#1. Paper Dolls and the Real Girl

Ever have that uncomfortable feeling that you've tucked away parts of yourself to please others? You're not alone. In this revealing episode, I share the two pivotal moments that cracked me open and ultimately birthed this podcast.

First, a breakthrough therapy session where I realized my true self wasn't lost at all, just carefully hidden away for safekeeping. Then, the strange way Pinocchio's question "Am I a real boy?" haunted me for over a year, highlighting how I'd become more wooden puppet than living woman. This wasn't imposter syndrome, it was deeper - what I call "soul amnesia." After decades of adapting, performing, and prioritizing others, I'd simply forgotten how to be me.

The journey back to authenticity doesn't require becoming someone new - just returning to someone true. Drawing from my experience as a personal growth coach, I share the practical tools that help me and my clients reconnect: personalized meditation, affirmations that rewire beliefs, subliminals that bypass resistance, gratitude journaling with scripting, movement practices, and reflective prompts that bring awareness to buried feelings. These approaches help navigate common midlife challenges like identity loss, purpose questions, and decision paralysis.

Whether you're feeling disconnected or simply sensing there's more to life than your current experience, this episode offers both validation and a roadmap home to yourself. Because remember:  you're not late, you're right on time. And the edge isn't the end, it's the becoming.

🦋 Would you like help walking through these steps, or with accountability, or deeper dives into these topics? Interested in learning more about working 1:1 with me to transform your life in your rediscovery? Schedule a free Discovery call with me here: https://stan.store/edgeofreal

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📌 Leave a review, then email us a screenshot at [e-mail] and we will send you a beautiful free digital journal to help you work through some of your thoughts and get some clarity about what you truly want out of your life.

📹 Photo by Rob Merritt – used with permission.

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Episode Transcript

Kristin (00:06):
Welcome to Edge of Real .
I'm your host, kristin Hamilton.
This is a podcast for womenwaking up later in life,
rediscovering themselves beyondroles, rules and expectations,
and realizing they are ready forsomething more.
Each week, we explorerebecoming, where identity
shifts, truth rises and wereturn to our true selves,

(00:29):
helping you remember you're notlost.
You're on the edge of somethingreal.
Welcome to the Edge of Realpodcast.
Today's episode I think I'mgoing to call Paper Dolls and
the Real Girl.
I'm sharing two pivotal momentsthat cracked me open and led to
the creation of this podcast.
You'll hear a thought thathaunted me for over a year and

(00:52):
how a single moment in therapyreminded me that I hadn't lost
the real me.
I just tucked her away forsafekeeping and, as a coach, you
know, I got to end with some ofthe practical tools and
actionable steps that I use andrecommend to women who are also
finding their way back to theirtrue selves.
So let's begin with a littlestory.

(01:14):
I was sitting in therapy tryingto explain oh, that was my
kitty.
He's just saying hi.
So, anyway, I'm sitting intherapy trying to explain to my
therapist who I used to bebefore.
I was this meek, flat, unsurewoman who was curled up on her
couch.
I wanted her to know how I feltbefore the heaviness, before

(01:38):
the self-shrinking, before Ibecame a paper doll, changing
shape to meet the moment toplease others.
Before the complicated,sometimes beautiful and
sometimes toxic relationshipthat spanned decades.
Before the heartbreak ofseparation, divorce and single
parenting.
Before all this self-sabotageand the proving and doubting,

(02:01):
I'm describing to her this pastversion of me, who is light and
playful, and unfiltered and free.
And as I talk I start to comealive.
I am out of the corner of thecouch, I'm sitting on the edge
of my seat, my therapist isleaning in and she sees me, and
what she sees is a woman who isstrong and capable and just full

(02:23):
of life.
And then I say something thatshifts everything for me.
I say it's like there's thislittle seed inside my chest,
like I hid her there, thiscarefree, laughing, full of
magic version of me.
And even though I buried her, Ididn't kill her, I kept her
safe just in case.
And as soon as I said that, Iknew it was true, this is

(02:48):
something I often see in myclients that realization that
their true selves was neveractually lost, just hidden.
And once you see that, it isimpossible to unsee, nor do you
want to See.
Over time, I had slowly justdiminished.
Some parts of me were strippedaway in big moments and others

(03:11):
just flaked off quietly.
It's like during the snap inAvengers Endgame right, like
that's how I picture it thisgorgeous free spirit that I was
just slowly disintegrating andfloating away till there's just
this little tiny seed left.
And I buried that little seeddeep, deep, deep, where no one

(03:32):
could get to it.
But that seed, the essence,remained waiting.
That realization planted themission for me, but truthfully,
I let that seed continue to stayburied for a while.
I kept coaching others to findthemselves, yet I stayed on
autopilot within myself, untilnow this podcast is me choosing

(03:56):
to water that seed.
It's a reclamation and maybe,hopefully, it sparks one in you
too, and maybe, hopefully, itsparks one in you too.
Here's the second moment thatchanged things.
It's weird, but it stuck Forabout a year.
A random line from Pinocchiokept popping into my head.

