196 | Unlearning the Script: How to Reclaim Your Identity & Live Authentically | Dion Jensen

Thanks Doug. Thanks for having me.

Yes. I mean, for one of a better classification for it. It's just. It's. It's. Yes, it was very much a cathartic experience, but it was never set out and write a book and use that experience as. As one that is cathartic. I was writing in diaries as just a way to process my emotions and my feelings and my experiences that I. That I was having. And as you alluded to, there's some quite tumultuous ones at the start of the book that I refer to. But as I started writing more and more, I felt kind of the need to bring all of those together because I don't think that when you're learning or you're developing or you're growing, it's kind of a finite process and you stop. I think there's a lot of benefit in going back to recognize where you've come from or to understand those lessons a bit deeper with added experience. But I will always say that I'm an accidental author because I didn't set out to write a book.

It just came to be after a few years of reflection and kind of the tipping point for me to put it into a book was the experiences that I went through. I don't think they're very much unique, but I think there are a lot of people that may be searching for answers or for a way to process themselves. And I felt if I could be as vulnerable as possible and that that would help at least one person, that it was worthwhile turning into a book, coincidentally. The book, though, has become a really great resource for me, even though it's written and Finished and out there in the world, I can still refer back to it and I still am triggered or remember a particular learning that I have or that I may have forgotten because it is a constant practice in that sense of self development.

Yeah, I would pick it up at least once a week.

They could have a lot to do with your present energetic state. The lens that you're viewing life through at that particular point in time, we don't absorb, or I believe we don't absorb every bit of information at every point in time. We would just be overwhelmed if we did. So I see a lot of benefit, not just in the book itself, but similar to what you're saying in going back and rehashing, particularly something that had a point of resonance with you previously. There's always something deeper that you can go with it or may just hit in a different way on the second, third, fourth, fifth occasion.

I can give a brief overview of what. I won't spoil the story as such for the listeners.

But the book, I should say from the outset, like you alluded to, it's not Meant to be read from COVID to color in one sitting. By all means, if that is what the reader chooses to do, so be it. But I took a bit of an alternative approach. I'm a really avid walker and. And I do a lot of great thinking and processing when I'm out in nature. It could just be a walk by the river or a hike, whatever it may be. And I find that time very peaceful and I can play things through in my mind and have them wash over me. So I actually wrote the book in a series of walks, and it's intended to be taken on a literal walk. It's kind of that buffer or invitation to have a pause, read a walk, and then go on a literal walk and see what further processing about the topics can really do for the reader. That's not to say that every chapter is going to resonate with the reader, but it might just be a chapter for a different time.

It doesn't necessarily be for the present time. And that's what I think. It's useful as an ongoing resource because although there is linear progression to the way that the walks are written, they can also be read as standalones. So with that said, the book really focuses on a very much tumultuous series of changes in my life. That's how it opens up and really talks about the death of the ego and the identity that I clung to so heavily and for so long and so earnestly protected as well. And then it goes through the process of me dealing with that ego and identity depth to really go within and to understand more about who I am and to unravel who I am, and then stepping into my authentic life and living from a place of authenticity. And then I'm happy to say it ends in a very positive and happy sense, but it is very, very raw. I leave nothing unsaid. So you get the full gamut of emotions. Success, happiness, tears, death, depression, anxiety.

It's all covered within there. Because I would hate for anybody to feel that any emotion that they may be having is not one that can't be contended with or challenged with or spoken about when they're reading the book.

That kind of is relevant to a few parts, but if I had to summarize what was general across all of those. I think as people, we are taught, trained, programmed to live a certain way and with a certain series of masks. And very few of us get the privilege, and I very deliberately use the word privilege, to have the confidence and comfort to turn up in life without a mask. They turn up as their authentic selves. And then for me, it was about challenging whether or not that mask has a resonance with who I truly am, the core of my identity. And then when I started to view the world through that identity, I realized what lit me up. There's also an interesting thing that I found on the path of finding what you are is you can also really begin to explore what you're not. And in understanding what you're not, you almost by default then understand what you are. And also conversely as well.

So we don't necessarily need to know who am I or what am I, but you can also uncover who am I not or what am I not.

