How Dissonance Invites You Home to Your True Self

EPISODE 106 | HOW DISSONANCE INVITES YOU HOME TO YOUR TRUE SELF

Hello, dear listeners. So, this is the final episode for 2023. Thank you so much for staying with me this year and especially for this last season that has been happening where episode drops have been particularly brisk. So, this episode you're going to be hearing was actually recorded back in June during my last break, when I was not dropping new episodes. And I had recorded it intending for it to be actually the first episode for season 7.

[00:00:37] But then, during the break, I took up that 30-day Instagram Live challenge. And I ended up having 30 episodes to share with you. And so, that's why I haven't published what you're going to hear now - right after this introduction - until now. So, I'm actually glad that this ended up being the final episode for the year because maybe listening to the sharings that I've been giving about the journey that I've been on, may have sensitized you to the areas in your life where you have been feeling dissonance.

[00:01:23] And I just really want to preface this episode with a very particular invitation, okay. So, I'm speaking to everyone who's listening to this, who know, that in your life, there is a lack of alignment between your actions and behaviour on the outside and actually what's really happening inside you. But this message I want to really more specifically speak out to those of you who hold positions of leadership, who probably are public figures in one way or the other, and for whom your moral character, maybe your religiosity, like how you come across is very important. And because of that, you have found it harder to be honest and authentic about the struggles that you have in your interior life.

[00:02:23] Maybe this dissonance is showing up in areas in your life that you hold secret. Maybe these areas of dissonance in your life don't seem that bad, but deep down, you know that they are indications of something troubling. And maybe you have a sense that if you continue to not do anything, you might end up in trouble.

[00:02:49] So, I just want to say that this is more common than you may think, and you are not alone if you feel that this describes you. And I'm very sorry that the reality of our world, and including the reality of our faith communities, mean that we often do not feel safe to really reveal our struggles. Because perhaps we have a sense that if we do, people will look at us differently, maybe opportunities of service will be taken away from us, you know. All kinds of things.

[00:03:23] This is a reality that more people actually experience than you would think. And I say this, not just hypothetically, I say this because over the years, I have spoken to, and in some sense, accompanied many more than you would imagine, people who fit that kind of criteria.

[00:03:45] And because I was myself, in that position. I still think in some sense, I am still in that position. I always feel that tension between the image that I project versus the actual reality that's going on. I want to invite you to let this tension in you, this dissonance work for you and not destroy you. That tension, that dissonance, whether it works for us or whether it in a sense works for our destruction, it all comes down to our response, right?

[00:04:20] And I just want to say, because of the grace of God, sometimes even when that tension seems to end up working for our destruction, that could actually be the larger grace that we need for us to finally heed the call and respond to God's grace to move towards healing and integration and authenticity. I hope that as you listen to this episode, you will also feel that God is inviting you to surrender your dissonance and tension to Him, and that you will experience the grace of moving deeper into wholeness, into authenticity, that you will find that your desire for truth and integration. 

[00:05:13] So, in that sense, real integrity in your life will become larger than your fear, larger than your insecurities, and larger than the compulsions that you have to cling to lesser loves. But wherever you are and however you are able or unable to respond to God's invitation right now, I hope, above all, that you will know that you are loved and that God will not stop inviting you, He will not stop waiting for you, and He will not stop offering His graces to you, and that one of these times, eventually, you will be able to say yes and move forward.

[00:06:00] So, without further ado, here's the final episode, How Dissonance Invites You Home to Your True Self.

[00:06:08] INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Becoming Me, your podcast companion and coach in your journey to a more integrated and authentic self. I am your host, Anne Yong, and I'm here to help you grow in self-discovery and wholeness. If you long to live a more authentic and integrated life and would like to hear honest insights about the rewards and challenges of this journey, then take a deep breath, relax, and listen on to Becoming Me.

[00:06:45] WHAT IS DISSONANCE?
Today, I would like to talk about the value that we can find in our experiences of dissonance, okay. Dissonance is the kind of experience we have, a very uncomfortable tension that we feel inside of ourselves when our actions don't really line up with our beliefs or when the circumstances, our experiences of what's going on in our lives don't match up with our convictions, our deep beliefs or our desires, right? So, whenever there is this mismatch, misalignment between what we are doing or what we are experiencing and how we feel inside of us, we will experience some kind of dissonance. Now, human beings, we are kind of wired in a way to avoid the discomfort of dissonance, right?

