Are you true to who you are? Do you allow people’s opinions to affect how you show up in life? Self-love can be easily lost in today’s clashing ideas and conflicting beliefs. There are many opinions today that can make it hard for you to find your true identity. In the search for approval from people around you, are you still keeping track of the support within yourself, within your inner core? Walk with Dr. Kim R. Grimes and Olivia Snipes through this series as they guide you along the pathway to overcoming the challenges of self-love.
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Overcoming The Challenges Of Self Love, Part 1: Finding Your True Identity With Olivia Snipes
Falling Madly, Madly.. Did I Say Madly In Love With Who You Are!
Welcome to the first series we are having in the show. We are excited. This is the series I was telling you about, overcoming the challenges of self-love, where you will fall madly, madly, did I say madly, in love with who you are. We have a special guest. I’m excited to share this person with you but first, I want to give you a little bit about what this series is about. We are talking about you are you, unapologetically.
What does that mean? It means being true to who you are, who you were created to be, and not allowing people, your mom, dad, sister, teacher and boss’s opinions to affect how you are showing up in life. We all know people are going to talk no matter what. They are going to say whatever it is they want to say. We don’t have time for that. We will not be intimidated by their presence or the presence of others that will impact how we’re going to show up in life. This is what this is all about. You show up without pretense or hesitation to the world.
The world can’t dim your light. Most importantly, you will be inspired to share your light, gifts and talents so you can be who God created you to be. We want you to walk in your greatness and stand in your brilliance because we know society with its rigid expectations is going to be hard. It’s hard for you to find your true identity. The feeling of being lost in today’s clashing ideas, conflict, beliefs and the flood of information overwhelm us.
Most people don’t know how to be themselves so they hide who they are. As a result, it pushes them into going with the flow rather than being themselves and truly expressing who they are. With this series, we want to talk about overcoming the challenges of self-love. Having you and walking along with us in this series, we want you to begin to get on that path where you will fall madly, madly, did I say madly, in love with who you are.
I’m excited about my first guest. I have known Olivia since she was twelve or maybe even younger. I’m excited that she said yes to be on the show as the first guest. Let me tell you a little bit about Olivia before I bring her on. She is a senior studying Exercise Science at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. Throughout her life, she has faced various experiences with resiliency and grace while remaining unapologetically herself. She says, “Life events will try to wear you down, but it’s up to you to wear the armor of God and maintain faith through the storm.” As she has turned 22, her model for this new chapter in her life is rest and be assured. Thank you so much, Olivia, for joining me on this show. We can’t wait to jump in. Let me bring you on to everyone.
I’m equally as honored and pleased to be here as you are. I’m excited to get into these questions and to hopefully inspire someone.
We want to share our conversation and discussion. This is a series of what is called Overcoming The Challenges of Self-Love and Falling Madly, Madly, Did I Say Madly, In Love With Who You Are. I want to jump into this conversation because we’re facing a pandemic and life is challenging. When life is challenging, we find it even harder to begin to get on a journey or a path of self-love. What I shared earlier is you are you unapologetically means being who you were created to be with no pretense or hesitation. The first question that I want to ask you, and this is going to allow us to jump into our conversation, is what does it mean to be you unapologetically?
It’s a very loaded question. There are a lot of influences around you that will try to influence your opinion of yourself, and mold you into thinking that you are someone that you are or are not based on if you believe those thoughts. To me, being you unapologetically means not allowing anyone else to enter your aura and space, or your unique, colorful and vibrant self. It’s not allowing any negativity, projected images or projected thoughts to enter into you as an individual.
What it means to me is maintaining your aura and individuality throughout this life that’s going to try to throw soot onto your clean white clothing that you were born with. Always remember that walking through. You were born you for a reason and don’t let anyone throw any type of soot or negativity at you. They can try to throw it at you but do not catch it. It’s all up to you at the end of the day.
