team trainings with you know companies, understanding the tools that you have access to or you can gain access to to be regulated yourself has a significant impact on the dynamic of the relationships that you're in And some people isolate and share nothing.
00:35:14
Speaker
Some people overshare. And those are both forms of dysregulation that I think we don't always acknowledge, I know certainly, especially with my own unique hardwiring, right? i'm i'm i am I am very activated and empowered to provoke and shock and bring to the surface things that people maybe haven't thought about or seen or or wanted to look at.
00:35:44
Speaker
But I've had to learn through my own practice of regulation, the how, right? It's not the what that's necessarily the source of the breakdown, but the how, and really doing that from a place of regulated honesty.
00:36:02
Speaker
Because I think, at least for me in my experience, you know, younger me, I was like, well, that's a you problem, not a me problem. It's the truth. If you don't like it, you know, tough shit. That was coming from a place of woundedness in myself.
00:36:16
Speaker
right? And I would armor up with this, I don't care. When the truth is, i was afraid to care. and I was unresourced in how to share that information in a way that it could be helpful.
00:36:32
Speaker
You know, I think collapsing under the weight of our armor is also an expression of losing ourselves. We're not meant to collapse. We're really meant to share our truth from a place of groundedness.
00:36:52
Speaker
What you said about self-worth, I remember hearing this. I mean, I know it in my soul now, but I remember hearing this when I was not in my now part person and hearing, we're all born worthy. We're all intrinsically worthy just because you exist.
00:37:12
Speaker
I don't know how to make people understand it because couldn't hear it myself in a lot of times. But I mean, i I want to speak more to that myself and I'm hoping you can too, to this expression of we're taught to earn it. We're taught metrics. We're taught...
00:37:31
Speaker
from fucking birth, I was taught, like, this is who Tiffany is, this is what she's going to do, and this is what she's going to be like, and that's worthiness, and that is the only way you're ever going to be worthy, and that is the only way you're going to earn love, and it was not unconditional, but that expression that I know of unconditional worthiness and unconditional love now, also for me, is my connection to the divine, and the universe, and love, and all of the The force that that animates us all, the energy of oneness, all of that.
00:38:05
Speaker
i I know in my bones, in my soul, I have felt it. It has been proven to me that it is conspiring with you for whatever you want. And it has no expectations at all.
00:38:19
Speaker
It just is. And it loves. And it does because, and if you want to conspire with it to create an awful life, it'll even do that. That's how much it unconditionally loves and cares about you and wants to conspire
Rebuilding Trust Through Openness
00:38:31
Speaker
with you.
00:38:31
Speaker
And you are worthy of having its, you know, collaboration. And it just is. And you don't have to do anything for it. It just is. And even if you're not collaborating within a purpose, you're still collaborating with it. and it's still going to work with you for whatever you do on purpose or not.
00:38:47
Speaker
And so that, worthiness and that unconditionalness is built in to the programming the x y one two whatever function of the unit the formula of the universe and even if you can't understand it on like ah a love somebody loves me or you know feel it on that level feel it on a scientific level for every ah action there is an equal and opposite reaction and divinely you know energetically you are going to collaborate with the universe and it is there for you no matter what it's going to help you live your life absolutely we're either living on accident or we're living on purpose but we're always in charge of that experience i was just reading some research from a from a psychologist who was talking about the idea of mind over matter which is not a new concept for folks but you know i'm a science geek on top of being a spiritual warrior and i loved that she was sharing some of the quantified research about it but really thinking about
00:39:47
Speaker
If your expectations inform your reality, then your only limit is your imagination. And I think to your point, when we're expecting shit to go bad, we're expecting people to be awful.
00:40:00
Speaker
And then shit goes bad and people be awful. We get to be right, right? That the ego is like, see, told you. But when we're expecting people to be amazing and surprising, and we're expecting life to to open up in ways that we can't really even...
00:40:16
Speaker
put words to, people be amazing. And life opens up in ways that we never could have put words to. i think there's some very practical applications of understanding how the how part of opening up and, and the gifts that it gives us access to. And maybe it starts with low risk honesty, right? Maybe it's not full force, full self-expression, all the things all at once, because most people don't like to drink from the fire hose.
00:40:50
Speaker
Maybe it starts with some vulnerable honesty about sharing your feelings and instead of making accusations. I was just in a couples therapy session recently and and the topic was about a breakdown between the two people.
00:41:09
Speaker
And he was calling her a liar and she was saying, i didn't lie. And what really came through in in the inquiry, right? the The moderated mediated third point of reference was he was feeling deceived.
