The Cost of Changing Yourself to Fit In—and How to Belong Without Abandoning Yourself with Dr. Patricia Hewlin
Episode Notes
Have you ever walked into a room and almost automatically started adjusting yourself?
Maybe you hold back what you really think. You soften your opinions. You make yourself more agreeable. Not because you’re trying to be dishonest, but because some part of you wants to belong.
In this week’s episode, Dr. Alison is joined by behavioral scientist and Columbia University professor Dr. Patricia Hewlin to explore the tension between authenticity and belonging.
Dr. Hewlin’s research on what she calls facades of conformity shows that continually suppressing your values and perspectives in order to fit in can lead to emotional exhaustion and disconnection. But the answer isn’t to swing to the other extreme and insist on expressing every part of yourself in every room.
We were made for community.
And we were also made to become fully ourselves.
The goal isn’t to choose one over the other. It’s learning how to love other people without losing yourself in the process.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- Why the desire to belong is a healthy human need
- How to tell the difference between wise compromise and self-abandonment
- Why staying quiet isn’t always people-pleasing
- How your core values can guide what you share, when you speak up, and when you flex
- Why “bringing your whole self” doesn’t mean bringing every part of yourself everywhere
- How to navigate relationships or workplaces where being fully yourself may come with a real cost
- What Dr. Hewlin calls the middle self: authenticity with discernment and accountability
- Why true authenticity is inherently relational
More Resources:
Listeners get exclusive access to the first 3 chapters of Dr. Alison’s newest book, The Secure Soul.
Connect further with @dralisoncook on Instagram
📖 Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here
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TRANSCRIPT
So when people create a facade, they are suppressing their personal values and pretending to go
along with the values of the organization in order to, again, survive,
to succeed, to fit in. It is connected to emotional exhaustion.
It's a bit ironic. In our efforts to fit in, the exhaustion causes us to leave.
This notion of putting on a facade, pretending and suppressing is relevant to so many contexts in
relationships. Whole does not necessarily mean everything. So we can have wholeness and choose
what's most important to us so that we can be effective in the different parts of our lives.
Hey everyone and welcome back to this week's Deep Dive episode of The Best of You.
I love today's conversation. It's right at the alley of this podcast because most of us have had
the experience of walking into a room of people and almost without realizing it,
you start to adjust yourself. I do this all the time and learning to...
This can show up in a lot of different ways. Maybe you hold back when someone asks you about work
or your kids because you don't want to draw attention to yourself. Or maybe you read the room and
realize that everybody around you has a certain set of political views or religious views or views
about the weather. and maybe you don't share those views so you just go quiet or even slide into
maybe a white lie or just sort of a compromised statement because you don't want to risk not
fitting in or being judged by the people around you. Maybe you shift yourself just enough so that
you won't stick out. You modify what you think, what you share, what you say so that you'll be
perceived as more agreeable. Maybe a little less true to your actual self but some part of you
wants to fit in you want to belong And sometimes this might be wise. Sometimes holding back your
honest opinion is being discerning in a moment. Sometimes not sharing all of the details about what
you think about your work or about your viewpoints makes sense. It's wisdom.
There's an art to being social, what we call these social skills in any kind of relationship,
in any kind of room. And we're required to be flexible, to compromise, to read the room and to
consider the needs and opinions and the impact. This isn't all bad.
But at the same time, if we're honest, healthy accommodation can so quickly and so easily become
something else. Maybe you get so good at holding yourself back,
at masking your true opinions, at reading the room, that you actually start to abandon parts of
yourself. And maybe other people know a version of you, but they don't really know what you're
really thinking, what you really care about, what really matters to you. They don't really know
those deeper layers of who you are. And the connection remains somewhat shallow or distant.
