anything goes with emma chamberlain - identity

Episode Date: November 19, 2021

our identity encompasses who we are. our passions, our inspirations, our personality, how we express ourselves, how we treat others. it’s constantly evolving. but understanding it can be hard. it can be confusing. it was for me, and i know it probably is for a lot of you too, so i wanna share my journey with you guys. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello everybody, we are doing an extra episode this week. You heard right a whole extra episode. This episode is sponsored by Instagram. I'm very excited. We're going to be discussing identity. Instagram had the idea that I do an episode about identity and I loved it. I loved the idea and so I'm going to be deep diving into, you know, how my identity has evolved throughout the years.

My opinion on the concept of identity in general, advice on how you can further develop your identity and better understand your own identity. And it's going to be a really great time. So thank you again to Instagram for sponsoring this extra episode this week. And let's get into it. If I'm being honest, I had to look up what identity meant because when you think about the word identity, you know, you know what it is, you know the essence of what it is, but it's kind of a complex thing when you really think about it.

And so I had to Google the definition. The definition of identity is the fact of being who or what a person or thing is, which is still kind of vague. Like what does that even mean? In my opinion, your own personal identity is a culmination of all the things that make you you. That's a culmination of your passions and interests who you surround yourself with, how you decide to present yourself to the world with clothes, makeup, etc. Your morals are a huge part of your identity, how you treat others, how you decide to react to different types of situations. All of that

together builds your identity. And, you know, the truth is, I think that people's identities are constantly evolving. If your identity stays the same your whole life, you're definitely doing something wrong. You know, like you want your identity to evolve with you. I mean, throughout my life, my identity has evolved so many times. So many times. I'll walk you through some of my identity phases. From the time I was born until I was probably 10 years old, my identity was pretty much the same. It was kind of all in the same realm. I mean, obviously obviously I was a child, which is a part of my identity, you know. But growing up I was very into creative stuff. You know, I loved making little animations

using my iPad and clay. Like I would make little clay animations using my iPad. I would like take a photo of a little clay figurine and then I would move it a little bit and then I take another photo and then I'd string it all together in my movie on my iPad and then make little claymation animations. Okay, I don't know. I used to do that. I had a little phase where I was into drawing and painting. I loved going shopping with my mom and looking at clothes with her and talking about clothes with her because my mom is actually very knowledgeable when it comes to clothing and fashion. And so I used to talk about clothes with my mom and we would just kind of window shop together and you know, I was interested in clothes and I was really into, actually I was kind of window shop together and, you know, I was interested in clothes and I was really into, actually I was kind of into singing when I was younger. I think everybody is into singing at one point

in their life, but I was really into singing when I was younger. And so my dad would kind of give me like little voice lessons because my dad knows how to sing and was in a band for a while. And so he would help me learn how to sing and was in a band for a while. And so he would help me learn songs when I was pretty young. And we would sing together and stuff like that in the living room. Very cute.

I took it seriously though. Like, I was not a joke to me. I was like, no, I'm going to be a singer a singer bitches and then it's like fast-forward to now and literally you couldn't pay me to sing even by myself like I refuse to sing like I don't even want to know what my voice sounds like I don't know what my voice sounds like I could have a fucking killer voice and I wouldn't know because I refuse to find out I don't want to know what my voice sounds like, which is just so ironic because back in the day,

I was so into singing and I made my dad give me singing lessons yet like I literally grew up to hate the idea of singing myself. But anyways, in addition to being, you know, kind of a creative child, I would say, I also kind of had a little sassy attitude. I was a little bit of a sassy bitch, honestly, when I was like under the age of 10.

I was just kind of mean. I remember, I used to not like my neighbors and every time I would see them, I would start crying and throwing a fit. Up until the point I was probably like four years old, I would literally throw a fit every time I would see them, because I just didn't like them and I thought that they were scary. And a lot of times when people would come over to my parents' house to visit my parents. If I didn't like them, I would throw a complete tantrum and Like literally chase them out of my house. I'm not kidding my parents told me this one story about how One of their friends came over and I just really didn't like him for some reason

I was maybe four years old and I just started screaming and crying and Like pointing for him to leave. I don't understand where this attitude came from, but I was kind of a little bitch when I was younger. Definitely a little bit sassy. Even when I was in preschool and elementary school, like I would have a little attitude sometimes, although I think I mellowed out once I was in school because you know you can't really have an

attitude with a teacher so I think that being in school kind of helped me mellow my attitude. The second phase of my life was probably age 11 to say 15 where you know I was kind of going through puberty right like I was kind of going through puberty, right? Like I was kind of going from child to young adult. And I was a really late bloomer. And I didn't go through puberty until a little bit later than everybody else. And that definitely affected my personal identity because I didn't feel like a woman, you know?

