Ep. 9 | The Invisible Chains: Who’s Really in the Driver’s Seat of Your Life?

As your unofficial mentor and motivator, I share deeply personal stories about how my own autonomy was stolen in childhood and the challenging journey to reclaim it. Autonomy is the steering wheel of our lives, influencing our mental health, confidence, and motivation in profound ways that many of us don't recognize until it's been taken away.

🎶 Seinabo Sey - I Owe You Nothing

Episode Transcript

Laura (00:01):
Welcome to the Main Allure podcast.
I am your host, Laura, yourunofficial mentor and motivator.
Have you ever looked at adecision in your life and
realized you didn't really makeit?
Maybe it was your job, maybe itwas a relationship that you
stayed in for far too long.
That version of yourself youkeep performing, not because it

(00:24):
feels true, but because it feelslike that's what's expected,
that quiet moment when yourealize you've been living
someone else's story.
And that's when autonomy comesin.
Autonomy isn't just aboutfreedom in the big, dramatic
ways like quitting a job ormoving to another country.

(00:44):
Even it's in the small,everyday things like saying no
without guilt or asking for whatyou truly need.
It's trusting your gut.
But here's the truth Autonomycan slip away without you even
noticing.
It keeps chipping away withthings like peer pressure, with
fear and love, even when we careso much about others that we

(01:09):
pretty much forget to take careof ourselves.
And in today's episode, we'reunpacking what it really means
to have autonomy, that subtle orsometimes not so subtle ways in
which it can be taken away fromus and, most importantly, how
to take it back, because themoment you remember you have a

(01:29):
choice is the moment you beginto heal.
So let's start with the basics.
Why is autonomy so important inthe first place?
It's more than just makingchoices.
It is the heartbeat of feelingalive, aligned and empowered.

(01:50):
When you feel autonomous, youfeel that sense of ownership, so
you feel like your life istruly yours.
It improves your mental health.
You feel so much better aboutyourself and it helps you build
confidence.
Over time, it also helps fuelyour motivation because at the
end of the day, you're makingyour own decisions.

(02:11):
Let's put it like this Imagineyou're starting a new job and
you have to decide betweentaking a bus or driving there.
You find out that it's 30minutes away, so obviously you
can't walk.
Riding a bike is going to takeyou forever.
You can, but you weigh the prosand cons between the bus and

(02:34):
driving and at first glance youcould say well, driving there,
I'm going to have to sit therein traffic.
I will probably have to pay alot more for parking every day,
which could get annoying.
Right, it chips at your budget.
And, on the contrary, takingthe bus, it's simple.
You just sit there, you couldread a book on your way there,

(02:55):
you feel like you have a littlebit more freedom and you're not
paying as much fortransportation, essentially.
But then with time, you realizethat when you take the bus, you
don't really have a say onwhere the bus goes right.
You also don't have a say onhow many stops the bus takes, or
if there's a bus that's full,now you have to wait for the

(03:19):
next bus.
All the factors that you haveno control over.
Then you start to realize, likewell, all the factors that you
have no control over, then youstart to realize, like well,
maybe it's okay to drive myselfthere.
At least I have control overwhere I'm going, which routes I
want to take, you could stop atthe supermarket on your way home
.
All of these little things thatyou don't really think are a big

(03:40):
deal end up becoming so.
And that's what autonomy is.
Autonomy is the steering wheelof your life, and without it
you're just a passenger.
And, trust me, I more thananyone would love to be a
passenger princess, because Ialways end up driving everywhere
.
So I would give the world to bea passenger princess.
But at the end of the day, whenit comes to your autonomy, you

(04:05):
have control over when you gohome, when you can go somewhere
where you can leave.
Again, I'm using this in asymbolic way, but I hope you
understand what I mean.
When we talk about autonomy, nowwe have to wonder if autonomy
is so vital, why do so manypeople lose touch with it?

(04:29):
Let's talk about those subtleand sometimes painful ways our
sense of control gets chippedaway.
And first it's the cultural andfamily expectations.
It's the well, this is justwhat you're supposed to do.
Script.
It is that idea that, well,this is what we've been doing
all this time.
This is what everybody has todo and it's never questioned.

