Ep. 14 Judging Others Is Actually Your Fear In Disguise

In this episode, I start by talking about people who embody "Main Character Energy" and how that is a trait extroverted people usually possess. In the past, I was frequently judgmental of these 'main characters' because I felt they were "looking for attention." But I've since realized that my judgment was actually just my fear in disguise. As an introvert, I used this judgment as justification to NOT do what I was so afraid to do. 😱

If you've ever judged others or felt judged, this episode is a guide to reframe those judgments, revealing the fears that lie beneath. 🎭 You have a unique energy, whether you're an introvert or an extrovert, and it's time to look in the mirror and start walking toward the fear that you're masking. 🪞 Are you ready to step into your next 'level'?? 

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Thank you so much for listening, it truly means the world to me. I would love to connect with you!

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With love,
Andrea

Transcript

Hello and welcome to Dream Life Connection, your hub for magical personal development.
I'm Andrea Morrison.
This podcast is a blend of whimsical and grounding topics that will inspire you to live the life
of your dreams.
In each episode, we'll take a mini journey through a dreamy topic, learn some modern
magic tricks, and I'll share my stories as a wandering nomad, dream guide, and virtual
alchemist.
Thank you so much for being here.
I would love to connect with you at dreamlifeconnection.com and Dream Life Connection on Instagram.
You are meant to be here.
Well hello and welcome to a new episode of Dream Life Connection.
I'm so happy you're here.
It's actually been a while since I've done one of these longer episodes.
So if you don't already know, I have bite-sized episodes every Monday with a mini modern magic
trick.
I call it Magic Monday.
So every Monday I release like a smaller episode where I talk about kind of a unique little magic
trick and then every other week I do these longer episodes and I haven't done one of
these episodes in a few weeks because I was moving from Bulgaria to Vietnam.
And this is actually my fourth time to Vietnam.
It's my third time moving here.
And I'm just always drawn to Vietnam.
I love, love, love, love Vietnam.
And if you go to my Instagram, you're going to start seeing a lot of stories and posts
because I want to try to convince everybody to come to Vietnam because it's the best.
And something about Vietnam and just honestly Southeast Asia in general is that I feel so
alive here.
I feel so me here.
There's obviously a lot of reasons that make Vietnam an amazing place to be with whether
that's the food.
Of course, the food is amazing.
I love the people.
I love the ease of life.
And of course, the cost is very nice.
Everything's so affordable.
And yeah, like the ease of life, it's been incredible ordering a bunch of things on
Lazada.
Lazada is like the Vietnamese version of Amazon.
And so it's really the first time that Ning and I have moved not just to Vietnam, but anywhere
during our travels, knowing that we're going to be here for a long time.
Usually whenever we go somewhere, we're like my visa only allows for three months.
So we've really been moving around a lot and not really being able to feel like we can
settle.
But Hallelujah, Vietnam brought back the longer visas, the three month visas.
So then I can just do a visa run and then come back.
And it makes it so much easier because six months ago, I was leaving every single month
in Vietnam and it was so exhausting, so draining.
So then when we got here this time, we're like, all right, we're going to be here for
a long time.
And we just started ordering some fun things on Lazada because that too, it was like, I
never ordered anything super fun because I was like, well, we're going to leave in a
few months anyways.
And then I'll have to sell it.
And you know, I didn't get any, you know, self care stuff, like lotions or nice shampoos,
because it's like, it's all going to go to waste or I'm going to have to get rid of
it somehow, because I have to leave.
But now I can get the fancy shampoos because we're going to be here for a long time and
it's so exciting.
But honestly, the best thing is just the way that I feel here.
There's something about the energy here.
And I mean, I feel happy.
I've lived in Portugal.
I've lived in Bali, Bulgaria, Macedonia, all these like wonderful places, but I don't
know.
There is something amazing about Vietnam and Thailand too.
I love being in Thailand too.
So put it on your list.
Come visit.
A great tour guide, if you ever want tips or places to go, I'm a girl.
But I've been journaling.
That was actually another thing I noticed too, is as soon as we got to Vietnam, I started
journaling like crazy again.
