Shedding Your Old Identity: What No One Tells You About Becoming Your Higher Self [ep. #230]
Hello lovely lady and welcome to The Subconscious Expert!
Shedding your old identity might sometimes feel like absolute death rather than the euphoric buzz everyone promises. In today's episode, I'm pulling back the curtain on the uncomfortable reality of identity shifts that nobody talks about.
I call it "the void" – that disorienting space between who you were and who you're becoming. Your old self operated on survival, panic, and hustle, so when you finally create safety, your nervous system freaks out! That calm, focused energy can actually feel boring compared to the adrenaline you're used to. This isn't regression – it's recalibration.
Join me as I walk you through why your subconscious tries to pull you back to familiar chaos and give you my four favourite subconscious practices to anchor into your next-level identity when the old version whispers "come back."
Your higher self is closer than you think – you just need to navigate the void first, and I'm here to guide you through it!
Topics covered on Shedding Your Old Identity:
Why does shedding your old identity and stepping into your higher self feel like death instead of the expected euphoria?
What exactly is "the void" and why does it make so many people quit the subconscious work right before their big breakthrough?
How does your nervous system react when you are shedding your old identity?
Why might your new next-level identity feel strangely boring after you've done the subconscious work?
What subconscious techniques can you use to anchor your new identity when old patterns try pulling you back?
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Resources mentioned in this episode:
Related episodes you may enjoy:
Quote:
"You think becoming your best self will feel powerful. It won't. It'll feel like dying." - Rebecca Haydon
Transcription:
Our AI tried its best, but expect a few quirky typos in the transcript. Embrace the imperfections and enjoy the read!
[00:00:00] You are listening to the Subconscious Expert, the podcast where your subconscious becomes your one-way ticket to the mind blowing results you desire in your life and business. I've said it before and I will say it a hundred times again. Your business cannot outgrow your mindset. And if you wanna grow your business, it always starts with growing your subconscious.
So let's dive into the subconscious breakthrough you so deeply deserve. Hello, my gorgeous lady. Welcome back to the Subconscious Expert. Today, I actually wanted to do a podcast episode on something that I don't think is talked about enough in. The kind of personal development, personal growth business space, and it's this idea around stepping into your best self, your higher self, your [00:01:00] next income bracket, your most powerful identity, this person that you see in your visualizations, and that it's gonna feel like this euphoric, powerful, motivational.
Absolute complete change of your world when you get there and that everything will click and that everything will feel amazing, and that that is done now. Sometimes becoming your best self, becoming your higher self, stepping into that version of you that you've always seen. It doesn't always feel like power and, and I can attest to this, and I have many clients who could probably attest to this too, because it's really fucking uncomfortable and sometimes it feels a little bit like death.
And if we look at it from a logical perspective, what we're actually doing by doing this growth work is we are [00:02:00] letting go of everything. That once made you feel safe, it made you feel safe, it made you feel comfortable, and we're letting go of most of those habits or behaviors, the way you do things, or handle money or sell or just be.
We are letting that go and to the subconscious, that's probably quite confusing. That's probably where the doubt's coming in, and a lot of the time I speak to my clients that it's almost a little bit of a weird kind of grief and sometimes it can feel a little bit boring as well. Yes, boring. Hold on to be there a minute.
I'm gonna explain a little bit further on in this episode Now. This is what we're diving into and I wanna dive into today what's actually really happening beneath the surface when you are in what I call [00:03:00] the void. Welcome to the void, which is where you've let go of who you were. That old identity of you, the old way of doing things, feeling, thinking, behaving, but actually haven't fully anchored into who you are becoming.
And we're in this like weird void. And the, the visualization that I always see when I'm explaining this to my clients is that you've jumped off the cliff, but you're still in the air and you're trying to figure things out and you're like, wow, we're in the void. I'm in the void. And actually. The, the void can feel very, very uncomfortable and it's where I see a lot of people.
Quit walk away, stop doing the work and kind of revert back to their old selves. And it's not because it's not working. It's literally like literally, because it feels unfamiliar. It's like disorientating it. It feels like who? Well, who the hell am I now then? [00:04:00] And this is where the subconscious loves to pull you back, like pull you back to that old identity.