(04:52):
This is what you're supposed todo after you graduate and
instead of pursuing your owndreams.
Now, even if you go to collegeI've seen this many times people
will graduate and then go workfor their family business, and
there's nothing wrong with that.
But is that really what theywanted to do?
Maybe, maybe not.
If you watch Succession, it's aperfect example of how the

(05:17):
siblings are pitted against eachother in order for the dad to
gauge who really deserves to bethe company boss, the CEO, and
you could tell some of themdidn't even really care for that
position or wanted to beinvolved.
At the end of the day, theywanted to make their dad happy,
so it wasn't really that theywere so passionate about it.

(05:38):
It was more of getting theapproval of their dad.
That in turn, made them want tocompete or at least try to make
themselves more qualified to bethe next head of the company.
Then there are toxicrelationships where people
control, they guilt, trip you,they make you even fear making

(06:03):
your own decisions because atthe end of the day, it's what
benefits them right.
And we saw this with the Diddytrials and the whole Cassie
situation, where he took controlover almost everything in her
life.
If you don't know who SeanDiddy Combs is, he's a music
mogul who's been around sincethe 90s and he's been

(06:27):
responsible for the success ofmany artists during the
different decades.
And he was dating someone namedCassie who was an aspiring
artist, and essentially he tookover her life to the point where
she felt like she couldn'tleave the relationship.
Not only were they involvedprofessionally, but also

(06:51):
romantically, and he was veryabusive.
He was an abusive man who didnot let her make her own choices
and even went as far asthreatening her right.
So the idea is that eventually,with time, she ended up
developing Stockholm syndrome,which is why a lot of people
wonder well, why didn't she justleave?

(07:11):
And it's very hard to do whensomebody convinces you that
you're not worthy of anythingelse other than what you're
getting at the time.
And so, even if you leave adoor open right to the house
where you're being kidnapped,when you develop Stockholm
syndrome, you just cannot leave.
There's something where youjust end up trauma bonding with

(07:32):
the person and you don't feellike there's any strength for
you to leave that situation and,as a result, you end up
enduring a lot of abuse, a lotof unfortunate experiences and
that's what ended up happeningwith Cassie.
Experiences and that's whatended up happening with Cassie.
He made her all of thesepromises, made her believe that

(07:53):
she had all of these options andeverything was going to be
wonderful and great.
But little by little, at thesame time, he was chipping away
at her self-esteem.
She started to believe that shedidn't deserve better, that
everything that she was going toachieve in life was going to be
because of him, and that's kindof sick.
We don't want to ever feel likewe don't have control over our

(08:16):
lives, and you see that even inwork environments, which she was
also in, where it plays thatpart too, with micromanaging,
having that lack of voice,experiencing burnout because
you're so afraid to talk and tovoice, that you're overworked,
that you're doing too much, thatyou're taking on too much work,
not being given considerationwhen it comes to taking breaks

(08:40):
or even taking time off, andthese things slowly make you
feel like a cognitive machine,like you're in a place where
there's no way out, becauseyou're pretty much dependent
either on the income, on theresources, on the status even,

(09:02):
and so you're afraid that if youlet something go, you're going
to lose not only what you'veworked so hard for, but yourself
.
And that's the danger in that,because you've kind of already
lost yourself.
If you feel like you cannotescape that type of environment
Sometimes it's even internalSometimes people don't put that

(09:24):
much pressure on you, it'salmost implied, because we end
up silencing ourselves out offear, guilt or the belief that
we just don't deserve more.
And that voice in our head sayswho am I to want something
different?
If this is what is beingoffered to me, what else can I
really achieve?