And this isn't sustainable over time. On the other hand, there's an opposite extreme that we hear a
lot about in our culture right now. And the idea is that you can never compromise, that you can
never flex, that you have to. be true to every single part of you at every single moment, that your
truth is the most important truth and that if other people can't take any component of who you are,
that's their problem. And that's also not a healthy extreme. It's not a healthy way to show up in
the world and show up in relationships. And this is why I love today's conversation with my guest,
Dr. Patricia Hewlin. Dr. Hewlin has spent more than two decades studying this very tension.
She's an award-winning behavioral scientist and professor at Columbia University, and she's the
author of a brand new book called Staying True. Her research begins with what she calls facades of
conformity. These are the ways we suppress our values and perspectives in order to fit in,
succeed, or maintain a sense of belonging. And her research has found that living behind those
facades for a prolonged amount of time comes at a real cost, including emotional exhaustion,
disengagement, and eventually the desire to leave the very environments we were trying so hard to
stay connected to. love about dr hewlin's work is that she doesn't swing to the other extreme she
isn't telling us to stop caring what anyone thinks or to always bring every single part of
ourselves into every room which isn't always wise according to what you'll hear her talk about
today instead she asks a much more interesting question How do I develop healthy,
wise connections with other people without abandoning myself? Because as you will hear her say in
today's conversation, we were made for two equally important things. One is community with other
people, and one is that we were made to also become fully ourselves. And so the challenge is
learning to hold both of those essential ingredients to what it means to be human, intention.
Dr. Hewlin's new book is all about what she calls the middle self. And we talk about this in
today's conversation, how authenticity goes hand in hand with discernment and accountability and an
awareness that who we are always exists in relationship to other people. I found this conversation
fascinating. It helped me really crack open some things that I struggle with in my own life.
We talk about how to know when compromise is loving versus when it's actually self-abandonment. We
talk about what to do when being your self could genuinely threaten your job or belonging in a
certain group or an important relationship. We talk about why staying quiet is not always people
pleasing and why you don't necessarily owe every part of yourself or every opinion you hold or
every value you have to every person or every space. I found Dr.
Hewlin's new book, Staying True to You, just such a refreshing and insightful take on an age-old
conversation. I think her work gives us a remarkably wise and grounded in research framework for
something so many of us are trying to figure out, which is how do I love other people without
losing myself? Please enjoy my conversation with Dr. Patricia Hewlin.
Dr. Hewlin, I am so honored to have you on the podcast today. Your research is just rocking my
world. These are topics we've talked about on the podcast, but you are so in the real,
real. Thank you so much for being here. It is my pleasure and honor.
Thank you, Allison.
Just when we walk in a room and we start adjusting and we start sort of tweaking who we are,
this idea of authenticity being who you are. You've been studying this for a couple of decades. And
I just kind of want to start right off with the question that I've been wrestling with as I've been
reading about this idea of a facade of conformity that you talk about.
What is that, first of all? What do you mean by that? And what led you to start studying it?
Sure. So I'll start with the second question, because the concept of facades of conformity began
when I was in banking. So before I went into academia, I worked in the corporate arena.
I was the vice president in the banking field. And I discovered,
along with my own experiences, that people were struggling being true to themselves, being true to
their perspectives, and often felt pressured to suppress aspects about themselves in order to
survive and succeed in the workplace. People have questions about, well, will I be treated
differently if I share parts of myself? Will I get promoted if I share a divergent perspective?
And so I decided to go back to get my PhD in organizational behavior and start studying behavioral
science. And that's where I developed this concept of facades of conformity.
And so when people create a facade, they are suppressing their personal values.
and pretending to go along with the values of the organization in order to again survive,
to succeed, to fit in. And when people do that, I have found over 20 years of research that it is
connected to emotional exhaustion. and there are lower levels of work engagement,
and people are less committed to the work. And so it's a bit ironic because when we suppress our
authenticity, it's so emotionally exhausting that we are more likely to try to find different
contexts or lead the organization, for example. And so in our efforts to fit in,
the exhaustion causes us to leave. or at least intend to leave so we do it because as some part of
us thinks it's how we are going to survive and get ahead but paradoxically we're actually
exhausting ourselves exactly and that is the case not only in the workplace so my research began
looking at work environments but in the past five years or so i've been having conversations with
people about relationships personal relationships, spousal relationships,
friendships, even parental relationships in terms of how do we bring our authentic selves in the
context of raising teenagers? How much do we share about our past?