So if you are currently in this space of maybe the void, or maybe you are like ready to jump off the, the, the old identity cliff, or you are just about to get into that new identity, this episode is for you. Now there was a quote that I saw on Instagram the other day that kind of, um, stemmed where this podcast episode came from.
And then there was a conversation that I had with one of my gorgeous members in my subconscious membership that kind of brought it all together and I was like, I have to do a podcast episode on this. So I've actually wrote down the quote because it kind of links with what we're doing and what we're speaking about today.
So you think becoming your best self will feel powerful. It won't. It'll feel like dying. Growth isn't pretty. It's not smooth. It's a breakdown. It's the death of your old self on repeat. Just when you think you've gotten to where you want to be, [00:05:00] you realize you have so much further to go and it's tough.
You'll feel lost. You'll question everything. Some days you'll win, some days you'll lose, but that's the price of ambition, transformation, expanding your potential. It's painful. You have to tear down the walls of comfort, break the chains of what holds you back and bet on your damn self. It's brutal, it's violent, but it's fucking glorious and it's worth it because on the other side of that death of the old you, it's who you could be, my God, the goosebumps.
Now, I'm not massively a fan of all the language that's inside that quote. Just around like the subconscious programming work that I do. But you get the concept and I think there is so much, um, like there's so much this like. Like, kind of like making, becoming your higher self this like floral, incredible [00:06:00] experience and actually it's, it is really uncomfortable.
A lot of my one-to-one clients feel uncomfortable a lot of the time in our containers 'cause I'm constantly pushing them. To feel uncomfortable because that's when we move. That's when we grow. And I think that that last bit, like that last bit where it's like you have to tear down the walls of comfort.
You have to break the chains of what holds you back and bet on yourself. It's brutal, it's violent, but it's fucking glorious and it's worth it because on the other side of that death of the old you is who you could be. And like that for me, ugh, is absolutely everything. Now, how often do we try and like bypass that whole uncomfort?
Obviously, 'cause the subconscious doesn't want you to be uncomfortable, but you know, you want the quantum leap, but you don't want the identity death of your old self, or you want to become your higher self, but you don't want a shed who we thought we were. [00:07:00] And it's almost like you are not willing to feel uncomfortable for a certain amount of time to actually give you the life that you want.
Now, this is the part where kind of everything shifts. You have to shift within your nervous system. You have to shift within your subconscious identity and in those dark moments, in those like uncomfortable, horrible moments where your old identity whispers and your parts whisper. Like, come back. Come back Jack, like.
I, I, let's go back to safety because it was obviously safer there. So yes, this is the concept of today's episode and like I said, it was a conversation that I had with one of my incredible clients inside the membership. She has done a lot of deep work. She, I. Has rebranded. She's like literally moved through a full identity evolution and she messaged me saying, it's really weird, Beck, because I feel calm, I feel clear, [00:08:00] I feel focused, but I also feel bored.
Like I don't have or feel this same buzz that I used to. And I said to her, first of all, welcome to the void. This is kind of the space, uh, between who you were, like I said, and who you are becoming. And actually what she was describing is her true self. But what's happening here beneath the s the surface is what your old self used to operate on and.
I just want to really normalize that void because your nervous system, your subconscious, when you're in it, will try to convince you that something's wrong and we, we will pull you back. So let's kind of dive into what's happening beneath the surf, the surface of what's going on here now in your old identity.
A lot of the time, a lot of my clients who come to me, they have been operating from survival. Um, like [00:09:00] their entire way of working, selling, succeeding, making money has literally been built on foundations of pressure or urgency or unpredictability or chaos or hustle or sheer. Panic, right? Lots of panic.
And then creating actual safety in your business. If that's what you've done, if that's how you've built your business, then being able to create safety in it won't feel empowering. At first. It won't. It'll feel really wrong, and your subconscious will try and pull you back to the struggle. Your subconscious will keep finding chaos.