(09:45):
What else can I really aspireto if the people around me are
telling me that this is what Ideserve?
And I could tell you my ownstory.
I mean, I don't want to get intotoo much because it will take
me all day to explain or to talkabout, but I went through my
own experience with losing myautonomy.
It started when I was a littlegirl, where my parents migrated

(10:10):
to the US and we were left inDominican Republic, and during
that time we were left with afamily to take care of my
brother and me.
But the problem with that wasthat my family was not aware of
all of the things that we weregoing through, so we were not
allowed to do anything.
I was essentially a slave insomeone's home and, as a result,

(10:35):
I couldn't talk, I couldn'tspeak, I couldn't play with
other children.
I was about seven years old,sometimes even go to school.
I was beaten and tortured andall these things.
And again, I don't want to gettoo much into it, but that was
the first taste that I got withthe way that society can
potentially take everything fromyou.

(10:56):
And so you have to be carefulwith the way that you allow
people to just get comfortablewith that idea of making
decisions for you, because itcould start with just oh yeah,
don't worry about it, I got thisfor you, and then it could
escalate into something muchmore as a result of all of that.

(11:17):
You also end up buildingpatterns as you get older where
you find yourself inrelationships that kind of
remind you of that and then youthink it's acceptable, but it's
not.
You have to remember that, nomatter what you're supposed to
feel respected, loved,appreciated, not humiliated, not
hurt, not treated like youdon't deserve better.

(11:41):
The minute that you startfeeling that it should be a red
flag for you, those alarmsshould be going off in your head
and it's an indication thatyou're probably in the wrong
place.
You're probably dealing withpeople you should not have to
deal with.
And the truth is that no matterwhere you are, who you're
dealing with, where you're going, you should always feel that

(12:05):
your self-worth is untouchable.
You have to learn to detachyourself from the expectations
of others and always follow thatintuition Realize what is good
for you, what is best for you.
It is something that you alwayshave to practice, because when

(12:26):
you think that you finally foundsomeone or you're in a place
where you could trust someone,we tend to kind of just fall
back and say, well, I finallyfeel safe here.
Believe me when I tell you thatyou never really know.
So I encourage you to alwayskeep that little antenna up
there, you know, don't retire it, just make sure you're

(12:48):
upgrading your little softwarein your head so that you're not
falling behind, because once youstart to feel too comfortable,
you could eventually end up inthat situation like that, and
that's not what we want.
We want to thrive, we want tosucceed, we want to feel safe
and loved and respected.
We just want to live, andthat's the bare minimum, all

(13:14):
right.
So now that we know how autonomycan disappear, here's the good
news.
It's not gone forever.
It is something that, like amuscle, it may turn into fat,
but when you work out a littlebit it comes back.
So let's explore how to startreclaiming your voice, one
decision at a time, and you canstart by naming where you've

(13:37):
given it away.
It could be a situation, itcould be a place, it could be at
your job, in your relationships.
Ask yourself where am I sayingyes, when I really mean no?
And you'll know that, becausesomething in your little heart
is going to tell you okay, thisdoesn't feel right, this is
feeling a little anxious withthis decision, I'm not

(14:00):
comfortable with where this isgoing.
And then start practicing microdecisions.
You have to start building thatmuscle again, and the way that
you can do that is by sayingokay, what are things that I can
control right now?
Extending that power and evenif it's something that nobody's
asking you about, and I want youto practice that muscle of

(14:22):
saying you know what I usuallylike?
Roast beef.
I mean, I don't know, I haven'teaten those kinds of sandwiches
in a while, but I usually likeroast beef.
But now I want an avocado toast.
It could be something as simpleas that.
You know, I always wear black.
Why do I always wear black?
Well, maybe today I wear greenor beige or something out of the

(14:45):
norm, just to say I made adecision, a conscious decision,
of picking something differentbecause I can and own it.
Own that decision andeventually, when those big
decisions come, you're going tosay what is the decision that's
going to make me happy?
The other thing is to relearnassertive communication.

(15:06):
You have to say what you needwithout an apology.
You've seen it many times,especially if you start paying
attention to when people talkand they say oh, I'm sorry, I
want this.
I mean, I do it sometimes too.
Oh, I'm so sorry, I think thisis a better option.
Well, why are you saying sorry?
That's your opinion.
That's what you think is right.