As an example, when do we let go and allow them to learn on their own?
So all of those are values-based. questions. And so this notion of putting on a facade,
pretending and suppressing is relevant to so many contexts and relationships.
It's such, I love that you named that. Why do we, what is the pull?
Because I think on some level, all of us relate to it, especially when you broaden that scope. What
is at the root of putting on a facade? What have you found is the biggest reason?
why we're doing it. Do we feel insecure? Do we feel threatened? Are we just not sure? Do we not
have the skills? What is at the root of it? There are a combination of factors, but at the root is
that we all want to belong. And this is a basic human need.
And somehow we've been trained to believe that wanting to belong and fit in is a bad thing.
However, we were designed for community. And we were also designed for self-actualization,
meaning that we do want to be authentic, but we often don't have the tools to manage the two.
And so the default is, well, I'll just suppress myself and conform because I don't know how to.
do authenticity. And that's what has led me to write more about managing conformity and
authenticity in ways that we protect our well-being. That is so interesting what you just said.
We were designed for community and we were designed for self-actualization.
And as we were talking a little bit before, you we started the interview this is you know primarily
a Christian audience where we we do understand this idea of we were designed for community but we
don't always understand that sometimes almost feeling like it's a competing reality that we were
designed to become our fullest self and those two things it's so interesting just as you said that
I thought they they operate sometimes in tension in a way it seems like 100 percent and we have not
been We haven't been trained. I mean, there haven't been enough conversations about how to manage
the tension. And so in general, when humans, when we experience tension,
we want to rid ourselves from it. And so ridding ourselves from it often means to hide and so to
conform in ways that's not really healthy.
And so I see that's a great way to understand it, that because we're uncomfortable with the
tension, our default is to hide ourselves, accommodate, over conform.
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Is that primarily among women or is that across the board?
Well, there has been research that shows that women tend to be more accommodating.
And so with that, the accommodating mindset comes with behaviors to protect harmony and to defer to
others. And so that's something that women should definitely be mindful of.
A lot of it is socialized where we've been trained to do that. And unfortunately,
many, many women have gone to the extreme with it in that they're unable to protect their own sense
of self and their own sense of well-being. And so there is a way that we can be mindful of the
context. And that's really great to have discernment in a way that we know the pulse of the
environment when we walk in. But at the same time, being mindful of what am I bringing in?
How can I contribute? And that's where the authenticity and self-actualization comes into play.
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That's really good. That's really good. And, you know, I could imagine not to oversimplify,
but even I would imagine there are different types of facades. So even like if a man is socialized
to posture or be grandiose, that's still a facade. It just looks different.
percent there's research i think of dr erin reed and she has talks about men and masculinity and
how they have this pressure to be a man,
you know, in the stereotypical way so that if they show too much of their interests,
for example, in family matters when they're trying to move up in professional ranks,
that could be viewed negatively depending upon that context. So I would love,
Dr. Hewlin, I can already imagine a listener. Every relationship requires some amount of
accommodation to some degree, right? Compromise, right? So how do I distinguish between when I'm
compromising in a healthy way, setting something down because I love this person,
even maybe doing that sacrificially versus when I am abandoning myself,
when I am being inauthentic? I know this is a huge question, but I'm curious how you have
understood that as you've studied this. Sure, sure. It all comes down to values and well-being.
And so I'll start with the well-being component. We can all feel that tug and that tension when we
are not... being true to our perspectives, being true to ourselves.
We need to pay attention to that and ask ourselves, well, what am I experiencing here?
Why am I experiencing this? Is it because I'm afraid or is it because I'm feeling imposed upon such
that I can't be myself? Really being introspective. And that's one thing that I highlight in my
work, that introspection is critical. When I speak about values,
we need to be more intentional about our values. Oftentimes, we will think about values in the
context of... identity. So we have our religion, our culture,
our gender, and so on. However, we have other values that could be related to our work.