Your subconscious will plow all of these thoughts and feelings and parts. Into you to like try and get you back to what was safe. And that is because safety is unfamiliar and unfamiliar equals unsafe to your subconscious mind. So when we start to finally create this kind of like calm, [00:10:00] confident, curious, capable business model, which is what I do with all my one-to-ones, and when you are no longer kind of reacting, reacting in your business, you're not in this like, well, I've gotta go, go, go, go.
Panic, panic, panic, energy. You are not waking up like in panic or planning launches with last minute dopamine, chasing the buzz all the time. Your system immediately says, like, immediately goes, oh wow, okay. This is the piece I've been craving, but something's missing. I've got nothing to worry about. I've got nothing to.
To stress about why does this feel boring? Why am I not as fired up? Why don't I feel motivated the way I used to? And it's not that you've lost your spark and your spark's still there. And it can look very different ways, which is what we do in the identity shift in as we look at what you want to be inside your business.
[00:11:00] It is literally your body recalibrating to the work that you have done subconsciously. So the first thing that I see is that if you are in this void between like the two identities, is that you have created safety. Absolutely. And you've been doing the work, but your nervous system was literally wired for survival.
And that means that you've had a baseline of chaos. The launch adrenaline, the proving energy, the over-delivering, and then literally your entire world has learned to associate stress with success. So that constant state of motion felt like momentum. But when you slow down, calm, curious, confident, capable, when you are grounded, when you are regulated, when you are leading from self, it can literally feel like a void.
It can actually feel like a lack of drive. It's not, it's literally not a lack of drive. It is. [00:12:00] Adrenaline not being there. And that's a good thing. That is a good thing, but your nervous system doesn't actually know that yet. It doesn't know that yet. The second thing, you are also having a bit of a detox from an identity.
That was addicted to the struggle. That was such a listened to podcast episode that I did about addicted to the struggle. I'll link it in the show notes if you want to go and listen. Now, I use this word addicted very intentionally because there is a part of you or there was a part of you, whether consciously you knew it or not, that was built on being one who had to figure it out under pressure.
The one who pulled magic out of thin air, the one who delivered at the last minute, the one who hit her goals with gritted teeth and sweat dripping off a fricking eyebrows. And that part, she was fricking powerful. She got shit done. She kept you safe actually for a very long time, but she's not needed [00:13:00] anymore.
And because she's not needed anymore, she starts to have a little panic and she doesn't go fricking quietly. Trust me, I see it with a lot of my clients. She doesn't bow out with grace. She gets bloody louder. A lot of the time it's like, well, if we're not hustling, we're falling behind. If we're not overwhelmed, are we doing enough?
If it's easy? Oh no, it can't be easy. I'll just sabotage everything. So it's not as easy. It isn't failure, it's sabotage. We know it well. It's identity work, but you are not going backwards here. You're literally just recalibrating you. You are upgrading the way you relate to success, relate to the safety, relate to your self-worth, and then this void.
The in-between the part of you where you are no longer driven by survival, but you actually haven't fully landed in what it means to be led by yourself, by self, [00:14:00] by that self of yours, the calm, confident, capable, curious, and there's no chaos actually pulling you forwards, but there's no clear future pushing you either.
You're kind of floating between these two identities. The one who succeeds with stress and hustle and, oh my God, this is, you know, I've gotta panic. I've gotta be an overwhelm. And the one who leads from safety, the one who leads from the presence, from the power. And in that void, in that space, it can feel empty and it honestly can feel.
Distressing. I, I would use that word. Like my clients are like, what is going on? But it's the most amazing place to be, and I know that sounds backwards, but that's where your system, your literal system starts to rewire the script. And this is where you relearn, we relearn together what drive feels like, what success feels like when it's not running [00:15:00] on adrenaline, overwhelmed, stress, unhappy panic, et cetera.
The, the, then you'll find that you build the, the momentum without the burnout. You feel lit up without the absolute sheer panic. You trust yourself without needing proof. And actually, this is where most of my clients discover and feel aligned, that you can feel so good. Like deep, calm, deep, deep, calm. And then success actually feels like an expansion.
