Aware & Aggravated - 69. The Golden Shelf Of Authenticity

Episode Date: July 26, 2026

If you’re trying to BE something, it’s not authentic. The same way you’re not anything that is observable ;) This episode is the most recent illusion that fell that all stemmed from resonating with a gold shelf, lol. Merch & Sunglasses: 🕶️ https://leoskepicollection.comSocial Media: https://www.instagram.com/leoskepihttps://www.tiktok.com/@leoskepihttps://www.snapchat.com/add/leoskepiSubstack: https://substack.com/@leoskepi?utm_so... My App Positive Focus:(Apple) https://apps.apple.com/us/app/positive-focus/id1559260311(Google) https://play.google.com/store/apps/detailsid=com.positivefocusapp&hl=en_US&gl=US&pli=1Business Inquiries:[e-mail]

An inspirational portrait of a farmer's son who rises from humble beginnings to build a luxury fashion empire. Brunello, the gracious visionary, traces Brunello Cucinelli's life journey, his commitment to craftsmanship, ethical values, and humanistic philosophy. Directed by Academy Award winner Giuseppe Tonatore, the film blends documentary and fiction. An intimate look at the Italian entrepreneur known as the King of Kashmir. See Brunello, the gracious visionary, now playing in select theaters. Hi friends. I've been doing the most difficult thing in the world, learning how to be.

I've been having some new awareness I want to share with you. It's getting like a little bit like, are we for real? Because I had this whole like awakening of myself looking at a gold shelf in my house. We'll get to it in a second. But with learning how to just be and exist, there's no getting away from the fact that you exist. Everybody likes to fight about who, what, when, where, why, how we got here and what we are. Okay, great. But the point of all of it is to be.

It's a bitch, though. When you're trying to be yourself, when you're trying to be something, you're not that. So the stillness you got to get into. Yack. That'll show you who you really are. But I've learned about authenticity.

There's nothing to try to be. If you're trying to be something, that's not authentic. So just being is authentic. And then what arises from that and how that expresses through you? Oh, that's a density. So let me just tell you about this goddamn shelf, okay? Because I think it'll be helpful.

So I'm sitting on the couch just being, right? Mine of my business. And I look over at my gold shelf. All of a sudden, it just grabs my attention. I'm looking at the shelf and I'm like, it's just so sickening. Like it's gold, it's nice. And I just bought this new picture. It's a mirror of Marilyn Monroe.

Like it's a mirror, but it's got Marilyn. and Rose face on it is real cool, but it's got a silver border around it. I want to get it reframed because I don't like silver. I hate silver. And this is where this starts because I start noticing. I'm like, wait, I actually hate silver. And I got curious for a second. I was like, wait, what's this like hatred I have to silver and this love I have toward gold? I've always been like that as long as I can remember. I hate anything silver. And I don't want to make this sound like I'm attacking, honestly, take it as you take it. I was about to say, I don't want this to sound like I'm attacking anybody who wears silver, but I'm your projection. So hi, fucking, if you feel triggered,

watch yourself, watch me. Okay. If you watch my last episode, you know what I'm talking about. But anyway, I'm looking at these two things. And I'm like, okay, let's go into it. Like, what is it about gold that I love so bad? When I look at gold, it just feels alive. It feels like home, gold just, I resonate with it so hard because of the way that it shows up and the way that it just is. And I got up and stood up in front of a mirror where I could see myself up against the gold. And I was like, I feel complimented when I'm next to gold. When I'm next to silver, I'm the thing that stands out. It's like it draws your attention toward it where you're the thing on display.

Like I feel like a need to perform or a need. to be aware of how I'm being perceived externally when I'm next to silver shit. And I was like, okay, cool, dude, you're losing it. I'm not, I'm finding it. So I'm looking to myself next to the gold. It's like if you're watching this on YouTube, you can see my podcast said I got the gold panther, got the gold meduce the head. You see me next to the gold.

I wear gold. I like gold. Imagine this being silver. Changes the whole vibe, the whole tone. It's just I would be the thing that you're focused on. It's like everything becomes muted. And silver reflects the colors that stand in front of it. So gold doesn't bend or change in the way that it reflects.

