How the masks you carry impact your health

[00:00:00] What we call our personality is often just the most successful coping strategy we developed
[00:00:05] before we were old enough to choose. The performing usually starts pretty young,
[00:00:09] and we don't even remember when it began. We just know that somewhere along the way the real one
[00:00:14] went underground, and the curated masked one kind of took the wheel, took the stage.
[00:00:19] Hey there, and welcome to the Heel with Grace podcast. I'm your host, Grace Secker,
[00:00:25] and I'm a holistic licensed therapist and nervous system coach who believes that the chronic and
[00:00:30] often unseen symptoms you're living with are a sign of something deeper going on. A sign that your
[00:00:37] nervous system needs attention. In each episode, I'll share the science behind the most common
[00:00:42] chronic health disorders, plus holistic tips using mental, physical, and spiritual practices.
[00:00:47] You'll hear what I've learned in my journey and the true stories from our trusted guests
[00:00:52] so you can feel less alone in your experience and give yourself grace
[00:00:56] no matter what you're going through. So without further ado, settle in and get cozy.
[00:01:00] It's time to Heel with Grace. Hello, hello, and welcome back to the Heel with Grace podcast.
[00:01:07] I'm going to do something a little bit different today, and I don't want to teach
[00:01:12] something so specific about the nervous system signals, but I really want to talk about
[00:01:18] and share with you what, honestly, I've been sitting with lately of what the whole point of
[00:01:23] this mind body journey is about. There's so much that can come from healing our symptoms,
[00:01:29] because it's not just about the physical symptoms. I mean, it's not about them at all,
[00:01:35] to be honest. They're just the tip of the iceberg. It's just the entry point
[00:01:40] into actually what we need for ourselves. And today I want to talk about the masks
[00:01:45] that we hold and the way that we carry ourselves. We've spent most of our lives wearing masks, and
[00:01:53] a lot of times whether that's to be loved to not be rejected to feel safe to be acceptable.
[00:01:58] And our body's been carrying that weight of every single one of them.
[00:02:03] And healing is not the absence of symptoms. It can be very much so can be, but real
[00:02:10] healing starts when your body recognizes that it's safe to actually be authentically you.
[00:02:16] And that is really what today is about. Somewhere very early on in our lives, we learned to mask.
[00:02:23] Happens to every single one in some way, shape, or form. For many of us, it's maybe a little
[00:02:29] bit more extreme than others, but we all do, regardless of whether it leads you to chronic
[00:02:33] symptoms or not. We do because at a collective level, as human beings, we are meant to be in
[00:02:40] connection with each other. It is survival, right? If you're not a part of the tribe back in the day,
[00:02:46] you literally did not survive. You would die. So in order to be a part of the tribe, you need
[00:02:51] to fit in. You need to be accepted. You need to be a part of it. Now, over time, as evolution
[00:02:57] has evolved and humans have evolved, we learned that being fully ourselves wasn't safe. And that
[00:03:03] happens in many different ways, right? Or maybe it just wasn't received well and it could lead to shame
[00:03:08] or withdrawal or overwhelm or trying to be someone that you're not. And we don't consciously do this.
[00:03:14] Sometimes we do later on, but most of the time we're not consciously doing this. We're just
[00:03:18] kind of going along in life and being who maybe we think we need to be based on our environment,
[00:03:23] our family, society, online, friends, school, wherever we are. Every child does, every person
[00:03:31] does. We adapt to our surroundings. Now, some of us adapt really well and we fit in super well.
[00:03:40] And some of that might be because we authentically do, but a lot of times it can also be just because
[00:03:43] we're good at it. You might have figured out the kind of person that you need to be in order
[00:03:49] to fit in with your family, with people, with friends, with whoever. And so you might have
[00:03:57] been the easy one, the easygoing one, the independent one, the one who doesn't ruffle any
[00:04:04] feathers, the one who is a perfectionist, the one who gets the good grades, the one who keeps the
[00:04:10] peace in the family, or maybe you were the quote unquote black sheep and even if you didn't outwardly
[00:04:18] fit in, you felt it very, very deeply on the inside. And here's the thing, those adaptations are
[00:04:26] brilliant. They keep us safe. They keep us loved. They work, but they do cost us something over time.