I love the metaphor of someone throwing soot on you, which is the representation of negativity. When did you first figure out who you were and what did that process look like for you? It’s totally different for each person. I can share with me as well, which I have. Share with us that. It is a process. How did you first figure that out?
I first figured it out at a young age. I always felt different. Sometimes I would prefer playing by myself and doing some creative activities. I felt like everyone is their own individual person, but sometimes people try to throw certain perspectives at you and try to mold you based on who they are. When I was younger, because I’m of a different nationality and my hair was a lot longer, a lot of people would throw nationality stereotypes at me. Even so, it would be difficult at home trying to be myself because a lot of times, adults don’t know how to interact with children. They forget that at one point, they were children too. It was easy for me at a young age to differentiate the characteristics in other people that I admired and characteristics that I didn’t.
With that being said, it helped me to grow into the person that I am because the characteristics that I admired such as generosity, curiosity and humanitarianism were easy for me to embody. Other characteristics that I didn’t like so much about others, which was their egotistic nature and materialism, I was able to easily push off because I knew that wasn’t me as an individual.
Although I was bullied a lot in middle school and high school, that helped to mold me into who I am also because it only made me stronger in myself as an individual. That’s why you always have to wear the armor of God because he created you to be you. Growing up, knowing that and having a close relationship with God helped me to navigate who I am as an individual, and to maintain strong and resilient boundaries and core values that helped me to remain unapologetically myself.
You spoke about your relationship with God and having some core values that helped you to mold who you are. Can we veer off and talk a little bit more about the challenges? You mentioned that you were bullied when you were in middle school and some of the ethnicity challenges that you had to deal with growing up. Can you share that with our audience as well? What were those challenges? How did you overcome those challenges?
A lot of times it would be superficial things because when I was younger, I had acne. Puberty hits everyone differently. For me, it hit me like a bus. The next thing I knew I had acne. My hair was always very long, which is a cultural thing. When I was younger, people would pull my hair and think that it was a wig. It would mainly be things about my physical characteristics that people would try to get to because they didn’t take the time to know me as an individual. Those that did, they admire me and would constantly remind me, “You are so sweet and kind.” My main core value is to be kind and remain kind no matter what.
In any situation, I would laugh along with the bullies because to me it wasn’t anything. I knew that one day I would grow up and everything that they were talking about would fade away. Another reminder is to not get so caught up in what’s going on in the moment. Growth is a process and whatever comes easy is not meant to be. “Everything good takes time,” that’s the motto that I always kept going in my head with. I’m going to remain kind through all of it. That helped me to remain and stay glowing despite what anyone had to say. I knew that the opinions of others were always going to be varying. It didn’t matter what they had to say at that very moment because tomorrow it could change. The only opinion that matters is the opinion that you have of yourself.
What I understand you saying, as you are speaking to our audience, especially to those young adults and young people, is that it’s not other people’s opinions that matter. It’s your own opinion. That speaks to the self-work that I introduced to you and to everyone who works with me, which we call Path to Greatness, where you begin to uncover your greatness and identify things that you like, love, appreciate and admire about yourself.
Negative head chatter is real. If you allow the negativity of other people to get to your mind, then at that point, you have allowed them to conquer your own value. The most important thing to hold on to is your value and worth. Remember your worth and who you are as an individual. If you don’t know who you are as an individual, then write it out. Write down things that you want to grow into or who you want to grow into. Begin to embody those characteristics no matter what life starts to throw at you. You’ll see that you grow stronger into the person that you want to be every day once you start doing that.
You might slip up here and there, and that’s completely fine. That’s what the journey is all about. It is recognizing, “That wasn’t what I wanted to do,” and not apologizing for your reaction. Your reaction is always justified because your emotions are justified. You felt that way for a reason. Don’t let anyone ever tell you that you and your emotions don’t matter. Acknowledging in yourself, “That wasn’t exactly how I wanted to react,” and monitoring the other person too.