Like it always has a gold tint to it. Silver can reflect shit how it is. Like it can turn into a mirror. And I really was sitting with that. And I'm like, okay, this is not just about gold and silver anymore. This is about a way of cultivating presence and being. And I like the way that gold be. gold don't apologize for being gold there's no way to dim it it doesn't change anything it doesn't

change its reflection it just is gold there's no if-ands or buts about it it's not desperate for attention of like look at me look at me i don't see it like that my gold shelf is just sitting there it's got a bunch of cool shit on it like gold panthers and black panthers and i'll kind Like in my display case, it's real kind, right? So I'm just looking at the shelf and I just start to become envious of the shelf. And I'm like, the way that it just is, it sits there in the corner. It's not self-conscious. It's not, I'm humanizing an object now.

But just the ability for gold to show up as gold. It doesn't worry about being too bright or flashy, air quote. It's not worried about the perception of anything. It just is what it is. And that's the resonance I felt. drawn to and needed to see. So when I picture myself like walking into a room and showing up like gold, air quote, it's unapologetic. It's not looking for attention. It's not trying to get eyes on it. It just draws attention on its own. The people that look at it are people that look at it.

But my shelf isn't trying to get people to look at it. It's just sitting in the corner and being what it is. and those that can appreciate the shade and the color and the warmth of it will be drawn to it. Those who don't like gold will divert their attention from it. But I just like the way that gold shows up. So when I picture myself walking into a room, wearing gold or showing up like gold, my attention is nowhere but inside myself observing,

walking into the room that I'm in. My attention's not on the way I'm being perceived walking in that room. I'm like confident and solid when I picture that. And then when I picture walking into a room wearing silver or showing up as silver, air quote, I look at it like dead, where there's not a true expression. It's just kind of like you've accepted defeat is how I feel when I show up like silver. It's like you've accepted defeat. You're going to be more worried about how you're being perceived by others.

and that's going to determine how you walk, how you talk, how you move throughout the room, how you act when you have attention on you. Showing up as silver makes me feel unsettled when I have attention on me. Like when you get the attention, you feel the need to change yourself or do I have, is my hair fucked up? Is my shirt wrinkled? Do I have shit in my teeth? It's the external reflection of yourself and you're watching yourself, like from the

outside. You're not in your body experiencing through your own eyes. So that's the thing with gold and silver that knocked me in the noggin. And I was like, wait, I resonate with gold because that is how you're meant to show up and be. I've just assigned all of this symbols and all this shit to these two objects. But gold resonates with the truth of who and what I am. And it has the ability to be. This gave me access to the truth of me in a way that I can feel.

the way that you truly feel when you're authentic and the way that you show up. So now I kind of have a calibration for myself of like, all right, what's authentic? What's not? When you're trying silver in my own head. That's what flashes. So when I'm just being,

it's like you're just like a light and you're just like warm and it's just glowing. That's how I feel with the cold side. You know what I mean? But it requires so much honesty, like I said, because anything that comes up in your mind of a reason why you cannot exist as you are, there's a difference between thoughts and your mind running you versus the honest expression

of your soul current and how you show up. Being honest enough in the way you're perceiving things to know when it's honest inspiration or when it's you trying to control the way you're showing up and control outcomes of shit is different. So just some examples of like when I first started trying to assess my relationship to being sitting on the couch and just sitting in stillness with myself and observing all of my thoughts go by because I recognize I'm not them. If you can observe something, you're not that. So watching all of the thoughts come up of, I need to do laundry, I need to clean the house, I need to go to work,

I need to post the video, I need to do XYZ. I see all of these things as distractions that will pull you out of being. Just an example of how you can kind of notice what I'm talking about with the feeling of the need to be something other than you are, is when you put a camera on yourself. A lot of people get very uncomfortable in front of the camera. Your awareness is on the fact that you are being perceived by people, or you're being perceived in a way where it is recorded. That, just that awareness being outside of yourself causes pressure

to change and lead with your best foot forward. and change the way that you talk and change the way that you move and not be honest in your body and the way that you express. That's just a quick little example I can give where you're like, oh, okay, yeah, I get it. See, you do get it. You do. But there's so many other things that will pull you out of being. Another one is, for me personally, when I'm out in public, when you know people are looking at you, you show up a little different. I don't have a problem with people just like observing me. But as soon as I have interest in, somebody sexually or romantically, and their attention is on me.