Some of us are more self-directed than others, meaning that we really like being autonomous and
working on our own. And so when we don't get that autonomy, we're being imposed upon in that value.
And that could be causing a rub in terms of how we can express ourselves. Some of us are very
achievement focused to the point where it must be excellent. And if you're in an environment where
others are like, well, good enough is good enough, that's going to be a rub as well in terms of
being authentic. And so really broadening what we think about in terms of what's important,
those values that are most important to us, making sure we're bringing them in. And if we feel that
we can't, then we need to step back and evaluate, is this context really for me? Do I need to
change? Do I need to change context? What's happening here? So that that makes I love how you're
naming those things because there's a part of me that's like, oh, I always you do. I do become self
shaming if if I'm different than, you know, others. Right. So I tend to be a very efficient,
fast worker. So I don't I never liked group projects. I never liked working with other people.
And it would sometimes. You know, maybe I was thinking in graduate school, I have friends, you
know, who'd maybe get their feelings hurt, you know, and I was just right. And so it's like, well,
I don't want to be. But you can kind of when when it feels different than the context, you can sort
of feel like what's wrong. Am I being selfish? Am I is there something wrong with me? As opposed to
I kind of hear you saying that self-awareness. This is legitimate, even if it's different.
That's right. It's a different value system. Being self-directed is important to you.
In other words, you thrive when you can be autonomous. There are others who thrive in groups.
Yes. I can relate to you with that. I like my autonomy. Yeah. However,
I do encourage us all to say, well. Maybe in this context,
I can't be fully autonomous in order for the group to move forward.
So I'll pick up maybe another value that is important to me and maybe going back to achievement.
So maybe the excellence. And so I'll push forward that value around excellence and say,
all right, that's my priority. I'll flex a little bit. when it comes to autonomy,
because I can't do it in this context. I love that. So if we think about it as values,
I like what you're saying, because we're not just one value. So maybe in that moment, I'm aware
this is a value, there's nothing wrong with it. And I also have the value of wanting to be
collaborative. I have the value of wanting to the good of the group. And so I can kind of toggle,
but that's very different. And I like how you use the word in, you know, being introspective,
because that is a different motivation, then I'm afraid of not being liked.
So I'll pretend to be something I am not. That's right. And that's where we need to move from that
and be intentional. to just take the time to say,
these are the core values that really drive the way I think,
what makes me excited about the things that I do and life and so on.
And I offer that in my... in my book that's that is out now called um staying true to you and
within that book i literally give opportunities for readers to dig in and to identify values that
are that are core to them and then it's a matter of looking at the values almost like a menu I also
call it almost like a deck of cards. It's like, what's going to be the most important suit in a
given context? What am I picking from this menu that will work best in this women's group versus
working best when I'm with my family, who I see once a year during the holidays?
I love the metaphor, the deck of cards. And again, to everything you're trying to do in the book,
which is just so helpful. I think it's so empowering. I'm playing this card here.
It's my card though. I'm playing it. It's not, and I'm playing it because I care about,
I also value this context. 100%. Yeah. 100%.
I have a story about a mom and her teenage daughter, and they were just going at it.
It just seems like they could never agree upon anything. You know, that age where it's just really,
really tough sometimes. And one thing they did have in common was they were very community focused.
They were very much into social justice and giving back to the community. And so the mom said,
look, I can rally behind this to build a better relationship with my daughter.
We're going to start volunteering together. And that opened a communication line because now they
had a shared value that was exciting. And it created an openness so that the mom could pour into
her other values that would be important for her daughter as she grows up.
I love that. Identifying the shared value then kind of helped the other ones not seem so magnified.
Yeah, yeah. And I think about, I was thinking about 1 Corinthians 9.
22, where the Apostle Paul is talking about being a certain way for certain people.