If that person is going to continuously nag you and you already know that, learn different strategies to cope with that. Say, “This person is nagging me. I’m going to tell them, ‘You are invading my space right now. I’m going to remove myself from the situation.’” It’s simple things like that. Take time to breathe before responding to someone because a lot of times, people will poke you to get a response out of you. Don’t be that lion that bites them but be the gazelle that flies away. It’s not fleeing the scene or showing weakness. It’s showing a lot of strength. The person may try to make you feel like you are weak for doing so. In reality, it’s their ego that is offended.
I’m sitting here feeling like a proud mama as you are sharing. We said that you are you unapologetically. We are going to share techniques, tools, guidelines and insight on how you can be you unapologetically.
Also, overcome those challenges that might be thrown your way while trying to be you.
I’m sitting here and having this conversation with you. I’m so proud because I’m listening to you as a young adult, growing to be that person who God created you to be, and how you are sharing with the world what they can do. We are so quick to react. Instead of biting them like a lion, you share with them to let them know, “You are invading my space. I’m going to back off, leave the situation, move into another room or take a walk.’”
Simply turning the other cheek. There are always lessons to be learned. The instance that I can bring up that you may be familiar with is when I was living in a house with these girls. I was nothing but kind to them until they started to throw their insecurities in my face. They didn’t know that I used to be bullied and the journey that it took to become the confident person that I am. One of them spitted on my face. A lot of people would have reacted in a way where they would have done something violent. Instead, I just looked at her and I turned the other cheek. I allowed the other roommate to bring her back into the room. At that point, it showed my strength. Although they found reasons not to like me, they still respected me.
When you said you turned the other cheek, I even asked myself, “Would I turn the other cheek?” Sometimes you have to check yourself and ask that. I have learned from that. Here’s the other question based on that. Sometimes we say things that it’s easier said than done. If you can take a deeper dive into what turning the other cheek looked like for you. What was the emotion? What came up in you that made you say, “I’m not going to react the way I can react. Instead, I’m going to respond to the situation.”
It all goes back to what I said about your aura and people will try to throw soot on your aura. At that moment, I was feeling at peace. I was peacefully sitting outside and enjoying the weather. It’s feeling the peace within you and not allowing anything to interfere with that organically. I felt relaxed. When she did spit on my face, the feeling of relaxation did not leave me. That’s what I mean by holding your energy and being fortified in who you are as a person. If you are not fortified, then anyone is able to sway you to react in any way. Fortifying yourself and wearing the armor of God and the shoes of peace help you to stay grounded in peace.
How can we be our true selves when the world is constantly trying to shape us into something else? You provided some answers to that question already, but I want to put it out there in case you have something else to add as well.
It’s by not allowing anyone to mess up your journey. Along your journey, you are going to learn certain lessons about yourself and other people. It’s going to shape and mold you into the person that you want to be. Write down who you want to be, what you want to embody, and don’t let anyone interfere with that. What it comes down to is being fortified in who you are and being committed to being the best that you can be no matter who or what anyone else is doing or is trying to be. That’s what all it comes down to. It’s being fortified in yourself, mind and brain, which is a whole another entity in itself.
Fortify everything about you. Fortify your heart. Don’t put up a wall around your heart, but fortify it in a way that no matter what happens, you remain that loving and caring person that you were born to be No one is born to be hateful. Hate is a learned trait. Remembering who you are, who your creator is, and who you want to be is the core of maintaining the lessons that you have learned. Maintain who you are as an individual despite what the world might throw at you and try to influence you to do.
That’s in line with what I share all the time of how we are great. God created us and knitted us in our mother’s womb. He gave us everything that we needed. Every last one of us was great. We were born with it. We were born that way. What happens is life happens and it covers up our greatness. Life continuously happens so it is continuously covering it up. There’s a process that I introduced and share where we learn to uncover our greatness. I mentioned Path to Greatness. It’s how you can do specific steps to uncover your greatness.
