Own who you are.

How do you feel when you walk into a room full of strangers and you start talking to them?
Are you comfortable or really nervous? What's happening in your head?
Do you feel worthy enough? Smart enough? Or do you question even your belonging in that room. What you think about yourself matters and today I want to invite you to explore your thoughts about yourself as an immigrant.
Few great questions to ask yourself:
Who are you?
What do you think about yourself as an immigrant?
What do you want to think about your roots?
Whom were your ancestors?
What can you be proud of?
What can you use as a building block for your identity? 

Thoughts that will help you stimulate the feeling of belonging:

I belong anywhere I choose to. 

I love being ..... (your nationality) I am proud of my culture. 

I love my  ...... ( your nationality )  culture and I am happy to share it with others who might not know much about it. 

How others react to me means nothing about who I am, but it means a lot about them. 

My ........ ( your nationality )  roots will support me till the end of my life, no matter where I live. I am so grateful for my ........ ( your nationality)  foundation. 


If you think you need my help  go to www.lifecoachforimmigrants.com 

Click work with me and fill out a form to schedule a free consultation. The consultation takes one hour and during that time you will tell me what the problem is and I will explain how I would help you if we were working together. 

To join our Facebook Group "Pogaduchy na Emigracji" click here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1106767306991881/

SIGN UP FOR FREE COURSE ON HOW TO FEEL GOOD HANGING OUT WITH AMERICANS WHEN YOU ARE THE ONLY IMMIGRANT IN THE GROUP:
https://shorturl.at/chyM2

Need my help?
SCHEDULE A QUICK CALL WITH ME:
https://app.simplymeet.me/lifecoachewelina

Transcript

Hi friends, this is Ewelina. I am a life coach for immigrants and today I am going to talk to you about owning who you are. 

Many of us immigrants have this shame about not being born where we live. Not being a native born American, not being native born German or whatever is the nationality of  people born in the country you live in now. 

So many of us compare ourselves to the native born, we look for differences and our brains find them no problem.

If you wanna look for what is different, your lower brain will be happy to entertain it. 

In fact that is the laziest way to interpret reality, because that is already the automatic set up you have in your head. So your lower brain scans your reality for threat 5 cycles per second, and it’s looking for what is wrong and it’s doing this to keep you safe. 

When it comes to building a sense of belonging and unity between people, this is what is  standing in our way.

And to make things worse that part of your brain is very energized, and it delivers thoughts constantly. Showing you what is wrong. This is why it’s so easy for us to find the reasons for not belonging, but this is also why we feel bad for being immigrants. 

Because that lower brain that is looking for what is wrong outside of you it will also be very happy to explore what is wrong within you. It's gonna automatically deliver thoughts like: I am not as smart as they are; I can’t succeed because I am not from here;

I can not handle this like I am expected to because this is my second language. 

Now there is evidence that is supportive  of all of that right’? If we want to find that evidence we will find it not a problem. Not a problem at all. 

I remember talking to someone soon after I came to the US in 2005. He asked me where I was from and I told him I was from Poland, Where is that? He asked. And I say: In Europe. Do you know where that is? Well he looks at me very unsure, very confused and says… South America?
 Oh my goodness I am thinking: Seriously, you don’t know where Europe is? Right? I mean my judgment turned right on.  And I walked away from that conversation with two judgements actually: he is an idiot ( which by the way is not the kindest way of thinking about someone who simply didn’t study world geography, which from what I understand is not really taught much in The US schools so he most likely didn’t know for that reason, that’s okay. But I also thought:

Nobody knows where Poland is. Nobody knows where I come from, it’s not that important, I am not that important. 

First of all it was one human being, one conversation but my lower brain made it mean it's everyone. And by the way your lower brain will be doing the same.

So you wanna watch out for words like: everyone, no one, always, never, nobody, everybody, everything, nothing… These generalizations are helpful in interpreting reality fast. And the lower brain also is trying to preserve as much energy as it can so it will give you shortcuts in understating your reality. Okay this is why this is happening, but notice that we can take one situation and make it mean that everybody now doesn’t know where Poland is, that’s what I did right? You are doing that too. Your lower brain is active in your head and it’s doing that. It might not be doing it where it comes to your identity, it might be doing it in other situations, interpreting other situations in your life but this is happening, it is happening all of the time. But be mindful of it because these kinds of thoughts sometimes are the root issue of why we feel negatively about something or someone, or ourselves, okay? So watch out for it.  

Now I back then with my low self esteem… I took that conversation with that guy and I made it mean that if that person does not know where I am from then I am not important. Have you ever done something like this?  Possibly.  

But let's explore just this one belief for a second. What is that belief “I am not important” doing to your life? How are you showing up at work when this is what you are thinking about yourself? How do you see the value of your work? Are you standing tall or are you afraid to open your mouth when asked a question?  What is that doing to your relationships? To your friendships? Are you open to sharing your wisdom or do you stay quiet? What is that doing in your romantic relationship? 

When we think I am not that important, we don’t find reasons to find ourselves as important. 

Self care is not important, going after our dreams is not important, working out is not important, diet is not important, speaking our truth is not important, and sharing with other people about where we are from is not important either. We make ourselves not important. It has nothing to do with other people, it has all of it, all of it has to do with us, what we are thinking about ourselves. DO you see? And then we feel insecure in our own skin, we feel we don’t belong. 

And then more thoughts come. Thoughts like: They don’t understand me. They don’t get me. I am different. 

Which only makes the feeling of not belonging stronger. 