[00:04:34] They cost us the version of ourself that didn't have to perform anything, the version of us that
[00:04:40] just was, that just is. What we call our personality is often just the most successful
[00:04:46] coping strategy we developed before we were old enough to choose. The performing usually starts
[00:04:52] pretty young, and we don't even remember when it began. We just know that somewhere along the way
[00:04:56] the real one went underground. And the curated masked one kind of took the wheel, took the stage.
[00:05:03] Sometimes this happens cliche in a teenager, right? When they're obviously in some sort of
[00:05:09] club or group, and they're walking a certain way, they're talking a certain way,
[00:05:15] they're dressing a certain way, they're doing certain things. And it's all to be a part of this
[00:05:20] persona. And I mean, in teenagers, like that is developmental age. That's what we're supposed
[00:05:25] to do, explore and figure out what fits us. Like we don't always know. Most people throughout their
[00:05:30] whole lives can't say 100%. I know exactly who I am every single day, right? We change, we
[00:05:36] evolve, every phase of life, every age comes with something different. And we discover something
[00:05:40] new about ourselves. But let's bring it back to this journey, this healing journey. This is so
[00:05:45] much of what it's about. And you're going to see it in many different ways. So maybe you're starting
[00:05:50] this journey. And you're noticing people are talking about boundaries or people pleasing, right?
[00:05:54] Maybe you've been someone who is the caretaker for a lot of people. You always help other
[00:05:59] people out or people come to you. Or maybe it's not even that outwardly obvious, like
[00:06:04] people don't just come to you all the time. But you're just that person that kind of blends
[00:06:08] in with everyone else, right? You're just kind of go with the flow. You're good at
[00:06:13] blending. And then you start to learn once you get into mind body work that actually
[00:06:18] that is a mask. And actually, you've probably taken on way more than your nervous system can
[00:06:23] handle. And the healing is to start setting boundaries with what you can and can't. So
[00:06:29] for example, I have a new client and she's in the mind body healing method. And she was
[00:06:33] talking about last night in our group call. And she's new. She's just starting to get to know
[00:06:38] her nervous system signals. So in the beginning, what you do is you start to just get to know you
[00:06:43] and your signals in your nervous system, right? Because we can't do anything if we can't change
[00:06:48] it if we don't actually know ourselves or know our signals. So you get to know, okay, when
[00:06:54] are you overwhelmed? When do you start to get a headache? Do you start to disassociate?
[00:06:58] What is the freeze response, right? And she mentioned, so right now she has a pretty stressful
[00:07:04] job. There's just a lot going on. It's not necessarily bad. It's just she's holding a lot.
[00:07:09] And so she noticed that in the past, like when it starts to get towards the end of the day,
[00:07:14] she's hungry, she has a headache, she's tired and her old norm would be to go scroll her phone,
[00:07:20] sit in front of the TV. And what she used to think was just relax and come down from the
[00:07:25] day really was dissociating in a freeze response. So now that she knows that she was like, I noticed
[00:07:30] my signals. I noticed my signals in my body where I was starting to get a little crispy, like I was
[00:07:36] getting overwhelmed, my head kind of hurt, even my throat hurt a little bit or, you know, I definitely
[00:07:41] was getting hungry, like I couldn't focus very well. Those are her signals of, oh, I'm edging
[00:07:46] towards overwhelm and a little more freeze or I'm edging towards my capacity here. I'm overflowing
[00:07:51] in my capacity. So instead of going to dissociate, which is what we all do because we don't know what
[00:07:58] to do with this feeling we were never taught. Instead, she's learning, okay, wait, hold on,
[00:08:03] actually, I know what would nourish myself was what to take a pause before I go and do that,
[00:08:08] what to eat mindfully, eat my dinner mindfully. Maybe I do have meditation or I do a breathing
[00:08:13] practice. I go take a walk outside. I help nourish my system slowly. I don't need to do
[00:08:21] any kind of crazy deep work. But I know that if I do that, that will give me what I need to
[00:08:29] come down from this kind of stress-free state. And then I can go choose whatever I want to do.