00:41:26
Speaker
that really had nothing to do with her, but he was having a hard time owning the feelings. And so instead the strategy was to make an accusation, which undoubtedly, and to no surprise of most people created a breakdown in the dynamic.
00:41:48
Speaker
And I think when we can, Start to just take ownership of that strategy is sharing your feelings, even if they don't feel good, even if you're afraid of how they'll be received.
00:42:00
Speaker
That is likely to get you to the rebuild quicker with a little more ease. And when we're asking for support that way, right? If I'm sharing my feelings, that is a tacit request for support.
00:42:15
Speaker
Hopefully you're doing it in a safe place with someone who's willing to receive them, right? But the alternative is to be silently resentful. And we all know that doesn't feel good. So, you know, I think sometimes this idea of opening up, especially for people who have, you know, decades of lived experience and validation for living armored up, maybe comes with baby steps. Maybe it comes with with a soft entry.
00:42:40
Speaker
It makes me think of Brene Brown's Marble Jar. and Because she she talked about it If you haven't heard it it may briefly one of her daughter get told somebody a secret at school and they ended up sharing it with everyone said came home and kinda collapse and she was like well what happened and she said oh I told somebody secret they were supposed to tell anyone and getting out and so she told her the idea of this marble jar which was that the teacher had a marble jar when the class did good she put marbles in it the class did bad they take marbles out and she said friends are like that as well do you have any marble jar friends and so they started talking about it
00:43:15
Speaker
And it was very interesting. She said to her, the things that made marble in the jar, which was small things to begin with, to your point. It wasn't the fire hose, but it was like saving a seat for her daughter at lunch or remembering her grandparents' names because she has eight grandparents, which is a lot. Like there's a lot of small things. And I feel like you can try you can use that not just with humans, but with the universe as well.
00:43:40
Speaker
Start to put your trust and little Little tests, a little showing up, little bit of opening up to one person and one thing. And you're going to start to build that faith in yourself through the universe. And then you're going to start to build faith in people or not. I mean, these are, it's not a a test, but it is a calibration to who people are and if they're in alignment with you. And it's not, you know, those people that told her their daughter's secrets, they' they're not in alignment. They have their own stuff going on. And so it it didn't make them bad.
00:44:12
Speaker
It just made them not an alignment for her daughter. And same thing for us. You have to fill a person's marble jar. with small things. Open up a little bit. Start to test your safety with those people because then you can find figure out your your alignment. and like you said, when you do it in safety, that's the that's the important part because if you test it with somebody and then they weren't safe, it can often be like, oh, no, I was wrong. But you need to understand, no, that's just not a safe person. Try another person. Try a different situation. And then, you know, take some marbles out of that person's jar and don't go back to them. But that's it.
00:44:49
Speaker
For me, the marble jar is such an important discernment tool that we can use. But I think using it both not just with people, but with yourself and trusting yourself and that relationship with the universe is super important too.
Integrating Strength and Vulnerability
00:45:02
Speaker
Well, and it's nervous system work, right? Again, we're not all pure energy or we wouldn't have inhabited these magnetic meat suits with these brains and these neural pathways. And it's our nervous system is first and foremost here to keep us alive, here to keep us safe.
00:45:18
Speaker
And we live in this very dynamic and complicated world filled with other human beings. And where there's some great research by the Gottmans that talks about the five to one ratio.
00:45:30
Speaker
Our brains need five pieces of positive feedback to counteract the impact of one piece of negative feedback. And that's not intended to keep people from offering you criticism, constructive or otherwise.
00:45:46
Speaker
It is meant to help you understand the importance of that safety and being able to hear, oh, i fucked up big, but also i did five things really well.
00:45:59
Speaker
And I think a lot of times part of why we armor up is because we're not in an environment where that five to one ratio is active.
00:46:09
Speaker
We're a lot of times, I think also filtering out, we're not even hearing the five pieces because our brains have become so hardwired to look for that one that piece of criticism.
00:46:26
Speaker
And so we miss all of the gifts and then we justify armoring up because we have this evidence over here that we're using to validate that experience, right? It's ah it's a practice. And if we rip off the armor, right we can,
00:46:43
Speaker
we can over stimulate the nervous system and the amygdala is like, no, no, no, don't do that. You're going to die. yeah Rather than really understanding the strategic practice of some of those low risk activities that can help us again build up that internal armor, that safety that actually does support us and keep us alive and help us be the best versions of ourselves.