Everybody else was starting to blossom, and I wasn wasn't and that made me feel kind of inferior and a little bit insecure. Um, and it made me feel like I was a child still, you know, it made me feel like I was still a little baby and I didn't like that. And that kind of affected my view of myself and my view of my identity a lot. But something that would bring me back was my passion for cheerleading. I was a cheerleader from age 11 to 15. And I did it competitively. And I was obsessed. It was my life. It was my life.

Like I remember around the time that I became a cheerleader, I also made my Instagram. And I remember my entire Instagram page for literally five years of my life was completely dedicated to cheerleading and everything relating to cheerleading. I was so obsessed. All of my friends were people that I met through cheerleading. 95% of my brain was filled with cheerleading. I wanted to be really good at it.

I loved the community on the internet that I found of other cheerleaders from across the world. I loved interacting with them. And I was obsessed with watching cheer related videos. It was my whole life, you know. Cheerleading really helped bring me confidence because as I mentioned earlier, you know,

between ages 11 and 15, I was watching all of my friends go through puberty and I wasn't, you know, I was kind of late, right? And that made me feel really insecure, but cheerleading made me feel confident again, you know, because the strength that it took to do it in the first place, like the strength that takes to be a cheerleader, you know, in general,

it's a lot. It's actually shockingly a lot more than you would expect, right? And the dedication that it takes is a lot. And the practice is a lot. And the strain on your body is a lot. But all of that, for whatever reason, brought me confidence, the fact that I could survive a three hour practice and be doing back flips and weird shit like that and being thrown up in the air and doing fucking kicking my legs around and shit.

And holding my leg up above my head and doing all this crazy shit, the fact that I could do all of that made me feel confident and gave me a sense of purpose during those years and it was so incredibly important. You know, I'm so grateful that I had that in my life because otherwise I think that I would have been really lost. And the other thing about cheerleading was, you know, the community of so many different types of people, because cheer teams have a bunch of people that are a bunch of different ages,

I got to hang out with girls that were older than me, girls that were younger than me. And that was something that shaped me a lot too, because I was spending time with people that I wouldn't normally spend time with at school. You know, at school, you just kind of hang out with people that are your age. But on a cheer team, you know, you have people that are five grades below you and five grades above you, you know what I mean. And so you get to hang out with so many different ages and so many different types of people

that you would never hang out with so many different ages and so many different types of people that you would never Cross paths with otherwise and just hearing other people's perspectives in general Help you learn and grow as a person. So I think that being around so many different types of people on my cheer team definitely helped me Develop my personality more than I would have otherwise. And having to be loyal to my team and like, you know, showing up to every practice and not slacking, you know, so that we all didn't have to pay the price. You know, like when you're on a team and you're playing a team sport, you got to be in it, you know, because it's not just you who suffers if you don't put the work in.

Everybody suffers if you don't put the work in. And that was another thing that really helped me learn dedication and perseverance. When you're the age like 11 to 15 and you know, you're starting to turn into a young adult and things are changing and stuff like that, it's really easy to be kind of a chameleon, right? You just become what you're around. You become what you surround yourself with. And I remember during those years of my life,

when I was at chair practice, I behaved one way and talked about the things that those girls talked about. You know, the girls on my chair team, like I would morph into kind of a mini clone of all the different girls on my team that were older than me and that I admired. And then when I was at school, I would morph into a literal clone of my friends at school because I didn't really have my own personal identity yet.

At that time, I think my identity was mainly just kind of copying what everybody else was doing around me. Whereas the next phase of my life, which would be ages 16 to 18, were really focused on me going from letting my interests and identity in general being heavily affected by my surroundings to learning to enjoy my surroundings for what they are, but not let them affect my identity. You know what I mean? Like, who am I as an individual? You know, like I wanted to break from the pack and not be a sheep anymore. And listen, I think that being a sheep in your developmental years is crucial.