[00:08:36] You can't change what you don't know. And so getting to know yourself first and foremost,
[00:08:42] just getting to know those basic signals, then you start to recognize, okay, these signals
[00:08:47] are happening when I'm around people for too long. These certain signals happen when I work more than
[00:08:54] a couple hours at a time. These signals happen when I'm always around this family member. It is
[00:09:00] toxic, right? You just start to get to know that. And then you get to choose what is more
[00:09:07] and aligned with what your nervous system and just you in general is helpful for you. And
[00:09:12] what you want, what is authentic to you in your life. Your body has gotten loud because
[00:09:18] the quiet wasn't working anymore. The performing has cost too much. And your nervous system officially
[00:09:25] said, I can't keep doing this for her. She has to come back. So your body started screaming at
[00:09:30] you saying, I need your attention now. I need you to listen to me. Stop pushing past your
[00:09:35] capacity. Stop putting yourself in situations that are not aligned, that are not authentic.
[00:09:40] Stop putting yourself around people that are bringing you down instead of building you up.
[00:09:44] Stop being in this work scenario that is not right for you at all, but you just do it because
[00:09:49] you're too scared to make a change, right? I could keep going. And let me actually say this here
[00:09:56] for a second before I go on to the next section. So this is not to blame or shame you for doing
[00:10:01] things that weren't right for you. No, this is very normal. This is a life's journey. This
[00:10:07] is anyone's life journey. We're just talking about it in the context of healing in mind body
[00:10:12] symptoms. Anyone that goes on any kind of healing journey, whether that's any kind of mental health,
[00:10:18] addiction, eating disorder, life transformation, spiritual journey, we all realize what we're
[00:10:25] doing that doesn't fit us. And we work to do some do things live a life that is more authentic
[00:10:30] to ourselves. So that's very normal. I just don't think this is talked about enough in the
[00:10:36] mind body space. We talk a lot about somatic tracking and about how it's not about the physical.
[00:10:40] And those are all wonderful. But this deeper work is what actually changes things. And
[00:10:46] I find people are stuck when they don't do this. So there's that. Again, it is normal. It is just
[00:10:52] part of the process and it evolves over time. So for example, for myself, I mean, if you've
[00:10:57] been here, you have heard a lot of my story and like I have been on a self transformation
[00:11:02] and healing journey since I was probably 12 years old. This is just this is my life. This is my
[00:11:06] life purpose. This is my life mission is to heal old patterns from my own life, generational patterns
[00:11:12] and share it and helping others. And so in my mission in the world, as I say that this is
[00:11:19] what I want to do and I want to help people, life gives you what you need to learn to help
[00:11:24] people. Really? I laugh because there's just been so many times where I'm in the depths
[00:11:29] and dark of something. I'm in some healing journey. I'm in some pain. I'm in depression. I'm in some
[00:11:35] huge transformation in my life. And I'm just like, Oh my gosh, why do I have to go to the depths of
[00:11:41] this? And I mean like, I'm an all or nothing person. So if I not consciously, but if I
[00:11:48] go through something, it's like my life's journey is to take me to the depths of that healing
[00:11:54] journey. And it takes me deep and so that yeah, my point being is each time I discover a new depth
[00:12:02] or a new part of myself that maybe I'm not as aligned in that I work on being more aligned with.