00:47:14
Speaker
Right. It's, it's a, The rebuild process is a trust in yourself. And I think first and foremost, we need to understand that that is actually how we begin to rebuild authentically, right? When we trust our ability to handle a response, we stop fearing being seen unarmored.
00:47:38
Speaker
Yeah. To like, if you get a negative response and you've got a good superhero crew, you're kind of like, eh. That's a part of trusting yourself too, is trusting that you have a crew, you have the ability to take off the armor, but also if, when you were thinking about it, like your nervous system, going, ah, I was thinking of going out in the sun and you don't have sunscreen on and you're a pale white person hasn't in the sun in a long time, you've been in a dungeon for a long time, I mean, I was a shut-in for long time. The sun was not my friend when I came back out. So I was just thinking, like, you don't go into the sun and go to the beach for eight hours a day if you haven't been out in the sunlight, like, at all. So it was making me think of that. But then also what you said about being able to handle negative feedback once you, you know, you've been in the sun for a while, you know, sunscreen if you need it or whatever.
00:48:35
Speaker
and it made me think of our, you know, thing about not tripping on your cape. Eventually, you not only do you take off the armor, you're like, whoa, I'm a superhero under here and I can fly. And it starts to, you start to have this faith in yourself, faith in the universe, faith in the people that are surrounding you. It isn't automatic. It is, you know, the rebuild is a part of that. But once you start to get into the manifestation, because you put in the work and you've done the things, it,
00:49:03
Speaker
those negative responses, I'm not saying they're not bad, but like, you know, I'll call you and we'll we'll talk about it and I'll be fine after just a short phone call because i have the calibration and the alignment and the tools or, you know, I'll call Emily or Lisa or somebody, depending on the situation, everything always ends up being better even after those things because I have the tools and the resources and now I'm more stable in who I am. I'm more stable in Even if i was wrong, now I have a clearer direction in what I want to be. And so the rebuild, and once you start opening up, your life starts to be a lot more open in general, because even if you have a negative thing or a setback or whatever, it just becomes more ways to to fly, to become stronger, to become more yourself and more open instead of less.
00:49:52
Speaker
Absolutely. i was i was just reading some really interesting research about... survival, the amygdala. And you know historically, when we were cave folks, our amygdala's purpose was to keep us safe.
00:50:08
Speaker
And where our prefrontal cortex used as interpreting value was strength, right? It was shelter. It was some of those primal survival resources.
00:50:20
Speaker
In 2026, part how our friends part of how our prefrontal cortex interprets our value is by intellect, by what we can bring to the relationship.
00:50:31
Speaker
And so when we interpret that those resources are not as highly valued, our amygdala still does the same thing. It still tries to keep us safe.
00:50:41
Speaker
And I think the true integration at this point in humanity is to really understand that strength and softness coexist. right The integration isn't about choosing power over vulnerability.
00:50:57
Speaker
It's about holding both of them in a way that feels complete. right We're not becoming smaller by opening up, but we're becoming more whole.
00:51:11
Speaker
what does that
Cycle of Opening Up and Personal Growth
00:51:12
Speaker
What does integration look like from you for you? me,
00:51:16
Speaker
firm for me It looks like a piece. It's hard to explain the piece that I have on a day-to-day level about being open these days.
00:51:30
Speaker
it's It used to be so scary. There's so much of myself that I had to hide for so long. And now I know that if anything, it's the reason that people are drawn to me, the reason that I can have deeper relationships faster maybe than some people, why people trust me is because I am open and I am vulnerable and I do share those things.
00:51:52
Speaker
And integrating that has made me feel grateful. And like I said, there's a peace within myself that I can handle whatever's going to come around and not just within myself, but within my relationships and the people that I love, that the things that I do in the world.
00:52:09
Speaker
So much of for me integration, I heard these things. and I knew them on an intellectual level, but the integrating was living them and being them and doing all of the stuff based on it and proving to myself that it's real so that I can you know tell other people that it's real. And it it has changed everything for me, living a more open life and being able to... Really interestingly for me, I've had a hard experiences and I'm the one that isolates. I'm like, leave me alone, don't wanna talk to anybody.
00:52:43
Speaker
But being able to have people that I can call or, you know, there have been times when I am definitely isolating and you're like, you know, if you just talk to me, it'll feel better. Being able to have that is nice.
00:52:56
Speaker
My relationship with the universe and the peace that I've gotten from that, being able to open up is, it's the most valuable thing I have, I think.