You know what I mean? Fitting in with everybody else around you when you're a young person is almost inevitable. You know, like everybody has a phase of their life where they're just trying to fit in. And the reason for that is that when you're young, you know, you haven't had enough time on this earth to know who you are. So you look to people who do know who they are and you imitate them, you know, it makes sense, right? But ages 16 to 18 were really transformative

because number one, I started my YouTube channel. I quit cheerleading and I was in high school and I started to feel restless, you know, I was like, I've been like copying what everybody else is doing for so long and just trying to fit in and, you know, whatever, and I'm done, right? Like I don't wanna do this anymore. I felt really uncomfortable and almost like depressed.

I mean, I was depressed. We'll say that. I started to feel really unhappy just trying to fit in and get by. Like that didn't make me feel good anymore. And so I started taking little risks. I started wearing clothes that were kind of out of my comfort zone and that I didn't see other girls

in my school wearing. And I started listening to music that my friends didn't listen to. And I started spending more time with my parents and Discussing you know like what they're interested in and like you know Talking to them about what I'm interested in and I kind of started backing away from My high school community a little bit because I was like, I need to figure out my own thing without being influenced by the people in my school

because I don't know, I was like, I'm just copying what everybody else is doing and I'm just becoming a clone and it's just getting too bad. Like, I need to end. And it was a little bit scary, you know, it's a little bit scary to kind know, it's a little bit scary to kind of break away from the pack, but at the same time,

nobody really judged me or gave me a hard time. Honestly, it was pretty smooth. Like, people don't really care about what you're doing, you know what I mean? Nobody's really paying that much attention. And I really realized that during ages 16 to 18 because I started experimenting and really realized that during ages 16 to 18 because I started experimenting and I realized that nobody really cares and it's just not that deep. And so

once I made that realization, it was so much easier for me to just really start looking into what I'm into. And the product of that was, you know, I found out that I'm passionate about clothes and fashion, creating Instagram content, like things like that. Like I really love that stuff. And that's what I found from that time. I fell in love with all of that stuff in a new way. Also, music and art, it wasn't necessarily cool to be into music and art when I was in high school. Like that was kind of considered corny, but I really have always loved that stuff.

And so I kind of started to lean back into that stuff. I took art class in high school and I would put my little headphones in and listen to music in class and it was just like such a romantic time in my life like when I look back at my freshman year art class experience that was magical for me and really fun

although I was exploring who I was as an individual during that time I still hadn't fully arrived at my own independent identity. Like I was still kind of imitating people, right? But instead of imitating people at school, I was imitating people that I saw on social media. I was imitating people that I followed on Instagram, you know? And again, like I think that I followed on Instagram, you know, and again, like I think that as a young person, imitation is crucial

for forming your identity because again, you don't have enough life experience to fully form your own interests and passions completely on your own. Like you got to see somebody else doing it in order to get excited about the thought of you doing it too, so that you can then begin doing whatever that passion or thing is. Do you see what I mean? Without seeing other people doing stuff, how are you going to figure out that you want to do that too? Like, if I hadn't seen people wearing fashionable outfits on Instagram and posting them, I might not have gotten excited about that idea myself, you know? Yeah, I would say that I kind of broke away from my high school pack,

but started imitating, you know, people in the real world outside of my school community that inspired me. And in the last phase of my life, I would say it would be ages 19 to now. In the past year and a half, two years or so, I've really found myself truly doing my own thing, you know what I mean. And finally, not caring what anybody else thinks of me, finally, just doing whatever makes me feel good, whether that's with clothes, whether that's with creative endeavors, whatever that may mean. And I also feel like I'm not doing anything

to please anyone anymore. I think for a really long time, up until literally the past year and a half, two years, a lot of what I was doing was to please other people and was to impress other people. And now I don't care. I don't care about impressing anybody but myself. I just want to impress myself and that's it and

I want to listen to music that makes me feel good, wear clothes that make me feel good, create things that make me excited and that's it. That's the only criteria now. And that's a really freeing thing, but it took every phase prior to now to get to where I'm at now. You know, I had to go through all of that and that's a really freeing thing, but it took every phase prior to now to get to where I'm at now. You know, I had to go through all of that, and it's important that I did, and I have no regrets. You know, for a long time,

I would look back at my middle school in high school years and be like, ah, you know, I wasn't truly original in any way, you know. Like in middle school, I was copying my friends I wasn't truly original in any way. In middle school, I was copying my friends on my cheer team and in my school. And then in high school, I kind of started to break out of that. But I was still imitating what I was seeing on the internet.