[00:07:36] So, we have this need to be authentic. It's wired into us. It's like built into us. I like to think of it as a great grace that God gives each and every human being, that there is some kind of a compass inside of us that nudges us. It makes us uncomfortable when our inner life or our inner convictions and beliefs don't align with our actions or what's going on in our external lives.

[00:08:04] Now, of course this compass can be numbed over time because one way of avoiding the discomfort of dissonance is to shut that internal compass up, right? So, we learn to ignore how we are feeling inside. We learn to just, for example, choose to take in the data that our external lives tell us or how well we are doing, for example, by the values of our society; of our colleagues, maybe even according to the values of our family.

[00:08:38] I say this because even our family systems, while we are part of it and it forms us, it's still something external to us, right? So sometimes, even the values of our family systems may actually violate what's inside of us. So, there's literature coming up now, from the field of psychology, talking about how every child, every human being, have two equally important needs.

[00:09:04] One is the need for authenticity. So, the need to be true to who I am, where I am, how I am in this moment, right? The second, equally important need is the need for attunement or the need for attachment. We need to experience being loved, right? We need to experience that we are loved, that we are connected with others, that we belong to a community larger than ourselves, but our need for authenticity and our need for attachment.

[00:09:35] Well, they're equally important and they're like basic rights. Even I've heard it described as like they're kind of basic human rights to be who I am, to be true to who I am and to be loved. Unfortunately, so very often, these two deep, basic needs often are in conflict, right? And I'm sure you have experienced that in your life before; that who I am, truly, what I need, or even what I feel in the moment - if I am to be true to that, I risk rejection, ridicule, criticism from my community, whether it's my family, my parents, my colleagues, my faith community, my church. This is something that's very real. I am just describing reality right now.

[00:10:25] Okay, I think the first step that often gets glossed over when we talk about the interior life, when we talk about spiritual life, we often gloss over the most important first step, which is we must be able. To look and behold reality and acknowledge what is real before we try and make determinations or judgments as to what is right, what is wrong, what is ideal or what is not ideal.

[00:10:53] We can get into all kinds of messes because we abstract, we go into the realm, the world or the realm of just abstract ideas and arguments and philosophy and theology, and we lose touch with what is here and now and real. And in genuine spirituality, genuine faith always takes place in the stuff and the matter of our daily lives of our real, concrete, very specific human experiences.

[00:11:24] Okay, so, what I was saying earlier is that I'm just describing, right. I've described for you that we have these two competing and very basic needs. One is for authenticity and one is for attachment. Now, because these two needs are often in conflict in our lived experiences, we will tend to choose one over the other.

[00:11:47] FILLING THE EMPTINESS
nd when we are very young, it is a matter of survival, to not be rejected, right? We need to belong to our families. We need to be safe with others, with our parents, with our caregivers. So, many of us learn from a very young age, now and then, to sacrifice our authenticity in order to receive that attachment that we need.

[00:12:14] And because our real-life experiences of attachment - so, often very conditional is just another matter of fact, matter of reality, that while we all long to be unconditionally loved in this world. Love is often imperfect and conditional. It is the way it is. And so, the effect on us then, who need love, often, is that we lose track of who we are.

[00:12:42] We lose that important connection with our inner compass, our inner compass that you could say it's our conscience. And I think it's even more than our conscience. Sometimes, it's like a gut sense, a gut feeling. Am I aligned with who God created me to be, right? It's not even a cognitive, conceptual understanding, it's a bodily felt sense of I'm home or I'm not at home, right?

[00:13:07] So, when we are authentic, we will feel like we are at home. Things sit right. This is right. I'm at peace. Within myself, I'm at peace. When I have to be inauthentic to perform in order to please someone else, to meet expectations whatever it is, you know, to win approval or to get honour or to get power and wealth.

[00:13:28] I mean, what I just named are common ways in which we try and feed our insecurities. Right, because where does the insecurity come from? Again, from not being loved. Because we need to be loved. We need to feel that we belong. And when we feel like being who I am is not enough, not good enough, or there's something wrong with the way I actually am, so, I'm insecure.