It’s all in line with what we are saying about how it is a process, but you have to be willing to do the self-work. It’s important so we are clear that you are you unapologetically. We also don’t want everyone to think that we showed up like this and it’s okay, and we are going to stay here in this space, which we are not. Because life happens, in what ways do you find it challenging to be yourself? We have those challenges every day.
It can be challenging sometimes to figure out how to express yourself in a way that can be appropriate in different situations. Your personality might be loud and outgoing, but the environment might not be so welcoming to that. At the end of the day, you have to realize, “I’m going to be who I am as an individual.” Those who are attracted to it are meant to be attracted to it. Those that aren’t are not meant to.
You have to cut that negative head chatter out. For me, it used to be challenging because I would sometimes internalize the negative opinions that were thrown at me, especially depending on who they were told to me by, especially if I revered that person or saw them in a highlight, or if other people saw them in a highlight, then that would influence me to view them in a similar way. It all comes back to, “Is that really who you are?”
Asking yourself and recognizing, “That’s not true. That’s not who I am. I’m this.” That helped me to overcome any challenges in daily life. There are always going to be people that try to throw things at you and say, “You are never going to be anything.” You have to be strong in yourself and say, “I will. You might not believe me and you don’t have to, but you can watch and see.”
You indicated something very important. You said, “Stop that head chatter.” What I identify in you identifying the head chatter is the conversation that’s going on in our head. Sometimes because we are human, we can make up stories as well in our head. One of the things that you emphasize as well is, “Is it true?”
Whenever there’s a negative thought that comes and it’s about you, what I would do is I would then begin to find the facts in it like, how much of it is true? Is what I’m thinking true? I begin to search and find the truth for it. When I could not find the truth, I would then shut it down. What I mean by that is I would say to myself, “That’s not true.” I would counter it with what is true like, “I am not dumb. I am amazing,” and begin to do things like that. Can you share a process or something that you had done that helped you in such a situation like that?
The process is pretty similar to what you were saying about countering it with the truth. That is what being you unapologetically is. It’s walking in your truth, knowing your truth, and being true to who you are. That’s what I do also. Whenever someone tries to throw some negativity at you, you have to remember that their opinion, no matter who it is or what social status they have, is no more important to you than your own opinion should be and that of your creator is to you. What you will say is that you are strong, resilient, able and capable. If anyone ever tries to say anything against that, besides that or in opposition to that, then they don’t know their own value, or else they wouldn’t be trying to throw that on you.
A lot of the times people are reflecting their own insecurities. It’s up to you to recognize that and to take a step back even if they don’t. Reflect on yourself as an individual because oftentimes, what people who throw negativity out lack is self-reflection. Your ability to reflect and uplift yourself is what will set you on higher ground. Maintaining that higher ground is what will allow you to surpass any negativity in your life that’s being thrown at you.
I like what you said that people throw at you their insecurities. That is something that we don’t think about when we are in the thick of it. We don’t think about that person has insecurities, afraid, scared or is hurting.
If you think about it, they wouldn’t be trying to knock you down if they didn’t think that you were taller than them. You can’t knock down a tree that’s smaller than you.
We confess and know for ourselves that we are bonafide Jesus followers. What I mean is exactly that. I follow Jesus. I know you do as well, but there are people who don’t know, who may not know God, who may not know the Jesus that we serve. We want to be able to honor them as well. For those who don’t know about that relationship and who we know, what can we say or do? How can we encourage them to be themselves unapologetically?
Follow the same motto. No one would try to knock you down if they didn’t see you as larger than them. In that way, you don’t retaliate. You don’t say, “You are trying to knock me down because you think I’m better than you.” That is not how you respond. How you respond is with maturity, peace and showing them how you want to be treated. Always treat others as you would like to be treated. When someone tries to come at you aggressively, take a deep breath and say, “I’m not going to entertain your negativity. I hope that someday you find peace within yourself that you may reflect peace to other people.” It all comes down to that at the end of the day. Our internal environment reflects outward. It’s like a spiral.