(04:20):
Am I a real boy?
It would show up at thesestrange times while talking to
my friends and other amazingwomen and I'd feel this
disconnect, like they wereliving these full color lives
while I was this black and whitesketch, or like I was made of
wood and strings and performance, like I was just watching life
rather than living it.
But here's the thing it wasn'timposter syndrome.

(04:43):
I have confidence, I know I'mcompetent, I know I'm good at
what I do and I know I'm worthyof good things in life.
But this feeling, it was deeperthan that, like soul amnesia.
I'd spent so many yearsprioritizing others and working,

(05:04):
caregiving, adapting, being theperson that I thought I was
supposed to be, but I'd justforgotten how to be me.
And yet, just like I tell myclients, I can now see that that
thought wasn't weakness.
It was a flare, a call to comehome to myself.
And if you've ever felt likeyou were just going through the

(05:24):
motions, like you are not quitereal, you are not alone and you
are definitely not broken.
You're just overdue forremembering.
So here's the truth that I keepreturning to.
We don't become real by doingeverything right.
We already are real.
That is one of the few thingswe are actually entitled to.

(05:46):
We are worthy, we are enough,we are real.
And when we remember who wewere before the world told us
who we should be, we feel thatright.
Reclaiming the real you isn'tabout becoming someone new.
It's about becoming someonetrue, and we know who that is.
Because we kept her safe allalong, because that is what we

(06:08):
do as women we keep those welove safe.
And that little seed in mychest that is not a relic of the
past.
That's my truth.
That's me.
I had rewired my brain away fromthe true me to get stuck in
those thought patterns I'dcarried for the last few decades
.
So now I will rewire them again.

(06:30):
You know, maybe I am someonewho laughs too loud and, yep, I
can be a little awkward atparties, but I also chase my
dreams relentlessly.
I refuse to keep apologizingfor what I want.
That version of me deservesspace.
My mantra right now issomething I heard from Boss Babe

(06:52):
how good can I let this get?
Isn't that amazing?
It reminds me that I am the onewho gets to decide.
I don't want to just survive, Iwant to live wide awake.
And if you're listening, Ithink maybe you do too.
So as a personal growth coach, Iknow that tools matter, so I'm

(07:15):
going to give you a few of theones that I am using right now
to reconnect and reawaken withinmyself.
The first one I'd like tomention is meditation.
This is something that hasbecome very, very important in
my life.
It's taken me a few years, butI now meditate on an almost

(07:35):
daily basis, and I have workedand worked within myself to come
up with a method that works forme.
I know that meditation is verydifficult for some people.
Many of the women that I workwith have a really hard time
with it, and I completelyunderstand that, and I have been

(07:55):
there.
I know that feeling.
So I have come up with my ownmethod that works for me.
I've shared it with a fewpeople and it has worked for
them, and we take what works forus and we leave what doesn't,
and that's exactly why there areso many different paths to the
same end, and that's exactly whythere are so many different

(08:18):
paths to the same end.
I will likely share this guidedversion with you at some point.
Another tool that I'm using isaffirmations.
Science shows that repetitionrewires beliefs and thought
patterns, and that's exactlywhat affirmations are.
They are a positive spin.
They are a way to tell yourselfwhat you want and how you feel,

(08:39):
and as we repeat them, ourthoughts rewire and our beliefs
follow our thoughts and all of asudden, we are believing.
What was once just anaffirmation has now become a
belief.
There is real power in words.
The next tool that I'm going tomention is subliminals.

(08:59):
This kind of goes along withaffirmations.
Basically, subliminals areaffirmations that are layered
under calming music.
Typically, you cannot hear themand you just pick them up
within your subliminal, withinyour subconscious.
They bypass the consciousresistance and reprogram the

(09:19):
subconscious through thisthought repetition and they
disrupt the negative thoughtpatterns.
This is something that I'm onlystarted using, probably within
the last month or so.
I truly can feel it workingalready.
There are certain things thatI've resisted for many years and

(09:40):
I find myself less resistant ofthem, and these are the exact
things that I've been listeningto subliminals for.
One thing that I want to mentionwith subliminals is you will
find them all over YouTube.
Please, please, use a sourcethat you trust.
The whole thing withsubliminals is you will find
them all over YouTube.
Please, please, use a sourcethat you trust.
The whole thing withsubliminals is you cannot hear

(10:01):
what is being said.
Your subconscious picks it up,but you can't actually
physically hear it, so you wantto make sure that you trust the
person who has made thesubliminal and is saying the
things that you can't hear.
I use an app that's calledManifest it.
Now, I don't have anyaffiliation with this.

(10:23):
I just use it personally myselfand I love it.
It's made by a woman namedStephanie Keith.
I listen to her podcast.
I completely trust the workthat she does, and so I use the
subliminals within that app.
The next tool I'm going tomention is a gratitude journal,

(10:43):
and along with my gratitudejournal, I also do scripting.
Let me break those down alittle bit.
Every night, before I go to bed, I write 10 things that I am
grateful for.
I write what it is that I'mgrateful for and I write why.
This is often just a brain dumpfor me.
I'm not thinking long and hardabout anything that needs to be

(11:07):
super meaningful.
Sometimes I write down I'mgrateful for strawberries
because they're delicious.
Sometimes I write down thingsmuch deeper than that.
The point is to get yourselfinto the vibration of gratitude,
get yourself into an ability toamplify what you're feeling,
amplify what's working and thencall in more.