[00:13:50] And in order to get that attachment that I need, I may go after honour, wealth, power approval, popularity, whatever it is, whatever happens to be, maybe easier for me to access given the talents or the gifts or the qualities that I have, right? So, if I, for example, I have the gift of the gab - so, maybe I might use my eloquence to get people to like me.

[00:14:16] Someone else may be really good looking and then they may use their beauty to receive the affirmation and the popularity, maybe a form of popularity, to let them have a sense of worth. Someone else could be highly intelligent, really capable. Even if they may not have the best people skills, they know that their intelligence and their ability can bring them up the corporate ladder, for example, give them power, which makes them feel like they're in control and that can make them feel better about their insecurities., right?

[00:14:48] So, those are all just different ways that we try and get something else to fill that emptiness inside. But when we do that, there will always be an experience of that dissonance.

[00:15:00] Now, I want to invite you, I'm imagining, I'm guessing that if you're watching this video, if you're watching my content, reading my content, listening to my podcast, you're interested in the interior journey back into being your true self.

[00:15:14] AUTHENTICITY & ATTACHMENT NEEDS
You're interested in the struggle that you are having about being real, right? Now, if this is true and you are interested in how can I become more authentic or I do not want to continue to live a lie anymore, right? Maybe one of your experiences could be that the external reality, when people look at my life from the outside, it looks wonderful.

[00:15:38] Maybe I have a really good job. I'm doing very well. I'm materially well off. Maybe I'm even somebody who is respected in my community. As someone who has grown up Catholic and who has always valued my faith, one big part of my identity in the past - I think more so in the past and now - is that I need to be seen as somebody who really knows my faith, really practices my faith that meets the expectations of others, right?

[00:16:05] So it's still outward, external based. In fact, I used to feel like God is also a spectator, watching me, evaluating me and judging me. I believed He loved me too, but it was like there was this other part that I needed to perform to win His affection. I thought that even with God, my authenticity need and my attachment need would be in competition.

[00:16:33] Now, that clearly, actually really isn't true. I mean, God is probably the only one that we can be sure where our need to be authentic, to be the person that He created us to be, even in our confused and messed up and sinful state that we, as we are, we can be honest about who we are, where we are right now, and that we are completely loved and accepted by Him, right.

[00:17:00] DISSONANCE IS A BLESSING
So, it is in this hope that there is, in God, that we can find this place where we can really be at home, that I am going to talk about why dissonance is a blessing, okay? Why our experiences of dissonance is a blessing? Because our experiences of dissonance of this tension, right, that we are not aligned.

[00:17:25] They are actually invitations to come home. They are clues in our life, kind of breadcrumbs in our life, that are reminding us you're not home. You're not at home with yourself. You're not at home with God, right? And so, no matter how well you might be doing, no matter how hard you may be striving, you are living on fumes. You're like a beggar for crumbs. For anything that makes you feel a little bit more secure, that you are worthy of love. But none of that can last. None of them can last forever.

[00:17:59] No matter how capable we are, no matter how rich we may be, how powerful we are, all these things can just go at the drop of, you know - I don't know - ahead anything. It can disappear. We could lose everything that we have at any time. So, none of that is really real, and I think deep down inside of us, we know that.

[00:18:22] And so, there's this fear and there's this dissonance, right? That's why there's always this dissonance, that no matter how well things are going on the outside, I feel like something's not right.

[00:18:34] MY EXPERIENCES OF DISSONANCE
Sometimes this can be innocuous. So, let me give you a couple of examples from my own experience, my own story, okay. Everyone's journey is unique, okay. So, some of you may really relate to my story, and some of you may think that's like so far from my experience. So, if that's the case, I invite you to try and understand the principle behind the story I'm going to share, and you look for what that's like in your life, okay?

[00:19:00] So, in my life, the experience of dissonance since I was in school, has always been that I tend to do well by the metrics that are important. I think in my life or in my world. So, in my family and my society, my school's academic performance is important. And while I was never like the top, top student, I was one of the better ones, right?