[00:12:08] So that's happened in relationship, right? I've been divorced. I'm tapping in my body healing
[00:12:14] that's happened in where I live in the world. I've traveled around all around the world trying
[00:12:20] to figure out where I want to live. I moved away from my home state friends, like I've gone through
[00:12:25] different friend groups, you know, there's just so many different things about me and my story, my
[00:12:29] life, like to the point where my partner now David, he hears about my backstory, you know, and
[00:12:36] he's like, I just can't even picture that that grace, right? Like so when I was 24 or something
[00:12:41] in grad school and living a 100 but totally different life than I live now, he's like,
[00:12:46] we're just like a different person from what I hear and what I see in pictures. And
[00:12:50] again, I think that's because I go all or nothing. And I've been that one that's a
[00:12:54] chameleon I fit into a lot of different groups. That's always been me. I can get along with
[00:12:58] a lot of people. And that's not a bad thing. I definitely kind of like that about myself,
[00:13:03] but I am very aware of, okay, where am I actually just trying to get along to
[00:13:09] people, please? And instead, what kind of people do I actually want to be around? And
[00:13:15] now at this point in my life, I'm actually very specific around the people that I surround myself
[00:13:20] with. So all that to say is that you don't need to figure it all out right now. You don't need to
[00:13:26] figure out your most authentic self and change everything in your life to be authentic, to live
[00:13:31] an aligned life. It happens over time. I hope that this is helping you to become a little
[00:13:36] bit more familiar with, okay, what area of my life am I called to look at right now? Is
[00:13:42] it relationships? Is it work? Is it just literally being kind to yourself and acknowledging that
[00:13:49] you have self-worth and self-esteem and building up your own confidence with yourself,
[00:13:53] right? Maybe it's where you live. There's just so many different areas of life. Maybe it's
[00:13:58] your spirituality, your connection with religion. Where do you feel called to look at and to
[00:14:04] discover where you're really not being true to what's important to you? So here's a few
[00:14:10] examples from clients that I've had over time. I've had a client who finally started to say no
[00:14:15] to the family obligation that she'd been respectfully saying yes to for 15 years. And that
[00:14:20] migraine she'd had for two weeks started resolving in 48 hours. There was a client who
[00:14:26] stopped performing with the people around her realized that the group of friends she was with
[00:14:33] actually was really tearing her down and was kind of this enmeshed toxic group and started
[00:14:38] to pull away from it and actually realized how much relief it was. Like literally felt this weight
[00:14:42] lifted off her body because she wasn't trying to perform and fit into this group that she didn't
[00:14:47] actually even want to be a part of. She just felt like she needed to because they were kind of a
[00:14:51] clicky cool group. I had one client who's chronic fatigue lifted a lot when she stopped trying
[00:14:56] to be the easy partner in her marriage. The one who does all the things, who's easy going,
[00:15:02] who doesn't have as much of an opinion and actually started to stand up for what she wanted
[00:15:07] in the marriage and in her life. I had one client who actually did realize that she needed to leave
[00:15:12] her career. That was technically successful, but it really went against some of her own personal
[00:15:19] values and her own spiritual connection. It just pulled her out of morality where she just
[00:15:25] felt like she couldn't do it anymore. So all this to say, what does it actually look like
[00:15:29] to come home to ourselves to be more authentic? I've given a few examples throughout this time
[00:15:35] and it really takes being the observer in your life. When do symptoms show up the most?
[00:15:42] When do you feel overwhelmed? What are you dragging your feet on? Are you procrastinating
[00:15:48] something? Do you constantly cancel plans with a certain person or back out? Where do you feel
[00:15:53] like you can show up and be a little bit more vulnerable? Can you let your kids see you
[00:15:57] cry? Can you let someone else see you in your emotional state? Can you text back
[00:16:02] someone when you feel like it? Not the second you see the message, right? Take some time to respond.