And in other words, I'm actually going to pick it up because I found it to be really relevant to
what we were talking about. And I'm looking at the New Living Translation.
I'm just taking out a sentence in verse 22, 1 Corinthians 9. And he says,
yes, I try to find common ground with everyone.
And so that principle is a principle that I bring into the book.
So the book is for general readers. But my message around authenticity and conformity is really
about how can we find common ground, particularly now where we are so polarized in so many ways,
we're losing relationships. Where can we find that common ground where we can honor our sense of
integrity and still have peace of mind? It's incredible. And I hadn't thought about that verse in
this context, but you're right. And he's definitely not encouraging us to be people pleasers. It
comes from, and that's why I love your work. It comes from that authentic self. From that authentic
self, how can I find common ground? Absolutely. Absolutely.
And in that scripture, I believe he also says something about, I have the freedom to do this.
And so when we, are concrete about what's important to us and we are thriving in that value or that
set of values that frees us up to empower others and so now the compromise is empowering versus
disempowering because we can't give what we don't have So if we're feeling disempowered and we're
suppressing in ways that is emotionally exhausting, how can we empower the people we love,
the people that we meet from day to day? That's good. So we're kind of touching on this. I really
appreciate that you say, you know, the answer isn't to be sort of the tropes in the culture,
you know, to just do you or just be completely authentic all the time, whatever that actually
means. And how, you know, there's a whole idea of bringing your whole self can actually become a
sort of trap. How have you seen that play out?
You know, sort of we know that that the facade, you know, your research has really lays out how
that's an exhaustion trap. Then you also talk about this idea that,
you know, always bringing your whole self, the answer is to be completely, you know, authentic,
whatever that means all the time is also a form of a trap. It can be. And so when we're conforming
too much, we're emotionally exhausted. When we're bringing our authenticity in a way that takes up
space or too much space or it's toxic. You know,
people say, you know how I am. Everybody knows I'm raw about things. Well,
we can exhaust others with our authenticity. And so that's where the discernment comes in to say,
hmm, how am I coming off here? Why is everyone leaving the room? Why am I the only one that seems
to be talking? So we really have to be mindful of those two extremes.
And I often say we don't want to weaponize our authenticity as well,
where we're saying that, well, I just felt that I had to speak the truth and I had to tell them
this way. Sometimes the truth hurts. That's not helpful.
It's not helpful. And so that's why we have to learn that middle.
How do we thrive in the middle where we can be authentic,
but at the same time being mindful of the context and those who are around us?
So this is this is this term you have, this middle self. Yes.
What do you mean by that? And how might that play out practically? absolutely absolutely so the
middle self is a framework that i developed to describe just what we've been talking about that
we're not conforming to the point where we are emotionally exhausted but we're not authentic to the
point where we're exhausting others we understand we understand that authenticity is relational And
that when we are authentic, we are authentic with other people. And however,
most of us, and particularly in the northern side of the world, we have viewed authenticity as
highly individualistic. Me, myself, and I, those are the only parts that are relevant.
However, authenticity is relational. So once we have that mindset,
then we see the importance of selecting those perspectives and values that will be beneficial to
the context, not just for ourselves, but to empower others to be authentic as well.
That's really what I mean by being in that middle self. That is such a word.
Dr. Hewlin, authenticity is inherently relational. Yeah, what I say and do will have an impact on
you and what you say and do will have an impact on me. We're in this together. And somehow we've
been trained to believe that authenticity is this solo project and it's not.
And so that's foundational to my research now to spread the word about this relational component of
authenticity. We don't compromise to sacrifice ourselves.
We compromise to facilitate community. Yeah.
Yeah. So it's two again, you started off. We are designed for community and we are designed for
self-actualization. And the middle self is sort of how we honor both.
I know who I am, but I value this. So I, I compromise,
which is different than I pretend or. abandon myself exactly it's it's really it's authenticity
with accountability so yeah responsibility to say that i understand that i'm not doing this on my
own and that we have to to live together and so that's that and oh i also wanted to mention this
notion of wholeness whole does not necessarily mean everything Whole can be complete.