[00:19:29] And I was smart enough I think, to get noticed. I seem to display enough talent or leadership or maybe eloquence. Like I said, I have the gift of the gab, right? I have enough giftedness to attract attention and to be given opportunities. But here's the thing. I think my whole life, I was trying to guess what is the magic formula that will give me that security that I am lovable.

[00:20:00] What do I need to be? What do I need to do? What is the combination of gifts that people want to see? That's because I think, I never really had that security. Somehow, that just being me was enough. I tended to be liked, I think, or rewarded by those in authority for displaying certain traits and some other traits that are really genuinely me.

[00:20:24] For example, as a kid, okay - it's still a case that I am this way now, okay. It's just that I'm coming back into my true self only more recently. So, I've always been really curious, really bold, and really quite mischievous. And I think that's a wonderful trait. Now, when I look at children, I think that's a wonderful trait, but it tended to get me into trouble, right?

[00:20:46] So, it's like my intelligence is welcomed, but not my boldness. Maybe it's a cultural thing. Being Asian, being a girl, I'm not sure. I mean, I'm sure that has a part to play with it. And that may be part of the story, right. But what I often experienced since I was a little girl in the school, even to when I was at work, was that some aspects of me people really liked, right?

[00:21:10] Like, oh, my bosses really valued, my teachers really valued; they liked my eloquence, my outspokenness, but only when my outspokenness met what they wanted to hear, right. When I was voicing my own questions or doubts, or I was maybe asking difficult questions because I was seeing inconsistencies that wasn't welcome and I would know, it was kind of made known to me that's not welcomed, right.

[00:21:34] So, I had to be obedient. I had to learn when to speak and when not to speak. But it was always a little tricky because, I wasn't learning how to be truly prudent. I was learning to be diplomatic, but it was just so that I can avoid being in trouble so that I wouldn't be scolded, I wouldn't be criticized, so that I would continue to be liked.

[00:21:58] Now, one of the ways that this dissonance manifested was when I was in graduate studies, when I was in graduate school. So, I was in graduate school fora total about five years doing a master's and a PhD - a PhD that I never actually finished in the end. But you see, I did very well. If you look at the academics of it, I was one of the top students.

[00:22:21] I somehow managed to get accepted into enough conferences to maybe present a paper and all that kind of a thing. I won scholarships and fellowships. But I didn't really believe in what I was doing. I was still looking for something to believe in. You know, in terms of my work, I was really hoping to find something I felt convicted about. 

[00:22:42] But I wasn't feeling it and that experience that I was doing well, or even that, for example, when I presented at a conference that I did very last-minute work on, because I really didn't care about it. I didn't care about a paper I was going to present. It was one of my cause papers. I did the minimal amount of work I could to talk about it.

[00:23:02] But it was met. I remember at this particular conference, it was met with such enthusiasm. People were genuinely interested in the work that I was doing. They were asking me questions, asking me if this was like my dissertation topic, my PhD, thesis topic. And actually, it wasn't. I still hadn't decided at that time what I wanted my topic to be because I didn't feel deeply about any of this.

[00:23:30] Now, for someone else with a different temperament, maybe that's not such a big deal. But for me, if my internal value system is not aligned with my external actions, actually, kind of like my system hangs, okay. My system kind of hangs, it's very hard for me to proceed, but which is probably why now, looking back, my work, my life's call is well, doing this kind of work that I'm doing right now.

[00:23:57] Making this kind of content that you're watching right now about authenticity, right? About integrity, about integration, because that's how God created me to be; very sensitive to a lack of authenticity, even within myself and in in others, and a lack of integrity within myself and in others. 

[00:24:15] So, but back to this story of dissonance. So, it was a very uncomfortable experience for me. I felt truly like an imposter to be congratulated and in a sense, you know affirmed to be good at something that I really felt I didn't really put an effort in. I couldn't be proud of my achievement.

[00:24:39] Because it seems like people thought it was an achievement. I didn't feel it was, and I couldn't be proud of my work because I didn't believe in it. So that's an example of dissonance, okay. Another experience of dissonance - kind of different, okay, I guess some similarities were different - was sometime after I had already been working full-time in ministry. I was getting known because when I guess you become a bit of a public figure, at least within the parish.

