EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Hi. Welcome to this week’s episode of The Samantha Leith Show, with moi, Samantha Leith. This month, we’re frolicking around that wonderful part of us known as our identity. One of the greatest gifts you can give yourself is to understand exactly who you are and to love it. There’s no right or wrong answer, no right or wrong identity, only you. So let’s have a look at what makes us us.
Adopting your new Identity
Do you want to know the great news? You get to choose what you believe about your identity. You can, as Taylor Swift says (singing). You can move. You can change. You can grow. Pick an identity belief that fuels you and pushes you towards your biggest goals and dreams, an identity that helps you to be the person you know and want to be. That’s power. That’s magic.
When you have this cemented identity, some of which may be a hundred percent true in the now, and other aspects you might be like trying on for size or growing into, it’s really important that they help shape what you do every single day. You heard me talk about the daily success formula. And if you haven’t, go back and watch episodes, one to five. These pieces of your identity will help you with this. It’s no longer, “I should make my bed in the morning.” It’s, “I’m a bed maker.” It’s not, “Oops, I’m not very good at finishing things.” It’s undetermined. It’s not, “Better getting more skilled at talking to people.” It’s, “I’m a great communicator.”
Try some of these on for size and, well, see how they feel. Wear them like a badge of honor and see what happens. How do these new thoughts about yourself change you? What do they make you do? The next step is owning the pieces of you with others. So when you’re asked any questions about you or something that makes you think of parts of your identity, answer with this new gusto of what you’re choosing to shine a light on about yourself.
The Identity ‘recipe’
Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble. Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble.
See, I told you I was bad with accents. There’s a recipe for our identity. There’s ingredients. There’s bits that go into this pot and create who we are. Now, there’s no evil Bette Midler witch character stirring away and making us decide who we’re going to be. We get to do that. We’re stirring our own pot, and everything we put into that pot helps us be who we are. The joy we experience, the love we experience, the pain that we’ve gone through, the sorrow, the tenderness, the things we’ve experimented with, the courses we’ve taken. All of these ingredients help us to be who we are and come out, I don’t know, as a soup or a great cake. Whatever you want to be, you can be.
How to keep going through the hard times
So you hit the bump in the road. A curve ball got thrown your way. You got kneecapped. That’s it, you ought to throw in the towel, your hands in the air, defeated because you no longer know who you are. (singing). I mean, stop. Breathe. You’ll be okay. Remember, this is a journey, not a one and done scenario. I encourage you though, to take comfort in the parts of you that you know to be 100% true. And you can always find some of them, I promise. In all honesty, you could just do a Dory and just keep swimming, just keep swimming. And for many of you in a lot of situations, you may need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, boobstraps, whatever, and actually do this while you work out what the problem is. This act in itself can sometimes be enough to help you overcome any hard time.
I remember struggling through a particular phase of unknowing, and I held on tight to some simple things like mom, friend, Gemini, good cook, singer, bad teller of jokes, even worse with accents, curious 30-something woman. And that was it for a while, was all I could hold onto while I took the time, and I encouraged you do the same, this exercise. And guess what? It’s in the download. Now I’ve asked you to look at specific questions many times. So the first point of call would be to reflect on your answers with the identity handout, and also any work you’ve done on vision, mission, passions, and even that 100 year old letter. There’s gold in that work. And quickly check in with yourself to see if maybe, just maybe, you’re starting to assume struggle is part of your identity. It’s so common and, yep, been there, done that.
Now back to the exercise. Take a sheet of paper, your journal, or if you want, type away. Then write to yourself. I know it feels a bit daggy, and I’ve already told you to do it a million times, your journal, what’s the point? Keep going. There is a point. I want you to write about this bump. This is freeform writing, not yes or no. It’s emotive. It’s you.
What happened?
How did it make you feel?
What part of you feels disjointed, and can you pinpoint why?
How would you have preferred to handle this situation?
Then I want you to be a little bit more objective. I want you to look at this situation in a truly black and white manner.
What happened?
Who or what was involved?
In a perfect world, what would’ve happened?
Remember, in that part, not about the emotion. It’s facts. There are some more questions in the download, but in a nutshell, once you’re done with these questions, I want you to compare your emotive and more factual writing.
Are there any similarities?
Because that’s where you are going to see the bullseye of what made your you, your identity, get a wee bit disjointed. And maybe after looking at this, you’ll realize it’s not disjointed, it’s growth. You’re moving on to a greater you.
Samantha Leith Made Up
Many moons ago. I had a cabaret show that toured called Samantha Leith Made Up. And it was the story of our lives. In fact, it was probably the first personal development seminar I ever did. But I was on a stage with no makeup. And as I placed the makeup on my face and sang the songs that went in it, I told the stories. So foundation was our childhood, was all those things that made us who we started to become in those first tender years. When it gets to eye makeup, it’s about the power that we have in life, the window to our soul. Our eyes are those things that help people actually see our identity. Our lips. I had some fun with lips. That was about our sexuality. Our lips form the words that can make people angry with us or make people love us.
And it is just our identity. These things that we put on, whether it’s makeup or frocks, all actually form a part of who we are. You may wear an item of clothing because it is what you wore when you were a little kid. It’s foundational to you, just like that foundation was to me in that show.
Thank you so very much for watching this week’s episode of the Samantha Leith show. I hope you’ve loved it. Please head on over to Samanthaleith.com/freebies to get the worksheet for this month. And don’t forget to spread the love, by subscribing, pointing, liking, sharing, and everything else you do with the video. And remember, however you define your identity, you are worthy, you are enough, and you are extraordinary.
📹 Produced by Rebecca Saunders and Pyrmont Studios
🎶 I Am What I Am Songwriters: Mark Owen
© BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group
🎙️ Produced by Samantha Leith / Michael Allen Vocals by Samantha Leith
🙏 Special thanks to Stonewall Hotel Sydney for the stage!
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