Maintaining a good internal environment will allow you to maintain good and appropriate responses, and usher in the energies of your internal environment. That’s why it’s important to monitor how you feel and react because the more you react negatively, the more negative experiences you are attracting. The more you react and maintain a positive mentality, the more positive experiences you are attracting.
I love the phrase and how you put it out there in maintaining your internal environment because it speaks to what’s going on inside, maintaining that and looking at who you are. The exercise called Path to Greatness helps you. Share a little bit about how that exercise helped you to maintain your internal environment. If our readers followed the first and second episode or they are following us, they know what we’re talking about with Path to Greatness. They know the details of it. Share a little bit about that and how that helped you maintain your internal environment.
Path to Greatness gave me the outline necessary to begin to grow and create different branches. It was essentially the roots that sprouted the sunflower. It’s always good to have mentors like yourself and programs that help you to put things into practice on a daily basis. It encouraged the mental processing of who you are and how great you are, and internalizing that so that you reflect the greatness outward.
I am struggling not to get choked up because I remember when you were just a little girl. To be on this session with you and to hear the wisdom that you’re sharing with the audience, my heart is melting and I’m like, “That’s my Olivia.” With that, are you happy with who you are or are you still working on becoming the person you want to be? Where are you right now? We both agreed that this is a process.
I firmly believe that you can be happy with who you are and still work on yourself at the same time. That’s where I am right now. I am very happy with who I am, but I’m still learning how to express myself as I grow and as I enter more so into the world, through career settings and networking. I commit myself to the progress that I have made and I look forward to the progress that’s to come with grace and patience at the same time, which was also learned.
I used to want to rush into being the person that I wanted to be, but as I said, anything that comes quickly is not meant to. As quickly as I would feel as though I’m finally the person that I meant to be, I would get tired. It is because that wasn’t who I was supposed to be at that moment. I was supposed to enjoy myself at that moment, not rush my growth but embrace it, breathe and go with the flow in each moment. Not go with the flow of other people and the world, but go with the flow of my internal environment at the moment.
This is what I hear you are saying. It’s about being present to who you are at the moment and knowing that it’s a work in progress, yet you are present and in the moment. I also think like this too shall pass, especially if it’s a challenge, but enjoying the moment and being present with who you are and where you are at this very moment. I love to say when I talk to people about worrying about tomorrow. I’m like, “Don’t worry about tomorrow. When tomorrow becomes today, that’s when you worry about tomorrow. Right now, you stay focused on today and only today. Take it one day at a time.”
At the end of the day, worrying is wasted energy because there is no point in worrying about anything at all because it will come and go. Worrying about it isn’t doing anything but messing with your health, mental health and various aspects of your life. There is no point in worrying because everything that happens, happens for a reason. Don’t worry about that test. There’s going to be another one. Are you going to worry about that test too? At the end of the day, you are going to be worrying yourself into a gray matter of mess and self-destruction. You may as well breathe through each moment, give yourself some grace and patience, and commence yourself that you tried to do your best.
I liked that commence part because that translates to me as celebrate. That’s one of the things that I say as well. Celebrate the moments. Celebrate your small victories and find things to celebrate about yourself. Here’s what I would love for you to share. What advice would you give to someone who is still trying to find themselves or is struggling? Maybe they are having anxiety attacks or dealing with some mental issues over life itself? It can be anything. What advice can you give to someone who may still be struggling to find their two identities?
The best advice that I can give to someone who is trying to find their true identity is to take time for yourself. Journal, put on a face mask, take a nice warm shower, and do little things that make you happy. Sit with yourself and realize what makes you happy and what doesn’t make you happy. Move away from what doesn’t make you happy and towards what does. That might sound difficult but when you sit down, take a deep breath, monitor your internal environment, and figure out what makes you feel joy, then you will never go back. You will never allow anything to deter you from your happiness because you deserve to be happy.