So I bring my complete self to work or to whatever that context might be versus I bring my every
part of myself. So we can have wholeness and choose what's most important to us so that we can be
effective in the different parts of our lives.
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So let's say I'm at Thanksgiving dinner with a family member.
And I want to bring my whole self, but I like how you're saying not, it doesn't have to be,
whole self can mean a lot of different things. So I'm at dinner and, you know, one of my relatives
is starting down a, whether religious or political or some sort of.
That internally I'm like, oh, I don't like this. I don't agree with this.
This is hurting, you know, maybe it's not hurting me. Maybe that's a different category, but it's
what's a healthier middle self example there. That's not abandoning myself,
but also maybe not flipping the table of Thanksgiving dinner upside down.
and causing a ruckus that doesn't need to happen. What is a healthy example there?
Well, I love that. I think we can work with this example you just raised, Dr. Cook, regarding
getting together with family, because that's where these issues often come up.
And especially now, it could be political or anything we can imagine that could create some
tension.
Most of us know that these tensions exist. So instead of us jumping into the fire,
let's prepare ourselves and ask, what is most important to me?
Is it important for me to engage in this dialogue?
Because this dialogue is tapping into a very important value.
And if that is important to me, I understand the risk and I'm willing to take them.
Now, we may have another value that is centered around community. And so is my value around
community and family the most important thing to me when I enter that space?
And if that's the case. then maybe you decide I'm not going to engage in that dialogue because I
want to enjoy my family. Now, I'm not saying that it's going to be comfortable, but you will have
peace of mind because you know why you're doing what you're doing. I love that.
You go back to the values. What are my values? And therefore then, oh, that's so good because then
that's the self, actually, that's the self-authenticity piece.
I am doing that. I'm staying quiet because this is a value, right?
Not because I'm afraid or I'm, or I'm speaking up because this is a value,
not because, you know, I'm trying to throw my authenticity in everybody's face and don't care what
any, it's no, this is, this is important. And that's so good because when it's coming from that
values led place, it's, it's going to come out differently because it's going to come from that
true place inside of you.
Absolutely. Absolutely. And with that, that comes the discernment and to say,
well, what type of relationships do them? How are my relationships with them?
Will they respect the authenticity that I bring into the room?
Because if they don't, is it worth it? Is the cost worth it here? Exactly.
Because why do we, you know, I think about casting our pearls before a swine.
Right? So why cast what's important to us with those who are not going to value it?
And again, there's the tension. There's the tension. So we have to. be vigilant in terms of being
introspective so that we know why we're doing what we're doing. It's all about intentionality.
I know a lot of your research has started in the workplace where I think,
and it's true in families and workplaces, it's churches, this is true anywhere, but I hear a lot
from people like, what if a value really does threaten?
my job, threaten my belonging, threaten, you know, sometimes it's very real,
this, this might threaten my ability to belong in this setting. How do you walk people through that
kind of very real, you know, it's not just in my mind, it's not just they might not like me, it's I
may become a target here. Yeah, yeah. I may be kicked out of this,
lose my job, I may be kicked out of this community. Sure, sure. And I think about, you know the the
audience that that we have here of women and over the years sharing how much family has meant to
them could place question marks in terms of their professionalism i've seen situations where a
woman may have had challenges getting care daycare then they have to bring their child in it's
viewed so harshly, but if a man does it, he's seen as, oh, wow, he so cares.
Oh, look.
Right. Exactly. So now things have improved a bit.
There have been some recent studies that show that being a parent can be viewed positively,
but we still have to be careful about those stereotypes regarding women and whether or not family,
quote unquote, is going to be more important. than work and perhaps lose out on opportunities.