I don't know why, but in Bulgaria, I just wasn't journaling a whole bunch.
So once I got to Vietnam, I, we have like a little desk in our room and I set it up and
it was so exciting to be able to be like, this is my desk with all my journaling stuff
and my stickers.
And I have this amazing view of the city.
And one of the things I got on Lazada is like this really cool light projector.
So it kind of looks like the Northern lights on the ceiling and oh my gosh, I'm obsessed.
So I just go in there sometimes and I journal and I just love it.
So I've been reflecting a lot just on this whole transition and being here in Vietnam.
And so I was reflecting a lot also on my quote unquote past lives.
And this all is going to tie together with, with the topic of this episode.
I want to give kind of like a little life update, but there is a theme with this.
So stay with me.
But I've been thinking a lot about my quote unquote past lives in my current life.
And I've had a lot of past lives in this one current lifetime.
So several years ago, I worked, it's so weird saying several years ago at this point now.
Whoa, I've been traveling for a long time, but I worked at a TV station for many years.
And I thought that was going to be like my end game.
I thought I was going to be at the TV station my whole life.
And then that didn't happen.
I started traveling and it kind of woke me up.
And I was like, there is more than I'm supposed to be doing in this life than sitting at
a desk and working for a TV station and promoting news, which I don't even watch the news anymore.
But my past lives have evolved a lot over the years.
So then I became a nanny, then I became a kindergarten teacher in Thailand, then I became
an online teacher to hundreds of Chinese students.
And it's all kind of led me to where I am now.
And I have a title of being a virtual assistant now, but I'm actually starting to shift out
of that title.
That doesn't really feel aligned with me anymore as well, because I don't view myself
as a task manager anymore.
I'm so much more than that.
But to be honest, my heart and my passion, it lies within dream work and not just like
our nighttime dreams, but our daydreams and creating your dream life and helping spirits
like you create your dream lives.
And I love being a coach and I love helping others.
And that's really what I'm starting to step into full time.
It's starting to sort of shift and it's really, really, really exciting to witness and to
manifest essentially.
But as I was journaling and reflecting, I was like, wow, this is insane, this journey
that I've been on in my adult life.
And here's the thing, I would call myself an introvert.
I'm a homebody.
I like being home.
I'm pretty quiet.
I socialize.
I'm very particular with who I spend my time with.
But I look at my life now as I would say an introvert.
I look at my life now and I sometimes wonder like, how have I gotten here?
How did I do that?
How did little Andrea who back in the day could not even make a simple phone call, who
was afraid to talk to anybody who was in the corner of the ballet class, not moving
an inch because I didn't want to be seen?
How did this little Andrea end up traveling the world and running her own business?
How have I gotten here?
And it's kind of incredible to see the evolution of my life.
And I always felt like a wallflower back in the day.
And so when I decided to quit my TV job and start traveling, I remember everyone at the
TV station, they were calling me brave.
They're like, oh, you're so brave.
You're doing something so scary.
And I was like, I didn't get it because I didn't view myself as brave.
I never viewed myself as like any type of leader, any type of person who would take a
big risk.
And I guess I didn't really even think of myself quitting this job and starting to travel.
It didn't seem like a risk to me at the time.
Like I was really, really scared, but I never labeled it as like bravery.
But a lot has changed in a few years.
And that's for sure.
And there's a term that's really popular these days.
And that term is main character energy.
When you look up main character energy online, it's a characteristic that describes how
a person prioritizes themselves and their own happiness.
Main character energy is typically associated with high self confidence, self respect and
self love.
And I've always loved this term because I love looking at life as if it's a story.
Like you are the main character in your own life.
I mean, it's pretty obvious and it's fun to go through your life that way.
And it was actually a huge driver for me as I began my travel journey and I started traveling
in Bali and I literally looked at my life as if it was a movie like e-pre love.
I mean, I definitely did my e-pre love journey in Bali.
Oh my gosh.
But I viewed myself as this kind of main character and I embodied that main character energy.
