Claim Your Power: The Identity Shift That Changes Everything

Melanie Mishler (: 00:26

Hello, my beautiful friend and welcome back.

I missed you last week because Andy and I were wrapping up our three week trip to Mexico and instead of recording, I thought it would be better for me to spend every last minute soaking in the beauty of Mexico with good food. mean, amazing food, the beach, the slower pace of life. But I'm back and I'm super recharged and can't wait to dive into the spring season here in northern California. We'll be here until the summer

when we move back to Belize. And after so much trouble, I love the sense of rhythm and flow and comfort that comes with being home. have to say, no bed like your own bed.

so if you happen to be watching this video, you'll know that this is the first time I've ever recorded my podcast on video. I have no idea how this is gonna go. I'm just trying it out and we'll see if it's something that I wanna stick with because I feel like I always wanna connect with you. I wanna connect with people

And something about being just on audio, I feel like we're lacking that connection. So I'm gonna try this, see how it goes. And this might be kind of how I do it from now on.

But today I want to talk about identity and belonging. And I think this is a really important topic to talk about because honestly, at some point in all of our lives, we have felt either like we don't belong, we've experienced imposter syndrome, felt like others have some advantage that we are lacking.

or felt like we're not living from our full potential. Like there's so much more inside that we are not yet tapping.

And here's the thing, as humans, we're wired for connection. That's how our brain is wired, because honestly, we're pack animals. We're designed to belong to a group. It's in our DNA. So when we feel like we don't quite fit in, when we struggle with imposter syndrome or feeling disconnected from our true self, it really affects us on a primal...

very, very deep level inside our bodies. And that feeling of disconnection, of not enoughness, can shape so much of our lives. shapes our choices, what we choose to do, what we choose not to do. It can affect our relationships, our happiness. And I think it's time we have a little conversation about it, because it's really important.

because here's the truth, stepping into your most powerful identity isn't about changing or fitting in. it's not about becoming someone new. It's about remembering who you really are. It's about stepping into your full potential, into your power, and to finally allow yourself to take up space in the way that you were always meant to.

So let me start by sharing a personal story of why this is like top of mind for me right now.

Like I mentioned, we just got home from three weeks in Mexico and early last week we headed to a new town at the beach in Oaxaca. And this town is so beautiful. It's this hip little beach town.

It's honestly my new favorite place and where our next home will be after once we move to Belize, we're going to be there for a short while and then we're heading to Mexico. But that's a story for a whole separate episode.

But anyway, the first day we arrived there, we are kind of soaking in the environment and we get into a little argument. I think that's actually a little overstated because it wasn't really an argument, but Andy was acting really off energetically and I couldn't figure out what was going on.

I could see that his energy was really frazzled and he wasn't communicating with me. So I started to get frustrated and then we were bickering. And then I just said, I'm going to go off and spend some time, like get some space, spend some time alone and regroup. And then a little bit later we came back together and we connected and he confided in me what was going on with him. He said.

I just feel like I don't belong here because everyone in this town is really young and vibrant and hip and I'm 50 now. That was the whole point of this trip

It was his 50 year birthday trip. So he felt like he didn't belong.

And friend, when he said that, it broke my heart because no one else was thinking that except for him. The only person questioning whether he belonged was him. And I realized how often do we do this to ourself? This is something I hear all the time when I'm teaching manifestation or when I'm working one on one with clients and helping them step into their most powerful selves.

often hear this imposter syndrome is I don't belong like who am and how often do we assume that we're being judged honestly the only judgment is coming from inside our own heads inside our own mind.

So in that moment when Andy and I are having that conversation and I have this realization like this is what I'm helping women women with all the time. This what comes up over and over as we step into our most powerful self. And the truth for years I held myself back from doing my own life's work because I felt like I didn't belong. I didn't belong because

I'm overweight. Like, who wants to listen to a manifestation teacher that's overweight? make any sense now, but that was a thought that I had. I also thought I didn't belong because manifestation and energy work was just too woo-woo. It wasn't taken seriously. And I want you to remember, I started this work 30 years ago, before social media, before it was really a quote thing.

And so I kind of shied away from doing my work and I stayed small waiting for permission that was never going to come.

yet here I am, I'm finally doing the work that I was always meant to do. And you know what? Here's the funny thing. The feelings of imposter syndrome and self-doubt and not being enough, they didn't disappear before I took action. They disappeared as I stepped forward. It doesn't happen the other way around.

If I had waited until I felt ready, until I felt safe, until I truly belonged, I would still be waiting. That permission is never gonna come. Because here's the thing, confidence is

isn't a prerequisite for action. It's the result of it. And here's what I know. You don't have to earn your place. You don't have to prove your worth, your power. It was always there. Your potential, it was always there. And your worth is non-fucking-negotiable.