00:53:07
Speaker
I couldn't agree more. And I think, you know, we we talk about We talk about integration a lot in lots of different contexts, for sure. But I think for me, integration looks like, you know, in in business trainings, the leader who admits uncertainty, right? The the the leader who can say, i don't know.
00:53:28
Speaker
And they can still lead, right? For me as a parent, I think it's, I think one of one of my
00:53:37
Speaker
better qualities as a parent is being able to apologize to my kids when I talk shit up because I do, right? But also still being able to hold authority, right? And not looking at apologizing to my kids as ah as a expression of weakness, not looking at the failure that I need to apologize for as anything other than a learning opportunity to do better, right? Or,
00:54:05
Speaker
Even like I was sharing earlier, a partner who can express needs without feeling like they're abandoning their strength in the relationship. it It looks so unique depending on the relationship we're in, but understanding that that strength and softness absolutely are part of our wholeness, I think is also part of how we get to show up opened up.
00:54:33
Speaker
and really let that beautiful expression of who we are authentically blossom. right it's It's part of that cycle. It's part of what happens. The seed is in the dark, it's in the dirt, it's subsurface for quite some time.
00:54:51
Speaker
The outside observer might not see anything changing. And then one day sprouts above the surface and we're like, oh, there must've been some shit going on down there that I wasn't aware of. And now look at what's happening. You know, the, when you allow yourself to be seen is when you create that resonance.
00:55:13
Speaker
Yes. I like it that analogy a lot because of integrating, you don't often see the work people are doing and then it looks like, bam, but it's so long.
00:55:28
Speaker
It's like, is it is, trying and trying and adding nutrients and changing things and rainy days and sunny days. And, you know, before you finally get the quote unquote payoff of the opening up and the manifestation of it. But I just wanted to say
Legacy of Openness and Community Impact
00:55:43
Speaker
i really like that because it does illustrate all of the phases that it takes before you get to that.
00:55:49
Speaker
And sometimes what can feel like it's taking so long is because we're so hyper-focused on that particular part of the journey, right? ah and There's, and I'm maybe going to mess up the numbers here, but it's something like ba a bamboo seed stays subsurface for like five months and then it grows five feet in five weeks once it sprouts.
00:56:10
Speaker
Well, if you're just looking at the five weeks at the end, you're like, oh that's rapid transformation. if you're If you're expecting that transformation to happen in the in the five months before, You'll be like, ain't nothing going on there. Ain't no change happening.
00:56:23
Speaker
When we can pan out and look at the entire span of the journey, each one of those phases is divine. Truly.
00:56:35
Speaker
So what legacy are we creating, do you think, if we never let the real one real version of ourselves be seen? pain. It's a legacy of pain. That's my experience of it.
00:56:51
Speaker
oh And it's a cheating of all of the gifts. and because you're not open And you're not open. You're not using your gifts. Your gifts come from openness, for sure. That's where they thrive in.
00:57:03
Speaker
And so for me, the legacy that you leave in a good way when you do open up is all of the gifts and all of the talent and love and everything within you. So if you don't open up, We're all cheated of the wonderfulness of each person.
00:57:19
Speaker
When I was thinking about the legacy piece of this journey, I was thinking about transgenerational transmission, right? The epigenetics of the trauma that we inherit on a cellular cellular level and how generations of communities show up guarded, right?
00:57:43
Speaker
teams prioritize their performance over their authenticity and their their unique expression of their gifts and strengths. And I think when one person opens up, when that cycle breaker chooses to open up and disarmor and be seen vulnerably in their beautiful perfection, it gives permission to the rest of us to do the same.
00:58:10
Speaker
I think too, once you do it once, it's fun. once it I don't mean it in just, like, I was thinking all the different ways I was, I break the rules when you were saying that, and and it's not on purpose anymore, like, or maybe it is, I don't know, it just, I don't feel like the rules apply to me anymore, because I i don't even pay attention to them, it's far like, think about, like, mushrooms even, it's, you know, the mushrooms talk to me, that's not really a rule you follow when they tell you about when you start playing mushrooms, it's not a thing, but when you don't really care about the rules and you start to say, well I'm going to do things my way because the way it's always been done is going to change eventually.
00:58:49
Speaker
Why not me? Like it's going to get changed and we have to have progress. And when you start to do that, I just think I was trying to think of all the different ways of that. I've done that in my life.
00:59:00
Speaker
And that's partially the reason I have, you know, my clients or my friends. And so much of my life is built around this foundational aspect of the way I do things differently.