[00:25:06] I realized that people started attributing things to me that was not true of me. I'm not talking about bad things. I'm talking about even good things, okay. Things that my radar didn't even pick up, things that honestly, I didn't care enough about because it's not the kind of thing that attracts my attention.

[00:25:22] It's not the kind of things that my gifts and even my charisms kind of focus on when something good happens for someone in need, there was once a situation where I was thanked, it was attributed to my intervention. And even when I told that person I really didn't - I had nothing to do with it, okay. I really had nothing to do with it.

[00:25:44] I don't even know how it happened, but there's nothing of my doing. The person in question insisted or really continued to believe that I was just being humble, that I was denying that I had anything to do with it, and I didn't know how to tell him. I'm sorry, but I'm not as kind as you think I am. Oh, this area, which is a very important area, different thing.

[00:26:06] It is not in the area. It's not the kind of thing that would do at all. I would have nothing to do with - fundraising and collecting needed necessities for people suffering in another country, right. So, this was an instance of I think some natural disaster in a different country.

[00:26:22] And in the parish, there were efforts to do a donation drive and to collect all these things and to arrange for them to be shipped to the place where people are in need. And it's a very laudable and noble and important initiative, but it's really not the kind of thing that I do.

[00:26:36] And I often still feel a bit ashamed about that, even as I'm learning that. We all have very different gifts and very different kind of calls, right? So, but that's another example of dissonance where I felt like, what is it that I'm doing here? You know, even at work how am I presenting myself, that how I am perceived and where I kind of feel like I need to be or who I am - this is this very big gap, right? So, I'm not saying of course, that there can be a complete, that there will always be. I'm not saying that we can reach a point where how people perceive us is exactly who we are. Because I think that's always the point, right? People will perceive us how they need to perceive us, how they wish to perceive us. Sometimes they project.

[00:27:25] There are issues or whatever it is that shapes their perception of the world onto us. But I think I was feeling that way because I was still in the mode of, I need to meet a certain kind of criteria. But what it means to be someone in full-time ministry, being a disciple is important to me.

[00:27:48] And I had some idea, maybe about the ideal of what holiness should look like, what a mature disciple should look like. Maybe vague, but you know, something's here and there and maybe I was trying to present myself or make myself aligned to that imagined perception of what being holy should look like, being a mature disciple should look like.

[00:28:11] And that was causing dissonance because it was different from how God made me and from the way perhaps, my particular part of the holiness is meant to look like. So, for me, the interior journey into authenticity included a lot of surrendering and giving up of my inability to measure up to my own mind's idea of what spiritual maturity should look like. And that also coincided with me failing to measure up to what other people may think spiritual maturity should look like, okay, as I say, a Catholic or as a member of the church and the community.

[00:28:50] But I am learning that unless I come home to myself and have faith in the design that God has given me, and to learn to obey him, rather than be so concerned about how I will be accepted or perceived even by my friends, my family, my community, unless I can be true to that need for authenticity, I will never know what true belonging is. Because true belonging and attachment isn't just being attached or being connected with others. It is very much being connected with my inner self, with myself. Can I offer that attachment to myself? Will I love myself unconditionally?

[00:29:32] If I'm only concerned about how other people see me love me, oftentimes, I'm not in touch with myself and I'm not able to accept and love myself. That's actually more important. And how can I build that self-love by experience, the perfect attunement that God has for me, the perfect love that God has for me because like I mentioned earlier, with God, it doesn't matter what state I am in currently, who I am, what I'm finding out about myself, whether it's good or bad, or what I'm finding about how broken I am, all that stuff. It doesn't matter. I'm perfectly loved by God.

[00:30:10] MOVING TOWARDS AUTHENTICITY AND INTEGRITY
And that is the security on which I can build myself back out to become my own person and to be confident that there is a purpose and a reason for God, who created me the way I am. Now, one big reason why many of us will struggle to lean into this dissonance that I just described, to recognize that this experiences of tension is actually a blessing because there are invitations to come home to ourself.

[00:30:38] Many of us will struggle because of trauma, okay? Because of our past experiences of being rejected being alienated, being abandoned, even emotionally abandoned, right? You may not be physically abandoned. I used to think that abandonment meant physical abandonment, like someone is literally not there physically.