Yeah, that spoke a lot. That chapter there is in Death of an Ego and I am who I am, not what I do. That chapter really focuses on a very difficult time in my life where I was fired from my role. And while on its own, it's a traumatic experience, what was really most traumatic for me is because I was hiding aspects of myself. I'll be careful with the words. I choose not spoil the story too much. But because I was hiding aspects of myself, I took a lot of comfort and scaffolded my entire identity around what I did and who I turned up as in the corporate world became who I was, and that became my identity. So when that identity was stripped away from me, it was extremely difficult. Just repeat that sentence again. Sorry. Because I've gone a bit off tangent and I'll come back to it, but that's the kind of the behind story for it.

So as that identity began to fall away, I realized that some of the roles that I was playing as a person in the corporate world, or as a provider or as a husband, they were simply roles. And I didn't have to be in those roles in order for me to be me and to turn up authentically in the world.

Exactly. And the power of the ego. One of the opening lines that I've got in I am who I am, not what I do is job. Roles really only serve kind of two purposes. It's firstly for my ego to feel good and it's also for others to know who to go to when they want something to feel good. So part of that is realizing that it is somewhat a false identity or a mask that we put on and for us to be who we want to be. We don't need to stand behind a role in order to be that.

Yeah. And I think we've got. Everyone has a lot of fear and it can wear kind of many faces as well. Fear can turn up as lack of. It can turn up of fear of the unknown, fear of death, fear of being judged. The biggest thing with fear and I spent a lot of time around fear because it gave me a real insight. I went deep within. I had anxiety, I had very bad depression. And it took a long time for me to come out of those states. But what I did really realize is, and it's my opening quote in the book before it actually starts to get going, it's about having fears that are coming from memories, which is the past. And anxiety is essentially fears of what could happen in the future. So we get stuck in this space where we as individuals, it's very rarely coming from the outside in. It's very much an internal thing.

We spend a lot of time worrying about what's happened in the past and then projecting those things on that could potentially happen in the future. And that affects our present state. And then as that present state is influenced, all that really changes is the date and time. You just continue on projecting to the past or the future. And that's really alluding to that passage that you just read out is alluding to the fact that we are in control of those emotions and of that fear.

Yeah. So that's in a chapter called the stories that we are Told. And we're told a lot of stories in life. And that's why I used the word programs previously. Because we are being subconsciously programmed. We subconsciously program others, particularly as parents, when we are parenting our children as well. And those scripts can turn up in various ways. We could explore religion as a script. We can explore the news as a script. We can explore parentage as a script. But a real challenge in understanding who you are and who you're not is also about understanding what scripts you're actually reading from and then being able to make a conscious decision if there's a lack of resonance with those scripts as to why do I currently believe that? Do I need to believe that moving into the future, or can I flip it on its head? Can I just put that script down?

And that's a real powerful mechanism to begin to understand yourself a bit more is to understand where those beliefs have come from. And if you really do hold them through yourself.

Yes.

I really love that analogy. It's great. Yeah, I've not read those books. I think a real common one. I mean we could not to be too controversial and go down the scripts in religion, et cetera, or in politics. But if you think about the script that we give to children, so we say to kids, go to school. When you're at school, you need to pick a vocation that you're going to stick with for the next 50 to 60 years. You'll then either go to university or you'll do trade or technical, whatever the nuance in the script may be. And then you will work and you will stand on that treadmill and you will buy a house. It's probably a script from a few years ago for you expecting them to buy homes. But you don't buy a house, have a family and then God forbid you try and get off that script. And how difficult it is for the kids to chart courses that is out of that script.

And the system just doesn't support it or necessarily allow room for it unless it's seen as alternative. And I just think that's a real present day example that we can allude to. That's a lifelong script in a lifelong play.

Well, I think it's wonderful and really exciting that the new generation have the ability to challenge the script and say, I'm not going to read from that. But I think it's a terrible indictment on society that in order to do that, in order to be more purposeful, potentially for them, in order to find something that they're passionate about and not necessarily have to wear a mask to do it, that is anxiety inducing and that's the space that we need to create as a society. Again, I talk about it in the book. I don't think the solution is to rip up the playbook or rip up the script, but I think it's really important for the script to have almost our old. Choose your own adventure novels where you've got the ability to be able to action your passion, to be purposeful, to have the encouragement to identify with who you are, what your purpose is, and be able to live a rich life doing so that doesn't cause anxiety or depression.