And I wasn't truly original. And there was a period of my life where I would look back at that and cringe. But in the present moment where I'm at now, I don't cringe at that at all because I think that in order to figure out what truly makes me, me, I had to play around with some stuff that maybe didn't fit right.

You know what I mean? In order to find what truly fits right. I feel like now my identity is very different from any other period of my life. Like it's drastically different and I think that's because over the past year or so, the way that I view life has just changed so much. I went from liking to have a bunch of friends and I loved being around people all the time and I never wanted to be alone to now prefer a smaller friend group

and a close knit group of people in my life that make me feel good. And I've shifted from quantity over quality to quality over quantity. And that's been a huge shift. I have also stopped being afraid of being fully creative to my fullest extent. For a long time, I think I was a little bit scared to get a little weird with the things that I create on the internet. You know whether that's with clothing or with my videos. I used to be scared of truly being 100% creative with those things because I was scared that people would laugh at me and think that my outfits were stupid or the way that I edited my videos were cringy. Like, you know, like I didn't know. I didn't know. And so I held back a little bit for a really long time and I think that now I'm at a place where I just don't care anymore because the clothes that I wear and the videos that I create and stuff like that, all of that is for me now.

You know, I want to be excited about it. I want to be proud of it. And so that's changed the way that I create things because the only critic that I listen to now is me. I also think that an interesting point to touch on is that even though I feel like I have the best understanding of my identity that I ever have in my life, I still don't necessarily know exactly who I am. I don't know if you ever do fully have a grasp of who you are ever. And that's because it's constantly changing, it's constantly evolving, and it's really difficult to have a firm grasp on who you are, because you're you, you know? And so trying to look at yourself in the third person

and figure out like who you are in your own eyes and everybody else's eyes is just like not an easy thing to do. And it's also not a comfortable thing to do. It can be uncomfortable. And so even though I feel like I do have a good gauge of who I am and what my morals are, what makes me excited, all of that, it's still constantly evolving, constantly changing, and I don't think I'll ever have a 100% grasp on what my identity really is and who I really am.

I don't know, I don't know if I ever will. I think that in a few years when I hopefully start a family and kind of start to settle down a little bit, I think that that's gonna change my identity a lot too. Because once you start building a family, that becomes a part of your identity, being a mother or being a wife or being a whatever it may be for me is going to change my identity a lot as well.

I'm excited for that though, you know, I think in the younger years of your life, you know, your identity is all about you. But when you get older and if you decide to start a family, that starts to become a big part of your identity. And I'm curious to see what that's going to be like. I mean, listen, I have a lot of time. Okay, I'm 20, I don't want to have kids for a long time. Let's give it a solid like 12 years

and then we can talk about that again. I don't, we don't need to go there now, but yeah, I think that my identity is going to evolve in a big way when I get older and it's time to start a family and stuff like that. That's when things are really going to change. Whereas for the next few years of my 20s, I don't know how things are going to evolve, you know, because it's almost like I just have 10 years to kill before I start a family. And what happens in between now and when I start a family is just a mystery to me. Like I have no idea what life experiences I'm gonna have, what types of experiences I'm gonna have

that are gonna shift my perspective and force me to grow. I don't know what those things are gonna be yet, but I'm very curious, you know, to see what those things end up being. Although my identity is ever changing and I don't ever have a full firm grasp on it. That doesn't necessarily deter me from sharing myself with the abyss of the internet. I personally

take a lot of inspiration from things that I find on Instagram in all areas of life, truly. And I think that that's the magic of living in today's world, is that you get to see so much, you can find anything for inspiration nowadays. And that's so cool. And such a new experience for humans. for inspiration nowadays, you know, and that's so cool. And such a new experience for humans, you know what I mean? And I have always been drawn to it and I've always been drawn to sharing things on the internet.