Not like you can't hold it. Now that power doesn't always feel like fire sometimes. It's in those micro moments, and that's where I see the biggest changes sometimes is in those quiet certain moments with my clients. It's not like a huge breakthrough on session or it's in those micro moments where you're like, okay, [00:16:00] incredible.
Really, really incredible. So. You can see what's going on here. You can see the void that we're, you know, that you might be going through, especially if you have been doing the subconscious work, especially if you want to move out from that identity that you are no longer vibing with, aligned with. I find a lot of clients who come to work with me have.
Big realizations about their business or about their life, and sometimes those are life decisions that they never thought they would look at, or business decisions or shifts or niche, niche changes or ideal client shifts or the way that they sell and they go, wow, like I thought I would do it this way for so long, but because we've done the subconscious work and we've brought them back to who they actually are, and then we are building that new identity, they're going.
Oh my God. Like this is actually not aligned at all anymore, and it's just so, so [00:17:00] powerful. So if you are resonating with this podcast episode so far, or you're sitting there being like Rebecca. Full name, I am in the void. Like I am feeling this right now, or I feel like I'm getting there, or, wow, you've set me up because when I do get there, I'll know what to do.
I wanted to take you through some tangible steps. That are gonna help you. They're gonna help you in this, this place where you are in that void, or whether you're being pulled back to that old identity and habits and things feel more comfortable. Or whether you are really, you know, you're like, wow, I'm so there and I'm really ready to step into that.
So we're gonna go through, I'm through some. Some conscious, some a few NLP based practices that will actually truly help you anchor in this next level identity when the old version comes in and goes, come back. Come back. Because she will. And that's okay. Like it's not [00:18:00] sabotage, and I want you to know that.
I don't want you to get angry at her. It's protection. So let's dive in. Number one, what I want you to do is really recognize the part that's trying to keep you safe. So when you feel in that moment, when you feel that maybe some old habits are pulling you, or um, you feel like it's, it would just be so much easier to do an old behavior that you've done.
I just want you to close your eyes and just take a few deep breaths and couple of questions that I want you to ask in that moment is what part of me is struggling to let go? What would she be afraid of or what is she afraid will happen if I fully step into this new identity? Give her a voice. Give her a voice.
She might hear like, [00:19:00] oh, like, well, then you won't need me anymore. Or what if we lose everything? Or, well, you've never proven anything in this new identity. So how? How do we know it's gonna work? You know? There's lots of things. There's lots of this. They're scared, right? They're scared. So just give them a voice.
Give them a voice, because all of it usually is coming from. A positive intention and that part that's coming up, that part that's trying to pull you back isn't trying to harm you. Like she's just literally using old strategies to protect her. So give her a voice, thank her. Like give her so much love. And I tell my clients off when they're nasty to their parts.
'cause I'm like, no, no, no. They're protecting us. We need to give them thanks and just keep letting her know that there's a new way. Like let her know that. You can literally say like, thank you. Like thank you so much [00:20:00] for how you've protected me. Like I see you, I hear you. I know this feels scary, but I've got it.
We've got it from here. I've got it from here. And just have that moment with her. And the more you nurture, the more you build that trust, the more evidence you've got for her, the more she will quieten down. The second thing I want you to do is really rewire the identity with a lot of future pacing. So in NLP we use future pacing a lot to install new beliefs, new identities, any work that we're doing with the subconscious mind.
So all you have to do is close your eyes and imagine it's already done. Like you are operating fully from self. Your business is thriving from peace, not panic. You feel safe receiving, you feel safe leading, you feel safe, [00:21:00] resting, whatever that. You know, whatever those behaviors are that come up and then have that conversation like, what do I believe about myself in this version of me?
How do I carry myself? What are the small things that I do differently every day? Like make it make it so visceral that you like, can see it, you can hear it, you can feel it, you can feel the safety around it. Anchoring in this is who I am now. And repeat, and repeat, and repeat and repeat. The brain learns best from repetition and the subconscious mind doesn't know the difference between imagined and real repetition.