And that's where I think, yeah, as I said, that's where our challenge is now.

Yes.

And probably not. And probably not for a while either. Particularly while as a society we so intrinsically link success with output and success with money and wealth and building. One of the last chapters, being spiritual in the material world, we have to eat, we have to live in a home, we have to have shelter. But I think when we have so many examples and the script puts on a pedestal, obscene wealth examples as the only litmus test of success, it becomes very difficult for the stewards of the next generation, generally parents, to be able to say there are many avenues or directions that you can take. But the challenge for us is to demonstrate success in. In its various forms, not just link it to output and money.

my kind of learning and unlearning where I only linked my success to the holidays I took, the house I lived in, the car I drove, the watch I wore, the restaurants I ate at. But I've also come to realize those things are still important to me. But if I have to link my identity to those things and I have to perform and have an output, 6, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, 52 weeks a year, then it's, it's not necessarily my purpose that's coming to the fore, it's my ego that's being, that's being scaffolded there. And my biggest realization is those things are wonderful and they're not, not important. But if they define who I am and I believe I'm a better person only when I achieve them, then some self reflections required.

Yes, yes.

I definitely call it intuition. I mean, we could put any label on it. I think some of the dangers with labels is if it doesn't resonate with a particular person in a different way, they believe they don't have it. And then it can cause it to become more and more distant. So whether we call it intuition, whether we call it a gut feel, whether it's called just a knowing, my belief is the more you can align yourself with that, the more courage you've got to align your decisions and your behaviors to that feeling, whatever it may, whatever it may be called for you, the more in alignment with your purpose and your. Your true self you can live. And generally, it's the masks of the ego that tell us to ignore or, or deafens that. That feeling. And I think it's a wonderful challenge for all of us to try and lean in more to what it's trying to tell us

And yeah, so that, that chapter or that walk, I should say it opens with the only true emotion that we know when we come out of the womb is love. Everything beyond that we're taught or programmed or scripted. Whether it's hate, greed, everything, we are taught what they are. But love is the only true, sincere one. Then when you layer on top of that all of the different ways that love turns up and has been commercialized for us. So whether it's Valentine's Day, it must be a. A big outpouring of, of grand gesture. It's linked too much to sex. It is linked to gender roles, it's linked to expectation. So when I talk about it, being in the small love, and you could call it your, Your intuition or your inner knowing, is that pure place where the modern definition of love is ignored. And it's that outpouring of goodness, or of light, if you will, that you can go about your daily life with.

And that may be as simple as something like holding a door open, making a cup of coffee, watching the sunrise, all of those good feelings or that sense of positive energy, that's love. Living in the small spaces. And once you feel a sense of comfort with that, they can then open up into how you love externally. But it's not around loving for an expectation of Receiving something in return. It's just a love as an outpouring of who you are or who we are as individuals. An outpouring of life is probably the best way to describe it.

Correct. And I mentioned at the start my kind of litmus was if it could help one person, it was worthwhile doing. The vulnerability was really important to me because someone out there needs to know that they're not alone if they're reading the book, and that it's a safe space for them to be able to begin challenging their own beliefs or find a bit of comfort within the pages. So that feeling of tell it all, tell the truth, leave no stone unturned was really important to me. And I hope when the reader reads it, they can see from the gravity of the topics covered and how the storyline kind of unfolds within the arc of the book itself that I've done that and that they will then feel safe and secure enough to potentially pass that gift on to somebody else.

Yes. But what I found is as my ego took more and more hold, that voice got more and more stifled and would have to yell even louder to even be heard. At most points when the ego's at its peak, it was just being flat out ignored. And again, if I talk about more of that identity piece with I am who I am, not what I do, it's easy for us to talk about men. It's the topic of the podcast, so we'll go down that. That part. But I think it's. It's relevant to both genders. My real life example is think about when you're meeting somebody new. That conversation automatically goes to, oh, what do you do for work? And depending on what that answer is, we then just have an interaction based on what we do for work. And all of my subconscious bias I pour onto you. So, you know, Doug, if you tell. If we met for the first time and you tell me you're a astrophysicist, I would go, okay, he's an astrophysicist.

