Hello and welcome to another episode of the Mark Grove's podcast, a solo episode that I've been really feeling into when I get an intuitive hit that I need to record something that's flowing through me, something

that is, I want to say triggering me, but that's probably not the right word, enlivening me,

giving me energy, making me passionate. Although you might be listening to this during the holiday

season, this is true at all times, all seasons of our life, because I think what I'm

going to talk to you about is correlated to family, correlated to historical relationships and historical

patterns that start, you know, the moment that we go into people-pleasing mode,

the moment that we go into a, you know, sort of adapting, chameleaning, I don't know if that's

a term verbalized, I just turn that into a verb, chameleonizing yourself, which is really

shape-shifting in order to adapt to the environment, which is very much a survival strategy that we develop as

children to be able to be who we need to be in order to feel safe.

And so if you're not familiar with when that occurs, you know, it's usually between the ages

of around zero and eight that we are sent an immense amount of messages

both from our families, our media, our culture, from society, from our churches that are saying

this is the type of person you need to be. These are the life paths that you need to choose.

This is what it means to be your gender. This is what it means to

what job you're supposed to pick, what education you're supposed to choose. This is what a fulfilling

or one that's going to make you enough money to take care of your family or to be independent.

And so all these messages were just constantly inundated with.

And so from about the ages of zero to eight that's occurring,

and we are starting to become who we need to be in order to be loved,

in order to be safe, in our families, in the world, not rock the boat.

If anything, you know, you wake up within that role,

...