Before we go, I’m quite sure there are people that would love to reach out to you or connect with you because you shared some powerful tidbits. You gave a lot of wisdom here. I want you to take a moment and share how people can connect with you online. If they want to reach out, how can they connect with you and reach out to you? After you do that, I would love for you to give some closing remarks to our audience because we’re talking about overcoming the challenges of self-love. This is a series where we are going to talk about a number of things, and provide techniques and exercises for everyone and anyone to do. Our objective is for you to fall madly, madly, did I say madly, in love with who you are. Please share how can someone reach out to you, and then any closing remarks that you would like to leave with our readers.
You can contact me on Facebook and LinkedIn @OliviaSnipes. You can send me an email at OSnip001@ODU.edu. Those are the best ways to get in contact with me. As far as closing remarks, I would like to say, be you, love you and remain you.
We thank you so much for saying yes, being here, showing up, and being you because you are you unapologetically. That is what is so amazing. The conversation that we are having here doesn’t stop here. We will have more guests on that we will have a discussion about overcoming the challenges of self-love because that’s what’s important. That’s why I said this is a series. Olivia, thank you. I am so honored and proud to know you, and share you with my audience and the world. You are amazing. You are phenomenal. Thank you for blessing me and everyone that’s reading this with the nuggets and wisdom that you poured out and shared. Your gifts and talents, knowing what they are and you, walking in your greatness are blessings.
Every last one of us here is receiving the blessing that comes because you are clear with your gifts, talents, and then sharing that. You touched my heart. I know I’m not the only one that feels this way. Thank you so very much for being on this show and saying yes. I look forward to inviting you back because I know we are getting started with the show. We expect and intend to change the world, and help people to walk in their greatness so that they can be who God created them to be. Thank you so much for being here with us. We truly appreciate you.
Thank you for having me. It’s always a wonderful opportunity to be blessed and be a blessing to someone else. I hope that I was able to inspire someone. Feel free to reach out to me. I will try to respond and be encouraged.
That was Olivia Snipes. There will be so much more to come. This conversation that we are having is about overcoming the challenges of self-love. It’s a series. We are going to bring on a number of guests. We’re going to have a conversation about the challenges that they had and overcame by learning how to love themselves. Not only that but also falling madly, madly, did I say madly, in love with who they are. We are in a period where a lot of our young people are facing challenges. They are struggling and having a hard time. We want to make sure that we’re here to help and support you however we can with our tools and techniques.
We would love for you to give your feedback. Reach out to us as well. We are grateful for the opportunity to share and heal because we know that in our society, we were dealing with rigid expectations. It’s very hard for you to find your true identity. We want you not to feel lost. We don’t want you to get lost in all of the ideas, the conflicting beliefs, and the flood of information that will overwhelm you if you are not careful and don’t know who you are.
Uncover your greatness, which I also called the Path to Greatness is an exercise that anyone can download from my website and do the work. Do the exercise. One of the things we say about that is it will help you to uncover your greatness. While uncovering your greatness, you will find your true identity so that you can be who God created you to be.
We are here on the show. I say that because I want you to know that absolutely no one is better at being you than you. Thank you so much for joining us and reading this as well. We look forward to you joining us on our next episode, which is a part of this series, Overcoming The Challenges Of Self-Love And Falling Madly, Madly, Did I say Madly, In Love With Who You Are. Be you unapologetically because you are you. Thank you. Talk to you soon. Bye.
Important Links
- Olivia Snipes – LinkedIn
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About Olivia Snipes
As an ambitious individual with a passion for helping others, I find that my most powerful strength can be observed in my ability to communicate with empathy, clarity and conviction. This skill coupled with the knowledge I have attained through my various job and life experience enables me to be an effective leader, valuable team member and innovator.