I immediately no longer feel able to be as I am. There's like this pressure I feel to act a different way. It's like you want to hide things. And when you're trying to hide shit, that's not being authentic. That's not showing up as gold. You think my gold shelf gives a damn who's walking in the house and seeing it? Is it going to sit up straighter? Is it going to change the way it's sitting there?

No, it's just going to be there. So when I started seeing this, I'm like, wow, okay. So when I'm being perceived by someone who's assessing me for romantic interest, I don't feel okay to be. Okay, so becoming aware of it is how you kick it. But this goes against everything that we're taught. Like we're always taught we have to earn things and earn being able to show up a certain way. Like a lot of people are like, oh, once I get money, I'll be free to be an asshole.

Like, why? When most people say that, they don't want to. actually be an asshole. What they want is the freedom to feel like they can be honest and not have to deal with a consequence. There's always going to be a consequence for being a dickhead. But to show up honestly and to not be so concerned about how you're being perceived, you can give to yourself now. Showing up honestly, showing up in a gold way, showing up like gold. That's the way to do it is give it to yourself now. There's no like later. There's no excuse why you can't be now is what I've learned. Like there's there's no achievement

There's no external object That can give you the approval to be But there's a lot more to it than just like getting triggered by things Like we all know like when you get triggered by something You're supposed to reflect and see yourself and that Like there's no such thing as separation I have something that I helped my friend through the other night She says she calls me

Let me just tell you this story My friend calls me and she's been dealing with something with her boyfriend Where she's back and forth like obsessed with him And then disgusted by him She's usually like very, like head over heels obsessed and then back and forth between disgusted and wants nothing to do with them. And then it just kind of like flips back and forth. And my friend is someone who in all of the relationships that she's been in,

she's had to earn the guy's attention. So she's had to earn their love. Everything has been like an earning, push and pull. What can I do to get you to focus on me when you start pulling a way? way. Okay, now that you're pulling closer toward me, I have to act uninterested, so you keep coming toward me. It's like nothing but a game. There's no ability to just relax for her in relationships. It's always bullshit. It's always who you texting, who you talking to. They're always cheating. They're always doing something treating her like shit. And there's this constant

competition of like, who has whose attention. Who cares about who more? So she's never been in a relationship where she's not had to earn the other person's love. What she was earning was their attention because that's not love. Earning the other person's attention is all that she knows how to do. She doesn't know how to relax and be herself or just exist while she's being loved. But she was telling me her boyfriend came to visit her and him laying on the bed just like laying there doing nothing. She said she walked into the room and was disgusted.

like fucking hated him again like just disgusted by him and no matter what she did with her little attitude he didn't budge he just was okay he was just there and i was talking her through it and i'm like what is it about him just laying there that you become disgusted me knowing how she is and how she's been treated before when she's not feeling the sensation of earning love or doing something to get someone's attention, it's kind of like the only way you get attention is by trying to get it. You've never just been able to hold and maintain attention being who you are and being how you are. You're not okay to just feel loved. So it's just the whole thing of getting attention. For her to see him feeling safe in her love, she loves him and cares about him.

For her to see him just existing and trusting that and being in that makes her disgust. because there's no game to play. She wants to pull away. She wants to divert her attention away from him because then it'll make him get up and feel anxious. If she can cause that reaction in him, she feels loved because she gets the attention on her. And that external projection that she had,

she was projecting him laying in the bed. Seeing herself lay there and just be makes her disgusted. Because in her mind, you constantly have to be doing something for you to just relax, oh hell no. Like you're doing something wrong, it's bad, it's a way for your brain to kick you back into earning more attention,

earning more, air quote, love. So I said, imagine just seeing him in the bed and just going and getting in bed next to him and just laying there. You don't have to talk, you don't have to do nothing. You can just exist and be next to him in the bed as you are without trying to talk and make conversation, make stupid shit, just go lay with him and cuddle. Just lay there.