And so, even though my identity is ever changing, I still want to share things that excite me and things that inspire me in the given moment. Because number one, it's fun to look back on. You know, I love looking back on photos that I shared years ago and seeing like what my identity was back then. You know, like that's so cool.

It's almost like a time capsule. And even though I may cringe out at some times because I've outgrown that phase of my life, number one, it's interesting to look back on, but number two, in the moment that I posted whatever image that I posted, that might have inspired somebody to do something at that time. And even though now I'm looking back at it

and I'm cringing because I've evolved so much, it might have been something that moved somebody in the moment, who knows? And the mere thought of that keeps me going. Because I do feel like sometimes I get a little bit cringed out at myself. I'm like, I don't wanna see what I was like like what I was like, you know, three years ago, like in what I was doing and what I was in too.

Like that makes me cringe. But at the same time, you can't let that stop you and I don't let that stop me. Like I know that there's probably stuff that I'm doing now that I'm gonna cringe out later, but that's almost the fun of it, you know? And that's the cool part about sharing stuff on the internet is that you kind of get to watch yourself

grow in a really different way. And also, you get to share things with other people that might inspire them to do something that'll make them feel good, you know, in some way. It's safe to say that like my music interests and my fashion interests and my overall taste in things would be completely different without Instagram because I wouldn't have been exposed to half of the stuff that I've been exposed to through following, you know, exciting accounts.

And I think that that's really interesting. I really think that that's interesting. As much as I would like to say that I do my own thing now and I do, I still do take inspiration from things all the time. I just tend to twist them into my own way, which is something I didn't do prior to now. I used to copy things to a T, whereas now I feel like I will take something that inspires

me and I'll make it mine. I just think that that's really incredible. To finish off this episode, I'm going to give you some advice on figuring out what your identity is, even though, you know, as I mentioned earlier, that's kind of a difficult feat, right? But just getting as familiar with your identity as possible, like I'm going to give you advice on becoming more in touch with your identity. Basically, it comes down to a few things. Number one, don't judge your own process. You know, if part of your identity right now is imitating things that inspire you, don't judge yourself for that. That's all a part of your journey.

Be graceful with yourself as you try to figure out who you are and let yourself go through phases and look back on go through phases and Look back on your old phases and smile at them because they made you who you are today Be graceful with yourself throughout that process because it's never ending. It's never gonna end The process of figuring out your identity is a lifelong journey so The best thing that you can do for your own well-being is to accept every chapter of it with open arms. Number two, surrounding yourself with people that

allow you to explore who you are freely. You know, surrounding yourself with people who love you unconditionally and are non-judgmental and are excited for you as you explore different things in life that excite you. Having people around you that allow you to do that is so valuable. It's such a valuable thing because having people around you that make you feel judged when you want to try something new or make you feel stupid, you know, when you're exploring something new, like that will completely prevent you from truly reaching your fullest potential, you know, you can't surround yourself with people like that. And last but not least, do your best to check in with yourself

and ask yourself every once in a while. Am I doing things in my life for me, or am I doing things in my life for other people? Am I doing things in life because they make me feel good and they make me feel excited and they make me feel confident? Or am I doing things because I'm trying to impress other people and because I wanna fit in. Ask yourself those questions and adjust your lifestyle accordingly.

You know what I mean? It's important to check in with yourself every once in a while and you can do that by writing in a journal or meditating, whatever it may be, it's so important to check in with yourself and just be like, hey, do we like what we're doing here? Like are we doing the right thing here? It's so important.

Anyway, you guys, thank you so much for listening. Thank you to Instagram for sponsoring this episode of Anything Goes and inspiring me to have this conversation about identity, which I don't know if I would have talked answering this episode of anything goes and inspiring me to have this conversation about Identity which I don't know if I would have talked about otherwise, you know Instagram inspired me to discuss this topic and so It was actually really fun and I hope that you guys had fun hanging out with me today I did I had a lot of fun and I love you all and I appreciate you all and I Can't wait to talk to you soon. I love you guys. I appreciate you all. And I can't wait to talk to you soon.

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