The versions of you

In this episode, I explore how identity shifts depending on setting. Friends, work, and family often know only one version of us. I reflect on how expectations form early and quietly limit what others see.I share moments where different environments revealed sides of me long hidden. New spaces remove the script and create freedom to show up fully.

What is My Inner Musings?

My Inner Musings is a space for the thoughts we often keep to ourselves.
I talk out loud about life, relationships, change, and the patterns we notice as we grow.
These are real reflections from a lived life, shared with honesty, humour, and curiosity.
Nothing is polished. Nothing is solved.
Just honest musings, spoken in real time.

JC: 00:01

Versions of you do your friends know? How many of us have friends who only know us in one space? Not coworkers or acquaintances. I mean, the people who have seen our faults, who've seen the less than perfect parts, but still kinda keep you in a box. For years, my friends have known the polished me, hair done, makeup on, nice clothes, a little fancier. That's the version they kind of expect. But a while back, I showed up to their neighbors to go on an outdoor adventure, in a hoodie, a ball cap, boots. They didn't even recognize me. Not because they looked different, but because they'd never seen that side. And then yesterday, a girlfriend sent me a link to a jazz blues concert. She's like, I don't know if it's not country enough for you. And I laughed because, yeah, I love country, but I also love jazz. I seek out jazz bars when I travel. In my head, I see myself in this black dress, red lipstick, heels, in a basement bar in Paris, smoking a cigarette with a glass of wine or whiskey in hand. That's part of me too. So it got me thinking, how many sides of the people around us do we never see? Our coworkers know one version, our friends another, and then one day someone mentions a random fact, something they've loved or done for years and were floored. Twelve years of friendship and you never knew they played the piano, or that they take pictures of birds or dream of learning Italian. What else don't we know about the people we spend a lot of time with? We say we know them. Maybe we only know the version that they bring into our shared reality. Maybe it's on us to start asking better questions. We all play certain roles at work, with friends, with family. We show up the way people expect us to wear the costume that fits the scene until something shifts, a new experience, a different environment, and then suddenly people see us in a light that they didn't even know existed. Training did that for me. It was a blank slate. No one there had history with me. They didn't know I'd stand on stage and recite Doctor. Seuss poetry or win a thirty second dance battle. Those moments pulled out sides of me that most of my long time friends have never seen. And it made me realize how much of who we are depends on the setting, and how refreshing it can be when someone sees you without the script. So maybe the question is this: What version of you is waiting for a new setting to be seen?