We live in an audience-performer culture it is hard to know which decisions we are making for ourselves and which ones we are making for others. What you buy differently, how would you spend your time differently, how would you be differently without feeling like the world is watching?

In this episode:

• The song that started it all: “Who Are You When I’m Not Looking” by Blake Shelton 


• How hard it can be to ‘play’ as an adult
  
  
  
  • 126. The Joy of Being Mediocre (hobby without the hustle)
  
  
  • Doing things for an outcome
  
  
  
  


• Fashion, identity, and societal influences 
  
  
  
  • Simple style posts (capsule wardrobes, 30for30 challenge, dressing your age)
  
  
  • Spending habits
  
  
  
  


• The Audience-Performer culture of social media 
  
  
  
  • Influencers in the wild (article on it here)
  
  
  • What is sacred vs what is for sharing online
  
  
  • Our lives as content, for external validation and approval 
  
  
  
  


• Being part of society, while also being ourselves
  
  
  
  • 188. Motherhood & Instagram Culture (How Online Communities Impact Your Motherhood Experience)
  
  
  • Being valuable and fitting in
  
  
  
  


• Learning self-definition through the reflection of others
  
  
  
  • Moving from external validation to internal validation  
  
  
  • 134. Do you typecast your kids? (Labels + how they impact our parenting and our kids)
  
  
  
  


• Women and beauty standards of our culture 
  
  
  
  • What does it mean to be a woman when no one is looking?
  
  
  
  


• Making decisions that are true to you and your passions and preferences, how to get started in small ways
  
  
  
  • Validating the little things for yourself 
  
  
  
  

Connect!

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• Sign up for the the Simple Saturdays email (a fun email, twice a month)

Full transcript (unedited)

0:10

Hey friends, it’s Shawna, your nerdy girlfriend and counselor from simple on purpose.ca. Welcome to the simpler purpose podcast. Around here we talk about ways to simplify your home, your heart and your life. So my aim is to help us all slow down, quiet the noise, remove the distractions and just look up for a minute at your life and consider what you want to keep and what you want to let go of.

0:35

So this week, I’m a little under the weather, I took a sick day yesterday. And that actually worked out well because one of my kids needed a soul care day. So we took it slow together, we each took turns having a hot salty bath with a TV show on the iPad and warm drinks. We did some brain dumping on paper, you know, get out all those stressful thoughts and feelings inside, listen to music went and bought vitamins. It was a it was kind of a beautiful day, even though I didn’t feel great. And I think hot, salty baths, match that with a coffee and an Advil, boom, this is this is why I’m here right now, I can make some progress over the next four hours of my day. And then I’m probably going to move on to burgers and a hot toddy. Because I’m pretty sure that’s the cure for a cold. And I should be good by tomorrow. I’m sure of it, I’m sure of it.

1:25

So today I want to talk to you about a concept that has just been rattling around in the back of my brain for years now. And it’s a notion that I like to hold up to the different areas of my life. And just consider how it shows up in these different areas. So I think about it often. And I wanted to share it here because I think it might be interesting to you maybe even helpful for you too. And I’m going to share this concept by sharing some quick stories. I promise they’re all gonna end up going in the same direction. But it’s a little bit of circle time vibes right now. So go get a pillow and a coffee meet me on the circle rug.

2:02

On a cold Canadian day in February, almost 13 years ago, I was in early labor with my first child. My husband was driving us to the hospital in the hospitals over an hour away. We have to drive out of town to deliver babies. And this Blake Shelton song came on. It’s a country song and it’s called Who are you when I’m not looking? And my husband was singing it out loud. You know, he’s keeping up the vibes like he does, which is one of the reasons I married him. And I think I even snapped a picture of him just bundled up in the cold weather driving our little SUV totally chill, while I’m over there sweating bullets about going into labor.

2:39

And then as the hours went on, and the Labor said in, I was asking him to distract me. And so he was singing the song to distract me. And this song, it became our first child’s anthem, mostly against his will. He’s not into this song. We played it for him recently. He did not really like it. But I just love the idea of this song. The lyrics are, who are you when I’m not around, when the doors locked and the shades are down. And this idea of asking someone who they are without an audience, it’s a really interesting notion. To contrast the private person we are versus the performative person we are.

3:16

I remember about five years later, after delivering my first and playing Lego with my kids. And my sister was over with her kids. And I was building like a Lego house or something. And she was like, I just don’t get it. Like how do I just sit here and play Lego. And we laughed both the both of us laughed at this idea that we’re so outcome based. And we just need to know the expectations and it’s just hard to think of something to make for the sake of making it and then you destroy it. And nobody ever sees the outcome.

3:46

I think about how we show who we are to the world in how we dress. And I don’t think I well I know that for most of my life, I didn’t really care how I dressed. I did enjoy however thinking I had this hippie vibe. And though we shopped at the thrift store a lot for necessity, I took that as a chance to express myself through foil blouses and peach colored dresses and just you know really embrace that retro side of me. And for much of my life style seemed like inconsequential or something that other people did. Moving out into the workplace. For the first time out of university I worked in a very male dominated industry. And to me professionalism in that industry meant loose khakis, ill fitting polo top and some sensible black shoes. The heavier the better.

4:37

And you probably have heard me share this story in the past that my little sister basically had a fashion intervention with me took me shopping, and made me try on all these new things I never would have tried on and it felt like this whole new door opened. And I could think of how I wanted to express myself as an adult woman. I could choose things that I really loved things that actually felt like me.

4:57

So over the years you’ve heard me share a lot about mom’s 30 for 30, challengers and capsule wardrobes. And over the years, I’ve tried to curate a closet of clothes that I love and feel like me. But I still struggle with that scarcity mindset that maybe it’s not right or it’s not enough, or it’s already dated. And I really am trying to balance this acknowledgement that I’m someone who enjoys clothes, trying new things, even if they’re thrifted and Hami downs, while also acknowledging that I’m someone who values sustainability, and financial responsibility. So it’s important to me to shop mindfully when it comes to clothes. But one of the hardest things is to be mindful of teasing out what I actually like, versus what society tells me will make me irrelevant.

5:42

I read a post from Rachael Cruz, and she wrote, how to love your life, not theirs. I’m pretty sure that book is called. And she asked if nobody ever saw this purchase, would you buy it? Would you buy this thing? If nobody ever saw it? Would you just buy it for you? Or are you buying it for other people to observe it on you? It’s such a good question. Especially in this current culture, we l