You were born worthy. You were born whole. The only thing that ever changed was a story that you started to believe about yourself.

not something that we have to chase. It's something that we have to claim, stake or claim in it. It's something that we have to remember because at the end of the day, belonging isn't about fitting in. It's about coming home to yourself, coming into your power.

This is why I say identity shifts aren't about becoming someone new. Stepping into your power isn't about doing something or taking action. It's about remembering the version of you that already exists beneath the self-doubt in that conditioning. And when I say remembering, I literally mean it. mean, R-E equals membering. Meaning we're pulling back.

pieces of ourself, members of ourself. We're pulling ourself back together into our wholeness. I don't know if that makes sense, but that's kind of how I see it. Because at some point you did know who you were. When you were little, you knew who you were. You knew your worth. And we all know this as children before the world tells us otherwise. Before life piles on all the expectations, the insecurities and the stories about what's possible for you.

So this work isn't about forcing change. It's about coming home to yourself. and what I see a lot of women doing is really trying to earn their place in the world, trying to earn their worthiness or feeling like they have to take all this action to change. So what I want to give you is a little exercise to show you how easy this can be to step into your power when you have the right conditions.

So for those of you who don't know, I'm a certified somatic trauma-informed

And here's a really simple somatic exercise that will help you understand what it means to be supported into this kind of stepping into your becoming. I want you real quick to take one hand and create a really tight fist, as tight as you can. And then with the other hand, I want you to push really, really hard on the bottom of your hand. So just push really, really hard and...

try to open the fist open your tight hand and see how energetically that feels now i want you to do the same thing take that fist and make it really really tight and then instead of pushing i want you to gently support from the bottom support that hand and now try and open it up

And you'll see it's so much easier to open that hand when you are supported versus pushing. That pushing creates resistance. It creates tightness in our bodies, in our energy fields. And when we're supported, it's really easy to open up without struggle or friction.

And this is what identity work should feel like when we're stepping into that full potential of ourself. It should feel not like pushing, but like supporting. You don't have to fight yourself to change. You have to create the right conditions for expansion, for stepping into your full potential.

And that's exactly what I'm teaching in my manifestation work. Because you can't create something if you don't first believe it's possible. Everything starts with a belief. If you believe that something is going to be hard or out of reach or that you're not worthy of it or that you don't belong or that it's not for you, you will experience exactly that.

My teacher Neville Goddard, always says, first you have to become the thing that you desire. You have to become it internally. And once you step into that identity, your external world will reflect your internal reality. So it's not the other way around. We're not taking all this action and then forcing change. We're becoming and then stepping into the change. It is...

a not so subtle difference and really the key to anything you want, whether that is creating a soul aligned business or your ideal relationship or financial freedom. I want you to think about this. I say this all the time in my course.

The woman who is running a soul aligned, thriving business, who's doing work that creates an impact, who feels fulfilled at the end of the day

has completely different beliefs about herself. She takes different actions. She has different habits. She has different beliefs than the woman who is struggling and frazzled and not doing the work that she's meant to do.

Because just like what Neville says, if you are waiting for external validation before you believe in yourself, you will be waiting forever. If you're waiting for permission, if you're waiting for belonging before you step into your power, you'll just keep waiting. I know women who wait their whole lives. Because the world reflects back to you what you believe.

So here's a question. What if you stopped waiting? What if you decided right now that you are already enough, that you do belong, that you are not an imposter? Because here's the truth. You might just be a beginner. is a very big difference between being an imposter and being a beginner.

Everyone starts as a beginner, no matter what you're doing.

So I hope I didn't ramble on too much today, but I really want to leave you with this. What would you do? How would your life be if you stopped doubting yourself? If you stopped worrying about what everyone else thought? If you stopped feeling like an imposter? If you stopped feeding that story that you don't belong? What would your life feel like if you stepped

into your full potential. Into your power.

If you stopped waiting for permission and if you checked those beliefs, if you examine those beliefs that maybe this isn't meant for me, whatever it is, I want to ask you, what would your life be like?

This is exactly what we're going to be talking about in my new masterclass, Aligned Identity Shift. And I'm going to tell you more about it next week because it's still coming through. I'm still getting downloads on it. But I am really excited to share this with you because if you've ever been stuck in self-doubt or if you...

ever felt like you're not really living your full potential, then it's time to step in. It's time to step into your power. It's time to let that story go. Because if you have a desire in your heart, I truly, truly believe this.

then you also have everything that you need to bring that into fruition. And it is your job to do it. It is literally your life's work to do that. So I hope that you will sign up when signups come available. It's going to be super powerful and fun. And until next time, if this resonated with you, please share it with a friend. I would love for you to subscribe and leave a review. And if you have any thoughts on this, send me an email, send me a DM.

I read them all, I respond to them all, and thank you so much for being here. Until next time, keep manifesting an epic life.