So build the new neural pathway because the stronger you can make it. The more you can anchor in the safety, the, the quicker you will receive. Step three, make sure you are pattern interrupting the old identity, the [00:22:00] old loop. So your old identity may creep in. And I see this mostly when we are under, when, when we're tired.
Um, when we are doing something new, like when there is more cognitive function, your subconscious mind will go back to the path of lease resistance. And whilst you are in this void, the path of lease resistance is going to be your old identity because you've played it for 10, 20, 30, 50 plus years. So.
Whether it's procrastination, whether it's people pleasing, whether it's overthinking, whether it's pushing. Just catch the pattern. Literally catch it in the moment. Or if you've been playing it for maybe 10 minutes and you go, oh shit, I'm in the pattern. Just pause. Just pause and like state out. Look, this is the old version of me running the show.
Stand up. Shake it out of your body. This is what I get my clients to do, one-to-one. Take a breath. [00:23:00] Recho like I now choose to respond from my next level identity. Anything to shift the state. Placing your hand on your heart, grounding into your body, shaking out, doing a dance. This is what we call a break state.
It breaks the loop. It gives your system this new neural pathway option in that moment. That's why we wanna catch it. That's why old patterns might come back. They will, they, because they're ingrained. They're in there. It's what you do with them and how quick you move through them. That really, really counts.
And then the last one that I want you to do is really anchor your new identity with a daily cue. Now we learn best, um, we kind of like remember most from visual. Sensory anchors. You know, we are very forgetful as humans. Like I said, this whole podcast, like it's very easy to go back to what you did and how you did it.
So you need to set yourself up for [00:24:00] success. Now, I find subconscious reprogramming happens fast, happens faster when we pair it with a sensory anchor. Now whether that is, um. Sight, hearing, smelling, taste, whatever that is, whether it's like a specific piece of jewelry, you know how I always go on about my slippers?
A candle you light each morning, a mantra that you stick on, a stick you know that you have on a sticky note, a song that really brings that future self energy and literally do it daily. Every time you have that cue, I am safe in this new identity. I am safe to succeed from self and the repetition paired with the emotion because the emotion really allows us to build the neural pathway stronger, is going to lock it in.
All right, so right now before we finish, we're gonna lock this in together. So I want you to place a [00:25:00] hand on your heart wherever you are, if you, if you're out and about, I still want you to do it. I want you to get outta your comfort zone, place a hand on your heart, and I want you to say it with me, either in your head or out loud.
I love the version of me who got me here. I release the need to recreate the struggle to feel worthy. I choose to lead from calm, grounded, powerful energy. I choose to lead from self I, and I trust that I am safe to expand from here, this, or something better, baby. So. This is real. This is the real deep work, especially the void.
And no matter how long you've been operating from the old you, [00:26:00] you always have the tools to shift and you probably are already in the shift. Your system is already making space, and your next level, I promise, is closer than it feels. So I hope you've enjoyed. Today's podcast episode, go and do those exercises.
You can replay it and put the hand on your heart and do it with me again and again and again. I love you so much, and I'll see you in the next episode. I love to see you plugging in and listening to the podcast every week. So whilst you're here, I would love for you to spend a moment sharing your favorite episode, reviewing the podcast, and of course, that Juicy five Star rating.
These little acts of kindness really help the podcast reach more incredible powerhouses just like you. Now, if we're not connected on Instagram, add me at underscore Rebecca Haydon underscore. And for the full show notes and [00:27:00] more resources, head over to Rebecca Haydon dot com. I'll see you there.
More about The Subconscious Expert:
Welcome to The Subconscious Expert, the podcast where your subconscious becomes your one-way ticket to the mind-blowing results you desire in your life and business! I’m your host, Rebecca Haydon, The Subconscious Expert who went from being stuck in victim mode to a multi 6 figure business owner. Each week, I will be giving you the subconscious tools and techniques so you can become the woman who is living out her vision with a life and business that she is truly OBSESSED with. I have said it before, and I will say it 100 times again: "Your business can't outgrow your mindset, and if you want to grow your business, it always starts with growing your subconscious." So let's dive into the subconscious breakthrough you so deeply deserve!