Why does that feel so off and weird? And she was like, I think you're dead ass right. With her seeing him and being disgusted by him, she was seeing herself just laying there and not earning attention. And she was disgusted by it because she's only known having to constantly be in like hypervigilance mode of how can I earn the attention? How can I make sure it's on me? She can go through his phone at any time.

She's gone through it. She knows he ain't talking to nobody else. This one's not playing with her. So it's her first time getting someone who genuinely does love her and doesn't have to do anything for it. It's like with me and her's relationship. I've been friends with her since I'm in high school. And I was like, there's nothing you have to do for me to love you.

I love you and I care about you. You're not constantly assessing and observing if I'm paying attention to you or not. There's no need to. earn my love, so what's the difference? And she said it's because I'm so honest with the way that I am. Makes she feel safe. When someone can just be honest and be and there's no game being played, only some people can accept that. And she's able to accept that for me because I'm friends with her. But when you shifted into a romantic dynamic, she's never experienced that with a partner. So love is a very scary thing. Love is something that makes her feel unsettled and like she can never

sit. It's always constant making little fights, little arguments, little shit, both sides doing it. But it's always just like this back and forth of this cycle of you can't just exist and be and receive that love because if you receive it, you're going to lose it. Like I said, learning how to be is not no easy feat because you see all the ways that you've been conditioned not to be able to be and exist as you are. And then I have this whole awakening about social media. Social media was pissing me off for a long time because it seems like everything that you see is just another ad for another product of something else that you need to have. It's like you finally are just like, okay, I feel a little content maybe or maybe I'm just trying to distract myself with social media. And all you're seeing is more and more things that triggered a shit out of you of a new product you need to buy.

Wait, wait, wait, you can't be okay yet. You can't sit down and relax. you can't distract yourself because now you're aware of one more thing that you have people telling you you need that will make you feel better or be able to exist and then you got people with the workouts and feeling triggered by people having a certain body or looking a certain way and you're like okay so that's just one more thing I have to do before I can just fucking be it's exhausting like social media is exhausting when you're not aware of your triggers are being shown to you so the thing with the body thing, style. Also, I have to buy all these things. I have to buy these bags. I have to

buy this jewelry and then I can be. This is the key to happiness. All these people are flashing his shit in my face and it's making me see I don't have it. And it's like you can make that mean, that can become a projection of one more thing before I'm allowed to be and just exist for a second. Then you go into relationships. Oh, this person got a partner. This person got a partner. Now I have to have a partner so I can finally just be. You don't need any of that shit. But what social media is is exactly what it is. It's meant to be a trigger. And I was thinking about human civilization. And as the awareness perceiving everything as the observer, the whole point of human evolution has been to get better at distracting you while you're in this hologram,

where the distractions are so quickly there. And, you're in. And you're triggered so fast. It's like every swipe with different videos at certain times. Like every time you swipe, it's another trigger. It's another emotional state. You're being flung back and forth between so many different emotional states that you don't even realize what is triggering you and what is happening. You don't have the ability to slow down.

It's just like you're looking for another dopamine hit so you can feel better and not perceive the trigger coming up in you and just keep going past it. It's become harder and harder to be. and to access stillness. And I think that's by design. I think that was meant to happen because certain people wake up and certain people don't.

And I'm not someone who's ever been allowed to live in delusion long. Oh my God, it's exhausting. It is. I've lived like 45 different lives and I'm only 28 years old. Like I don't get to just ignore the truth. The truth seeks me out like a motherfucker.

I like it because I seek it out too. But I've never been someone who's allowed to just like cope my way through things. it doesn't work. Like I just get slapped with certain awareness because my reality's been broken. It's like as soon as I'm living in a delusion too long or living in an illusion of a perception,

my reality will shatter right in front of me where I can't deny it and I can't deny truth any longer. So it's nice, but it feels like hell if you don't realize what's going on. But I feel finally broken open to the truth of things, like a massive major truth about who and what I am and it's been very peaceful.