Clearly extremely intelligent, might be a bit socially awkward. All of my bias would come out onto you. It could have completely nothing to do with you whatsoever. The two examples I use in the book, you've got a doctor and you've got an Uber driver. I can almost guarantee you 95 times out of 100 people would subconsciously bias the doctor over the Uber driver purely because of their output, usually monetarily, how successful they will be and what's really subconscious is how abuse can this person be to me as well. So when we are playing in a paradigm or in a society where we've got all of that bias, our inner voice becomes extremely suppressed because we are so surface level that we are getting down into the deep where that life, that intuition lives and listening to it, because it's our ego that's up here that's going, I'll drive this situation. I want to be seen as good or better or best in this situation.

And we just keep going and we live behind those roles. And you see it all the time, particularly with men. It's particularly in Australia too, where we've got this kind of sense of toxic masculinity and that men need to turn up and perform and behave and look and speak in a certain way. Yeah. And I think, I mean, it's globally relevant too. You look at Netflix now, there's a Louis Theroux documentary on the manosphere. They're like, this is intrinsic behavior in a lot of Western civilizations. Right. Where men have to be men. God forbid we could listen to that, that voice that we've got inside us and be led by that and our authentic selves. But hopefully that'll be the script soon enough.

Definitely not.

Yes.

Yes. I think the easiest way, if I had to make it a bit more kind of tangible for, for one of one of your listeners to, to take away and say, when am I using it? When I'm, when am I not? If on reflection or even in the moment you're doing it because of a need to perform, then you're not using your intuition.

Exactly, exactly. And, and again, that is tiring. I mean they, they are heightened examples, they're very extreme examples of the manosphere and they've got unfortunately a huge following of, of men who are searching and have that emptiness. So they're looking for a role model. But in general day to day life, and I speak 100% from experience, if you are being someone that you're not and you're constantly having to put that mask on, it is tiring and it's exhausting and it can't go on forever.

And, Doug, I think that's a really important point. Spirituality to me. I mean, again, it's whatever label we choose to. To. To put on. To put on it. But we're essentially all talking about the. The same thing. None of this is like a lightning bolt from the heavens where you get this experience that will tell you that you're just doing the right thing. It's more of that internal knowing. You'll find resonance, definitely. It will start to feel right. But I used to feel. I used to feel it about meditation. I used to always wonder how people could meditate. And it seemed so esoteric to me, and it seemed wonderful. And I expected them to be having these fireworks going off in their mind when they would sit there and be able to meditate for an hour. And I used to always wonder when I sat there and meditated, when I first began to do it around, why it wasn't happening to Nina. Must be doing it wrong.

There is no, like you say, right or wrong way, but an individual will feel a sense of rightness or resonance where they just know that they are doing the right thing and are on the right path.

So if you had told me I would be who I am today, four or five years ago, 10 years ago, I would have probably run away from you as fast as I possibly could and pretended that that conversation never existed. It's been a truly wild ride and an absolutely incredible amount of pain, but also an incredible amount of success and joy has come from it as well. So when I say to my future self, I don't believe when you go within and you discover who you are that there's a finite point point that you stop and you run that race and it's all over and you move on to the next one. I think this is really a journey that continues and will continue until the day. The day I die. So when I write to my future self who needed this, I didn't know how much I needed it to get to now. And in another 10 years time, I won't know how much I needed the rest of the journey to get me to this.

There's definitely a second book that will be coming and I'm hopefully. Well, my intent around it is around conscious living and being able to give more. Advice is the wrong word. I think more of a story around practically grounding living consciously and taking conscious footsteps in your life. Yeah, we're away off from that one just yet.

No, not yet. Not yet.

Yeah, very auspicious sign. And if nothing at all, an invitation just to slow down and enjoy what's around you. Cause we sometimes, we sometimes miss it when we've got the busyness of our days that we don't get to enjoy the small things that are often really incredible.

Yeah, it is on Amazon or you can go to consciousfootsteps.com and we ship worldwide. But if you comfortable with Amazon and that's your preferred way to buy, just search conscious footsteps and it will come up in the, in the search.

No, I think we've had a really, a really great discussion. If anyone wants to reach out or ask, ask further questions, please feel free. Always love to engage with a new audience and talk about the book more.

Thank you.