[00:16:08] Let yourself be curious. Let yourself be the observer. Start to understand where and how this
[00:16:14] is happening and once you start to look for this, you'll receive more. So I'm focusing this a lot
[00:16:21] in my business and entrepreneurship and really listening to my heart and what I know is
[00:16:28] important to me and where I'm at. And showing up that way online, here in my podcast and my
[00:16:33] program with my clients. That's a whole other podcast episode, but I think that many of my years
[00:16:39] of early therapy career and what I was taught in school kind of made me have this mask of like,
[00:16:45] I'm the therapist, I'm supposed to be kind of blocked off and don't let any clients see
[00:16:49] anything about you. Obviously, if you've been around here, you know that's not exactly
[00:16:54] my MO anymore, but there is still this mask and this wall that I feel like and I've had other
[00:16:58] people reflect that back to me too. And it's not that I'm going to come and spill everything on here
[00:17:03] because that's, I don't feel like that's actually important either. It's not about all or nothing,
[00:17:08] keeping everything in or sharing everything all over the internet. Like no, but it's being
[00:17:12] more authentic to how I feel I would need to show up at this point in my life.
[00:17:17] So my point being is once I started to kind of like lean into this a little bit more,
[00:17:21] I mean, especially online, the algorithm is giving me so many videos of people talking about,
[00:17:27] I wasn't authentic. No, this is how I am. I'm having an identity crisis. This is how I'm changing like
[00:17:32] all these things. So I'm like, okay, okay, this is my lesson right now. I got to see it.
[00:17:37] So if this feels true to you, if this feels like, yeah, there's something here that I need
[00:17:41] to explore, keep exploring it. Let it be an exploration. Let it help you understand yourself
[00:17:46] a little bit more. Coming home to yourself being authentic does not need to be some huge
[00:17:50] big rebrand, right? It's not, okay, you got to quit your job tonight and you got to move
[00:17:55] across the country or you got to move to the woods and go off grid. It's a lot of the times
[00:18:02] many more thousand tiny moments where you choose the truth over the performance and
[00:18:07] every one of those moments is a message to your nervous system. She's back.
[00:18:12] It's safe to be me. It's safe to be her. We don't have to mask and hold it together
[00:18:17] for anyone else anymore. So when you start letting the real version of you show up in your life,
[00:18:24] things can get a little uncomfortable. It's not going to be super easy. Like there's a couple
[00:18:29] things I've done recently where I had some anxiety around it, but there was something about it
[00:18:35] that just felt like, okay, I feel like I feel like this is important. I need to do this. And
[00:18:38] also it just feels true to me, even though it's really scary to share. So that's normal. It's
[00:18:43] normal to feel unsettled about it or anxious about it and also know that it's true. You might even feel
[00:18:49] a little guilty or selfish at first, right? If you're choosing you over someone else. And during
[00:18:54] this time, your nervous system might spike a little bit before it settles down because you
[00:18:58] have to start to teach it that it's okay to be you. But at first it's going to be like, uh-uh,
[00:19:02] this is not okay, right? It just doesn't trust the new strategy yet. So you just
[00:19:08] have to keep practicing over and over and over again. So here is what I want to leave you
[00:19:12] with most short, sweet episode. Who would I be if I stopped performing or masking a version of me
[00:19:20] in this area of my life? I learned it was safe. That's wonderful and okay. But who would I be?
[00:19:27] What would I do? What actions would I take? What would I feel if I stopped being this
[00:19:34] version of me I thought I was supposed to be? If this feels really important to you,
[00:19:38] keep exploring it. And I also want to invite you into the mind-body healing method. If this feels
[00:19:45] like something that you're ready to do, I have a whole phase. It's called integrate. A whole phase
[00:19:51] on our emotions, on integrating the parts of us, on being more authentic. And it all ties into
[00:19:58] healing and working with mind-body. If that feels appropriate for you, if you want a guide,
[00:20:03] if you want step-by-step instructions, you can find the link below. The self-paced course is available
[00:20:09] right now. Our group program is closed for the time being, but you can find the self-paced program
[00:20:14] and you can also add on private sessions to dig deeper into those parts if that feels important
[00:20:18] to you. All right. Until next time, take care of yourself and keep healing with grace.
[00:20:27] If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to me if you could do these
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[00:20:52] for listening and I hope this brings you hope on your journey.