And that really requires an introspective conversation to say,
well, what's most important to me at this place? Do I want to withhold talking so much about my
family or do I really want to? And do I want to incorporate my family or my personal life in the
work that I do? And so. it's important to understand that we're not going to be able to change the
context. Some contexts are very toxic and we may not find ourselves being able to discuss family
matters and so on. And so then the question is, well, what can I do differently? And I always say
that the best time to find a job is when you don't need a job. And also to explore relationships
that you currently have, build a network. I talk about building a circle of champions,
people who are mentors, who can guide you into different options if the current context is not
toxic, is toxic. The other thing to think about is that, hey,
we need our jobs. And so security in terms of finances,
that's of value. Yes, absolutely. And so it could be that in this season,
we lean into the fact that I need this job. I need to figure out how I'm going to navigate this
environment until I can find a better one for me. I'm so glad you mentioned that because that's a
conversation I've had with so many people kind of offline where they'll say, I felt so much shame
that I stayed in this situation, but I needed the money. Or I had another one I'll hear is I had a
lot invested in, you know, sort of like, let's say toxic church communities. I had a lot invested.
in the people i couldn't just walk away and there's a lot of self-shame of you know if i should
have just you know left i should have just you know flipped and it was there's it's complicated and
i i love how you're saying there there is a value there underneath in in whether it's financial
security or it's that that is valid that is valid that is authentic exactly exactly and we can have
competing values where we say wow My care for my family or my care for this political identity,
that could even be a problem. There are some organizations that have a clear identity around
politics, although that's not what should be done. But you can find,
I've interviewed people, hundreds of people, and they would say, well, when I don't share that
value system, I feel pressured to put on a facade. And so there are a number of factors that can
play a role where we feel that we can't be true to our values. However,
it is a job and we need that security. And so my recommendation is don't look at the job as your
end all to satisfy your values. We assume that the workplace is supposed to be the place where
we're supposed to be able to bring it all in. And that's a very tall order of expectations.
And it takes, you know, organizations are rigid. It takes a very, very,
it takes a long time or a dramatic transformational effort for cultures to change.
And so what are we going to do? Are we going to say, well, this is this environment, I'm unhappy
and so on. Understand the environment. Understand what values are driving you to stay.
Get your exit strategy if that's what you need to do. And make sure that you have other outlets
where you can truly be. authentic to your values. That's such a good point. It's sort of a right
sizing of expectations. Yeah. And I think even you brought up that example, it's certainly true of
work. You brought up that example of parenting teenagers and like how there are certain things
about ourselves we may not fully disclose, you know, at certain points, which we need to have
places where we can, because we're honoring what I can expect of this relationship.
That's right. I wonder one other question on that. When you talked about that facade because of
fear, I wonder with the advent of social media, I think there's a lot of suppressing out of like,
I don't want to get labeled in a certain way. Because sometimes when I look online, I'm like, I
just, I bet there's so many more richer conversations going on behind the scenes. So many
conversations that are so much more nuanced that folks are almost afraid to have publicly because
of the public, you know, kind of polarizations and camps and blaming.
Right. And, and, and, and, and I have so much richer conversations with my friends offline. About
some of these topics that I'd ever be comfortable having online because of that. Does that make
sense? And I can feel like you're being a facade, but it's like, it's just, I don't, I can't have
some of these conversations publicly right now because of the cost. I don't have the. mental health
bandwidth to field a bunch of angry people on social media. I have to have those conversations
privately. I'm kind of thinking out loud. Sure, and that's where you can really build a sense of
intimacy with your friends, family. And I'm not talking about people who necessarily share the
perspectives you share. I would say that we can grow more when we learn from others who have
different perspectives and values. And that type of dialogue is very difficult to do via social
media. and i i don't recommend it and frankly there are more conversations about what i've been
calling a facade of authenticity meaning that on social media people are trying to convey this
authentic persona but it's fake
Because there's this image that we have to uphold. We have to be very mindful of that.
And now that you've mentioned that, I'm going back to children and parenting. There are studies
that have shown that the more time young people are spending on social media,
the less authentic they say that they feel about themselves.