00:59:12
Speaker
And I didn't do it to be different. I did it because I was following authentic expression of who I am. But then that gave other people permission to follow their authentic expression, depending on the, the way we do it. But like, even like mushrooms is a great example because of you know, having you come play sound baths and blessing the water. And, you know, I literally talk to them every day and they talk to me Trust me. Like being able to say that out loud at first was so fucking scary. Being able to say like, yeah, mushrooms talk to me or even just saying I broke the rules and I didn't do it the way everyone said to.
00:59:50
Speaker
I didn't want to tell everybody that for a while. Like, I was like, people are going to I'm fucking nuts. And now all the time people are like, well, what does this mushroom say? And what is like this? and And the most common feedback I get is there's a different feeling to the mushrooms that people get from me.
01:00:06
Speaker
And again, i didn't do that to break the rules. I did that because it was an authentic expression. But now other people tell me they start talking to their mushrooms and, you know, they're more interested in what goes into other things they're growing and things like that. And so I feel like the legacy, once you start, it is addicting to just do things your own way and see what we can change on your, to your point, on a cellular level, what we're going to start to pass down.
01:00:35
Speaker
I heard someone say just recently, when you're living on the cutting edge, make sure you don't get cut, but don't leave the cutting edge. I think your story is a perfect example of that is it could have felt like you were going to get cut when you were sharing that, but then you figured out how, how and who to share that with so that now it's a, it's a regular part of what you share about your experience. And I have heard many people say, that's so cool.
01:01:05
Speaker
which you might not have imagined would be the response when you were feeling like you might've been judged or criticized or told you were fucking crazy. And maybe people do think that also. And also to your point, you don't give a shit. Like it doesn't matter really anymore.
01:01:22
Speaker
And I, I just think that's such a great gift that this opening up can give us. It creates workplaces where honesty isn't punished, right? it It creates relationships where our truth really deepens intimacy instead of threatening it.
01:01:41
Speaker
And I think when we're leaders who are strong enough to say, i don't know, and we take off that armor of needing to feel validated by what we do know,
01:01:55
Speaker
It's just a great example of how we're building congruence with the universe, right? As you always like to say, the universe is conspiring in your favor. i think we can also consciously contribute to that relationship as well, but we have to do it from an open place.
01:02:15
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. And the universe, for me, the more I've leaned into it, even like talking with the mushrooms and stuff, that starts to grow. and that um collaborative relationship, it starts to, cutting edge is not even like where I thought I would be, but it's so interesting, the things that you start to experience and share and grow.
01:02:41
Speaker
And then you're giving back to the universe too, to your point. It's using you to give back. And then it becomes you know cyclical in a way that you can't even imagine how much you're getting, but you're also giving. And there is no difference between it. And that is the real legacy that I think opening up leads to is it is a collaboration with yourself, with the universe, with the people in your life.
01:03:07
Speaker
Your life as an open manifestation of an authenticity and love of who you are becomes this opening up to the universe, opening up to the front lines of the cutting edge of everything we're growing and building building where we actually want instead of just what's always been done because we have that ability. That's why we're here. We are evolution. We're evolving the entire universe just by existing.
01:03:33
Speaker
Absolutely. so
Conclusion and Community Engagement
01:03:34
Speaker
I'd like to leave our listeners with a couple of questions for this month. it's The first one is, where are you ready to be seen? and who might feel safer because you went first.
01:03:46
Speaker
And if you engage in those inquiries, we would love to hear you share your experiences. I think I really want people to know that opening up isn't about exposing your wounds to the world.
01:03:58
Speaker
It's about loosening the armor just enough to let the real connection in. We've so enjoyed all of your questions and comments and our end of month wrap ups.
01:04:10
Speaker
So with those questions that Leslie gave you, please keep them coming. Keep your questions for us coming and your reflections on our guests and stuff too. we We've enjoyed that so much. You as a community are making this so much more better than we ever could have imagined. So we just want to say thank you for that as well.
01:04:27
Speaker
Truly. Well, until next time, thank you so much for being here. I'm Alex. And I'm Leslie in Don't Trip on Your Cape. See you then. Bye-bye.
01:04:41
Speaker
Thanks for joining Alex and Leslie on Don't Trip on Your Cape. I really appreciate you being here and walking this path with them. If today's episode sparked something in you, if it helps you rock something new about yourself or your journey, show your support by subscribing to the channel, liking episode, and leaving a comment to share your thoughts or takeaways.
01:04:56
Speaker
Your voice helps to grow this community of brave, curious humans learning wither kitchen confidence. and Until next time, fly high, stay curious, and don't trip on your cake. Step into your superpower.