[00:30:56] And while that is clearly abandonment, it's only more recently that I realized and learned that the effects of emotional abandonment are just as real, and a person can be physically with us, but emotionally not with us., All right? So, when we've experience being alone for so long that no matter how hard we try, it's so hard to experience being loved for who we are.

[00:31:20] A lot of us, we abandon ourselves. And when we abandon ourselves, it includes deciding that we can't trust our own feelings, our own physical - okay, so, we can't trust our own emotions and our own feelings. So, feelings go beyond just emotional feelings, right? Feelings include our physical bodily feelings, and they're often connected, like our emotions are often connected with how our body feels, how our stomach feels, our gut, the tensions, the tense neck or tense shoulder, back pain, headaches stomach issues.

[00:31:52] A lot of times, our bodies are sending us signals that we're in dissonance, okay. There's a tension. Something's not right here. But we've learned to ignore those signals and to just keep pressing on and pushing on in our endeavour to win security by performance, by performing and being whoever it is that we think we need to be.

[00:32:14] Whoever it is we think others want us to be, all right. So, I just want to invite you to think of the ways maybe in your life you've experienced dissonance, the ways in which you have experienced how others see you, or the external metrics of your life seem to indicate something very different from how you are actually really feeling in inside.

[00:32:38] Now, this is especially the case if you're someone for whom your spiritual identity or your identity and your religion or faith is very important to you because let me tell you, it is not just in so-called worldly context that we fall into the traps of being inauthentic. This is very much the case for those of us whose identities are also part our identity in our faith communities is also part of how we see ourself and the more active we are in our faith communities, especially if we're in leadership positions.

[00:33:11] We are very vested in being seen as good examples, role models and usually without us realizing there is some kind of ideal in our mind about what it means to be a role model, how it should look like to be a leader. And when the reality and truth of our inner lives and the reality and truth of our most intimate relationships with our spouse, with our family, with our parents, our children, for example, or even with those who are close to us, when the realities there do not reflect the beautiful image that we wish to project for others to see, we experience dissonance.

[00:33:53] We will experience the pain of being inauthentic, and I want to congratulate you if you can recognize that in your life. I want to invite you to look at that in the face, to not run away from them. I know it's uncomfortable. I've been there. I'm still there. I mean so many ways. It takes a lot of grace and courage and safety to be able to see how we are inauthentic, see the lack of integration and integrity in our lives. But I want to say and invite you to see this as a blessing because we cannot be happy in this state. And this discomfort is the same as when we are cut, we bleed and we feel pain. That pain, as uncomfortable as it is, it's important. It's a blessing. It's telling us that we need tending to, that we're wounded, right? We want to be restored and healed. 

[00:34:56] ARE YOU EXPERIENCE DISSONANCE?
And that's the case for her inner lives as well. So, my invitation to you is recognize, try and identify and recognize and acknowledge some area in which you are experiencing dissonance in your life right now.

[00:35:14] And can you invite or ask God, okay, into that dissonance and to show you that next step that you need to take. What step can you take to move towards greater authenticity and integrity? I know that's a big question. But for today, the step I'm asking you to take is just to be able to identify, recognize, and acknowledge.

[00:35:39] Really look it in the eye. Don't run away from it, right. And say, yes, I experienced this dissonance in my life. And can you be honest with yourself about how it feels and whether you actually wanted to be there? Not so much the dissonance. I know you don't want the dissonance to be there, but whether you want to move towards authenticity, that the way out of the dissonance is not to shut your inner compass up, to shut your gut and to deny your need for authenticity to be real.

[00:36:10] But that the way to resolve this dissonance is for your outer life to mirror and align with your inner life and for both, really to be integrated by God. So, I'm praying for you, and I hope that you found today's chat challenging, but also hopefully comforting and edifying.

[00:36:37] CONCLUSION
Thank you for listening to Becoming Me. The most important thing about making this journey is to keep taking steps in the right direction. No matter how small those steps might be, no matter where you might be in your life right now, it is always possible to begin. The world would be a poorer place without you becoming more fully alive. 

[00:37:06] If you like what you hear on this podcast, you would like to receive a monthly written reflection from me as well as be updated. On my latest content and offers, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter, Begin Again. You can find the link to do that in the show notes. Until the next episode, happy becoming!