And you know what happens next? We stay in our little comfort zones. We don’t try to find common ground, we see ourselves as different and oh again, our lower brain loves to support that scenario. You will be seeing the differences more and more. 

Listen, my dear immigrant friend, I want to offer today, that there is a different way to approach yourself as an immigrant. 

So what if you were to choose to own who you are, to be at peace about it instead of shaming yourself for your background? 

I am Polish. Blood of traumatized people flows through my veins, you know what that means? I am strong and I can belong anywhere I choose to. I will show up as me with my Polish accent and my Polish heart and I will not be ashamed of that because there is nothing to be ashamed of. I come from a country that has a beautiful rich culture, history filled with wars. Times of peace, and times of deep, deep struggles.  My ancestors were so strong and so am I. Does this mean that we are perfect? NO. Does it mean that we are we better than everyone else? No, it doesn’t mean that we are human. No one is perfect, but there sure is a lot in my country’s history and culture I can be proud of. 

Who are you? Whom were your ancestors? What can you be proud of? What can you use as a building block for your identity?  

Now, listen, I wanna make this really clear. This is not about you finding how you are better than everyone else. That is not the point here. It’s about you seeing your roots as something that created strength within you and today you are who you are because of that. Not feeling ashamed because of your roots. Using your foundation, using your strength as something you can build upon and as something that will be pushing you forward and giving you strength and not bringing you down not making you feel weak.  

So I gave you a lot to think about today and I am gonna leave you with these questions. 

I would strongly suggest that you take a piece of paper, write these questions down and answer them for yourself. Explore it. If you didn’t write the questions down don’t worry I am gonna include them in the description of the show so you can see what they are. 

When you are answering these questions you are utilizing the higher part of your brain, the prefrontal cortex, that’s the part that can analyze, dream, this is where you make plans and where you make conscious decisions. Give yourself that gift my friend because you deserve to feel good about yourself and about your life, and about whom you are and where you come from. It doesn’t matter where  you are from. We all, every human on this planet, lives in a 50/50 reality. Half of that reality is good and half of it is bad. This is why I am telling you, me being from Poland is fantastic but you know I do realize that it’s also 50/50 reality. It’s not all perfect over there, and it’s not all perfect in your country where you’ve come from, right?

In the 50/50 reality some of it is wonderful and some of it is not, and that’s normal, but your lower brain will be focusing on what is not wonderful. I want to encourage you to find what is positive with your prefrontal cortex so that you can feel the strength of it. So that you can use it for your life, for creating the life you want, for going after the dreams, that courage that your ancestors had, find that courage within your own blood in your own mind. You’ve got it, they’ve already proven it can be done. You can show up strong and capable. They’ve already proven it. We just have to look back and recognize it and say to ourselves: well I can do it. They’ve done it and their blood is in my veins so therefore I can. I can do it too. 

That’s what this is all about. Not about finding out which country is the best. Which race is the best. Not a case, that’s not what we are doing here…I just want. I wanna make sure that this is very, very clear. We are equal. We deal with the same BS. Not one country is better than another country, that is ridiculous nonsense. I don’t stand for beliefs like that. 

After you are done listening to me look at these questions in the description of the show, write them on a piece of paper, write down your own answers and figure it out for yourself. Figure out who you are, what you stand for? What do you want to think about your roots? Figure that out for yourself so that if someone ever questions it, it doesn't matter because you;ve already decided and you already love all the reasons why you are who you are. 

From that place you can show up so powerful, so strong, so solid in yourself. You can show up in service to other people, because you are not caught up in your own insecurities. You are not caught up in your own head questioning: Oh what did they mean by that? 

What does this mean about me that they thought this about me? Nothing. People have thoughts all day long. A lot of them are not aware of what they are thinking. What other people mean about you is none of your business. I really mean it. What you think about yourself, very important. So with these questions today I want to encourage you to figure out that piece. That is the foundation of your existence. The culture where you’ve come from, your connection to that culture, what do you think about it? What do you think about yourself in the culture you live in now? Right? All of that really matters because it influences everyday of your life. So take the time and figure it out. You deserve that clarity and you deserve the strength that comes with that clarity. 

Now I want to share with you a few thoughts that will help you stimulate the feeling of belonging to yourself and to your culture, right? Thoughts create feelings. This is why I am telling you figure out your thoughts about your country and about you living here. Who are you here? In this country you live in now? So I am gonna give you some thought that will be stimulating that feeling of belonging to yourself and to your culture. In this example I am using my Polish background, because that’s where I am from, but you can replace it with any nationality, okay?

And I am also going to include these thoughts in the description of this show so that they are there for you if you wanna copy them and use them for yourself. So here are some thoughts: 

I belong anywhere I choose to. 

I love being Polish, I am proud of my culture. 

I love my Polish culture and I am happy to share it with others who might not know much about it. 

How others react to me means nothing about who I am, but it means a lot about them. 

My Polish roots will support me till the end of my life, no matter where I live. I am so grateful for my Polish foundation.  

Alright my friends so take these thoughts, rewrite them so it fits your nationality. And  this is it for today. Like I said, I am a life coach for immigrants. Which means that I help overwhelmed immigrants figure out how to create peace and sense of belonging within themselves so no matter where life takes them, they feel at home. 

If you think you need my help  go to www.lifecoachforimmigrants.com 

Click work with me and fill out a form to schedule a free consultation. The consultation takes one hour and during that time you will tell me what the problem is and I will explain how I would help you if we were working together. 

Alright my friends, have a wonderful rest of your day and I will talk to you next time.