(11:30):
This has to do with vibration.
This has to do with the law ofattraction.
This has to do with justfeeling good, just straight up.
Feeling good, the better wefeel we send out a higher
vibration and that's what comesback to us.
You send out good, you get backgood.
It's the law of attraction.

(11:50):
It's a proven scientific law ofnature law of attraction.
It's a proven scientific law ofnature.
Along with the gratitude, I dosomething that's called
scripting, and scripting is whenyou write what you want to be
true, so you write.
For example, you might writeabout this amazing day you had

(12:11):
and you didn't actually havethis day.
You're writing more from thethis is my perfect day, but
you're putting it in presenttense Again.
You're putting out into theuniverse this is what I want,
this is what I'm calling in,this is how I want to live my
life.
And when you are vibrating at ahigh frequency, the universe

(12:35):
says, oh, look at that, she'sliving this life and everything
happens.
So with the scripting, Iusually, of my 10 things that I
write in my gratitude journaleach night, usually about two of
them or so are things thathaven't happened yet.

(12:56):
And I stress yet.
When I include the scripting inmy gratitude, my subconscious
doesn't know the differencebetween what I'm currently
grateful for that's actuallyhappened, between what I'm
currently grateful for thatactually happened and what I'm
currently grateful for thathasn't actually happened.
My subconscious doesn't knowthe difference, and so it works

(13:17):
to make sure that it's allhappening.
I have two other tools that I'musing that I'd like to talk
about.
One is, just straight up,movement.
Yes, movement is a way towardpersonal growth, whether it's
walking, whether it's using arowing machine, like I've been
doing lately, whether it's, youknow, going outside and playing

(13:41):
with your grandkids, movement isimportant.
It helps the energy flow andhelps us on that path toward
making change.
The last tool that I'm going tomention today is journaling.
Journaling is my go-to tool forclarity and awareness.
I have been journaling kind ofoff and on for my whole life,

(14:02):
pretty much since I could write.
In the last couple of yearsI've developed 12 core prompts
that have really providedclarity and gotten me to the
awareness and the heightenedplace of action that I now find
myself.
Journaling is really good forbringing thoughts into the light
, and once we are aware of thethoughts, we can live and act

(14:25):
more consciously.
We can explore some of thesefeelings that many of us are
feeling at this time of life,such as loss of identity,
spiritual numbness, fear ofstarting over that's a big one
Lack of purpose, disconnection,decision paralysis another

(14:48):
really big one right now, at ourtime of life.
Journaling helps to bring ourthoughts into awareness, and
only from awareness can we takeaction.
So we will dive deeper into allof these and more in future
episodes, into all of these andmore in future episodes.

(15:11):
But for now, just know thatthere are so many ways back to
yourself, and we will discoverand discuss them here together.
If you want support or questionsanswered in the meantime, go
ahead and DM me anytime onInstagram at edgeofrealpodcast.
Before we go, I want to leaveyou with a reflective prompt.
If you are a journaler,fabulous journal away.

(15:33):
If you're not, maybe you'd liketo try it.
If you're not quite ready totry journaling, just mull it
over, let it bounce around inyour brain and think about it.
The prompt is is there a partof you that you tucked away for
safekeeping, and what wouldhappen if you let her out again?
So thank you for spending thistime with me.

(15:57):
Remember you are not late,you're right on time and the
edge, it's not the end, it's thebecoming.
If this podcast makes you feelsomething, please follow or
subscribe to Edge of Real.
Following this podcast helpsyou because you'll never miss an
episode, and it helps usbecause it will help me reach

(16:19):
more like-minded people whoreally need to hear these
conversations.
This is the most importantthing for the growth of this
podcast.
While you're there, I'd betruly grateful if you'd be
willing to share an episode youfeel connected to with a friend.
I appreciate your support morethan you know.
I would love to send you mybeautiful 12-prompt journal

(16:40):
completely free, as a gift.
All I ask is you leave us areview of this podcast because
it really supports our growth.
Ask is you leave us a review ofthis podcast because it really
supports our growth.
This is my digital journal withthe 12 prompts I have used to
get crystal clear on what Itruly want out of the rest of my
life and how I'm getting there.
Spending time with thesequestions will get you from

(17:01):
discontent and lost to well onyour way to rediscovering your
true self and the beginningaction steps toward finally
living your best life.
It's one of my favorite toolsand I will unlock access for you
for free when you leave us areview.
How easy is that?
All you have to do is leaveyour review, take a screenshot

(17:21):
of it and email it to me atedgeofrealpodcast at gmailcom,
and then I'll send you access tothe gorgeous journal that will
help you drop into your truth,reconnect with the you you were
always meant to be and remindyou that you're not lost.
You're on the edge of somethingreal.
I'm already looking forward toour time together next week.

(17:44):
Love you, bye-bye.