Like triggers are now kind of fun. Like it's fun to observe things. And like just me sitting on the couch, observing the bookcase, and then it turns into this whole resonance thing. And I'm like, wait, more truth about the way you're meant to show up because it doesn't take energy to be what you are. It takes energy to be anything other than the honest expression of yourself.

that's why I was so goddamn tired for so long. I thought everything meant this and everything meant that and I have to show up this way and I have to show up that way. My attention was always focused on the consequences of if I don't get up and do these tasks, what's going to happen? If I don't present myself in a certain way, if I'm too honest, then there's a negative consequence going to come. All I was focused on was reasons why I was not allowed to be as I am and just exist.

But it's all distractions. It's all illusions. Hello. Also, most things are just a projection of what you're expecting to keep you trapped and not being your honest self. Also. Like when you want to be honest with a friend and you're like, oh, I want to be honest with them, but I don't want to hurt their feelings. You're projecting that your honesty will hurt them.

That's another way that you can keep yourself distracted. And in basically the inability to be. is seeing how being yourself hurts others. Being yourself is the biggest gift you can give to people. Because I'm someone who likes to deal with the truth of people. It's like when you start dating and people are putting their best foot forward and they're hiding all the shit about them that they're scared would push you away. That is not someone being authentic.

And that is the most irritating shit to deal with because it's like months and months in. Then you find out the truth about somebody. then I fucking hate you okay like I don't like the lying but you're able to spot it and you can feel it way easier when you're tuned into honestly being yourself like it just you're you get like a weird clairvoyance where you can like see through people I've always had it but it's really heightened right now you can feel authenticity it's like a light I talked about this when I was on tour it's like a light the light inside of you the light that you are if you don't I mean you don't I mean letting that light shine as honestly as possible is how you can recognize it in other people

because you recognize yourself and that's when I experience the most like magic in this life is like with alignment but there's nothing to align to is the thing I've had this whole come apart with the concept of alignment there is no such thing as alignment because there's nothing to align to there is just to be there's no get on track get off track like I said when trying to be something other than just being, that's what people would say is, air quote, out of alignment. But there is no alignment because there's nothing to align to. It is just the light.

Because that's another thing that'll get you trapped is the concept of thinking that you're doing something wrong. When you're not expressing honestly, it's not that it's wrong, but you feel it. You feel when you are dishonest. You feel when you are not showing up. authentically and letting the light come through you. And you feel it through so many different things. Like all the negative feeling states that you can feel, that's your signal.

That's your sign. But today's day and age is just all like, like what is it, numbing that? Suppressing that. Not looking at that. Take these pills. Take these drugs. Drink. Party.

Go work more. Go do more. Why is it not just be more? It be. Work on that. Everything comes up that you need to. And like I said, it's not that you just do nothing. It's you allow the inspired action to move through you.

And you do that honestly where you're in the moment. You're not like forcing yourself to do shit. And there's something that you have to do. There's like a timeline and you don't want to do it. You feel resistance to it. Look at it. What are you projecting into it? And why can you not just be in this moment?

Why are you living in the consequence of if you don't do it? That's a big reason why I resist things. And a lot of people resist things. is like you're living in the consequence. Why are you living in that? Okay, you're living in the fact that it's already not done. Like, huh? I feel like I've been like waking up in a whole different way.

A doctor really got them old paddles out on me. It's like clear, boom, woke my ass up to the real truth of things. Oh, it's nice. But I got a trip, I got to go on. I'm going to celebrate my sister and my cousin's birthday. So I'm going to Miami for a couple days. I'll let you know how it is when I get back. but yeah I think that's all I got for this week's episode.

If you made it this far, comment a tree emoji. Just because, I don't know. Tree. I'd like to see who made it this far into the episode. But leave me comment. Let me know what you thought. I love you all so bad. Everybody, be safe.

Take care of yourself. And I'll talk to you guys next Sunday. Go be. Damn it.