(15:26):
That is your decision.
You don't have to say sorry.
That is your decision.
You don't have to say sorry.
Follow your heart.
Let your intuition guide you towhere you need to be.
If you want to change your mind, that is okay.
You shouldn't feel like you arestuck in a place or in a time or
situation that you don't wantto be in.

(15:47):
You have to know the differencebetween telling, for example,
your significant other that youdon't want to be in.
You have to know the differencebetween telling, for example,
your significant other that youhad to spend $500 to fix your
brakes on your car versus beingnervous and anxious that you had
to take out $20 from theaccount because you were hungry
all day and had nothing to eat.

(16:08):
Protect your peace.
Know the difference, and if itfeels hard to feel like you can
do something like this, pleaseremember that you don't have to
do it alone.
It is completely okay to wantto talk to someone.
Autonomy doesn't mean isolation.
It's okay to speak your truth,and I guarantee you that the

(16:30):
more and more you practicemaking your own decisions
without outside influences, themore and more you're going to
feel at peace, the more yourmental health is going to
improve, the more you're goingto feel confident to speak up,
to stand up for yourself, tolive the life that you want to

(16:52):
live, not caring about whatanyone else thinks and I
understand that for some of youthis could be absolutely hard.
I always recommend, if there'ssomeone that you need to speak
to whether it's therapy, a coach, even a friend I highly
encourage you to do that.

(17:13):
When I learned all the stuffthat happened to me, which I
never really took the time toprocess, all of those
experiences, all of that trauma,and I remember I went to
therapy one time when I waspregnant with my child, because
I was going through so much andmy doctors were just concerned
right Like hey, right Like hey,she's pregnant, she's stressed,

(17:37):
we need to make sure that she'sokay.
And so they sent me to atherapist to talk.
The interesting thing is, whenI told them about my story, the
therapist he told me one thingthat I will never forget.
He told me that people whoexperience oh my God, I'm
getting emotional he told methat people who go through the
life that I had to experiencegrowing up.
Statistically, they go throughone of these three options.

(18:00):
The first one is they end upbeing drug addicts because it's
hard for them to cope with thatexperience.
They end up in jail because,again, they are living a
reckless life.
They cannot cope with thethings that they've experienced,
so they end up doing crazythings to cope.
And the third one is they endup six feet under.

(18:23):
To me that was eye-openingbecause I never really thought
about it that way.
I've been on survival mode allof my life.
He even told me you should talkto people about your experience
because you're handling it verywell and, believe me, it hasn't
been easy at all.
I isolate all the time,especially because of that, and

(18:45):
most people don't understand itor even realize that I'm doing
it.
But it's the reason why I amhere talking to you guys in this
podcast, because I want you tosee and I want you to know that
you can get through whatever itis that you're going through.
You can get through the mud,you can get through hell.
Okay, you can go through somuch and still survive.

(19:10):
And I know that you're thinkingwell, it's probably easy for you
.
But, trust me, I've had to dealwith a lot of self-regulation.
It's been a lifetime ofreflection to truly understand
who I am and what I deserve andwhere I belong and how much I am
worth.
It wasn't given to me.
I wasn't being spoiled and youknow, given all of the great

(19:36):
treatment, I've been through alot and what it has taught me is
that none of it had anything todo with me, and so I want you
to step away from this episodeand understand that you have a
choice, that you can get throughanything.

(19:56):
So I want you to ask yourselfwhere in your life have you
silenced your own voice?
And what's one small decisionyou can take back this week?
If this episode make you thinktwice about who's really in the
driver's seat of your life?
Hit pause and write down onearea where you want your power

(20:19):
back.
Okay, this is the homework forthis week.
What do you want your powerback?
Think about it and then sharethis with someone who may need
the same reminder.
You don't have to earn theright to make your own choices.
You already have it, so go useit.
Thank you for listening to theManalore podcast.

(20:42):
I know I got a little emotionalthis week, even though I joke
around a lot, but I hope thiswas helpful to you.
Please don't forget to like,share and subscribe.
Share with the world.
This is extremely hard for meto do, so I hope you're enjoying
it.
Until next time, take care Bye.