And so social media, screen time, that will have an impact on their own sense of self.
Yeah. We have to really be careful with that. Social media is a wonderful tool,
but it's not the end of all when it comes to developing ourselves and sharing perspectives.
Yeah. There's such a pull to conform. There's such a cost to not conforming.
Yeah. And I love what you're saying. There's, I think we're hungry right now for, oh man,
that, that relational component of authenticity. I think we're so hungry for authentic dialogue
between people who differ. Right. Right. It doesn't, it, it, that's actually where the,
the, that's what we're missing in a way. Yes. Yeah.
Where there's two authentic people coming together, having an authentic disagreement in a way that
is. honoring of, and, and I, that it seems so hard to find that publicly, but,
but then I do think so many of us are having finding that privately, which gives me hope.
Um, but all the more to the point of, I, I'm so grateful for your work. Cause I think there is such
a hunger for that true, what we really mean by that relational authenticity.
So powerful. Thank you. Thank you. I was driven to write the book because I have talked to so many
people. And in my research, I've just found that so many people are burned out because they are
unclear on how to be authentic and how to do it well. And so I'm expecting that a lot of people
will benefit from this conversation. There are a dearth of resources on it,
and yours is one of the best. What is one thing as we close, as you wrote the book, that surprised
you, that just kind of made you go, oh, you know,
step back a little bit, even though you've been researching this for a long time? Yes, yes. And so
as a behavioral scientist who has been digging into the science of it all,
I wanted to talk about research findings and to connect them to our day-to-day lives,
which I've done. But I was surprised by how much I talk about myself in the book as well.
I try to be agnostic a bit and not bringing myself in.
In my research community, we call it me-search. We don't want it to be me-search.
But I had some stories that were relevant. And I was surprised by even I had a traumatic incident
when I was a child that was really very relevant to the book. I would not have ever anticipated
writing about that. And so I'm really grateful that I was able to bring some of myself into the
book, some of my family history. And so I'm grateful for that opportunity.
Yeah. And it shows because it brings that. And I know what you're saying as a researcher,
you kind of feel like you're supposed to keep yourself out of it. But actually, it actually made
the book more. kind of feel more authentic for lack of a better word right because it's it's real
it's your real hard-earned wisdom in your own life experience thank you thank you yeah and we have
yeah Thank you. We have so much more in common than not. And this, the notion of authenticity and
conformity, it's really, it's a human condition. It shows up in different ways based upon our own
context and in our cultures and so on. However,
when it comes down to it, as we mentioned earlier, we all want to belong. We all want community and
we all want to self-actualize. And so how do we do it in a way that we can, can live together a
little bit more it's just beautiful tell my listeners where they can find the book and more of your
work sure sure so it's called staying true to you and so this is actually the soft cover,
the hard cover is out and you can find it on Amazon or other places,
Barnes and Nobles, really anywhere where you like to buy books. You can find me on my website,
patriciahuland.com. I'm also on LinkedIn as well as Instagram.
Trying out TikTok, interesting space. You can find me there,
but.
Testing out my authenticity and all of those areas. That would be a great research project to do a
deep dive on how authenticity shows up on TikTok. Yes. Thank you so much,
Dr. Cook. This has been such a pleasure. Thanks for having me. You're a gem and it's a fantastic
book. We'll link to all of this. in the show notes. I can't recommend it enough,
as I keep saying, but I just think it's so rare to find work that honors that both and.
We want to belong and we want to self-actualize and both are genuine and both are real, both are
God-made and we don't need to be ashamed of either one and you're helping us.
You know, find that middle self, that way that honors the both and. And I think,
you know, I'm just thinking as we're talking, this really is, you know, Jesus says, love others as
yourself. Right. That's that. There's the both and right there. That's what we're trying to
accomplish. Exactly. We got to love ourselves first in order to effectively love others.
Yeah. Thank you for your work. Yeah. Yep. And we do that with the work. Yeah.
Yeah. Thank you. Amen. Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of The Best of You.
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