But I also have had an issue with this term because I feel like there's this notion that
only extroverts are the main characters.
Like it always seems like it's the loud ones, the charismatic ones.
Those are the ones that are just naturally main characters because very rarely do you
see the quiet girls go viral or become influencers or become like the main characters of what's
going on around you.
It's always the loud ones that get that attention and it feels like you have to be so outgoing
these days in order to attract a large audience.
So I always wonder like can introverts have main character energy?
Even though sometimes I embodied that I never really felt like I was this extroverted person
that deserved attention or anything.
Like sometimes even doing this podcast I was like, what?
This feels weird.
Like why am I doing this?
But I have realized and upon reflecting like I have definitely broken out of my shell many,
many, many times and you don't have to be an extrovert in order to have this main character
energy or to make a difference in someone else's life.
So here's how I started breaking out of my shell.
I think one of the first steps in order to embody this main character energy is by stepping
out of your comfort zone, by breaking out of your shell and no you don't have to be an
extrovert to do that.
You can be an introvert.
It just means doing things that are going to push the needle for you and I can actually
pinpoint when I started taking that first step of breaking out of my shell and kind
of embodying this main character energy.
And it all started from a little conversation and I will never forget.
So back in the day before I even worked for TV, I used to work for radio and there was
this producer.
I always had funny chats with him because he's like a Gen X.
He was like 10 years older than me.
So we always had interesting conversations because he didn't really understand my view
of life and I didn't understand his view because it's like we were just that like age
difference apart that it's like we are living very different lives.
But he was sharing a story with me about how he went to a certain movie alone and he went
alone and I remember at that time I was like what?
You went to a movie alone and I'm just going to be fully transparent.
I looked at him and I was like you're such a loser.
Like I don't think I actually said that but I remember feeling that and thinking that like
you went to a movie alone, wow, like that's sad.
And I'm so, I'm kind of ashamed that I used to think that way.
I definitely do not think that way at all anymore.
But honestly, that was my own projection.
And I remember that night is when, I mean that conversation planted the seed where I
was like wow.
Okay.
He went to a movie alone.
I wonder if I should try that.
Like I'm kind of scared to think about doing that but maybe that's what I need to try.
And so I ended up daring myself to go to a movie alone.
There was like some film festival in Seattle and now I remember the movie it was called
Four Grace and I dared myself to go to this movie alone and I went and I loved it and
it completely changed my life.
That one moment changed my life because it snowballed.
It was like the domino effect and I started doing more and more and more things that were
out of my comfort zone.
And I've since had this huge epiphany that all this judgment that I've had for other
people doing things that I wouldn't dare do was actually just my fear.
My judgment was masking my fear.
I was projecting.
I was using my judgment as justification that like oh if you go to a movie alone you must
be a weirdo.
And so then I felt like it was okay to not go to the movie alone even though I deep down
I was afraid.
And in reality that my truth was that I'm terrified.
I'm afraid I'll be judged to go to a movie alone.
So I'm not going to.
So I realized it was my judgment was actually my fear and my jealousy.
I was jealous that this producer was confident enough to go to a movie alone and I didn't
have that confidence.
So it was the thing that I was judging that I actually needed to do.
And we're programmed.
I mean let's be honest we are programmed to judge certain things from our society.
I always, I mean even right now like I feel it all the time I always used to judge the
word life coach.
It was hard for me to call myself a coach.
I rejected that for many years because I fell into that kind of mainstream thought or judgment
that life coaches are a joke.
I mean I've seen skits, I've seen articles, I've seen comments, so many comments about
how life coaches are a joke.
But I know that life coaches are not a joke.
I mean yes there's of course some charlatans out there.
But oh my gosh the value that life coaches actually bring and if you have ever hired
a life coach you know that.
Life coaches have helped me tremendously in my life and I'm proud to be a coach now.
I was judging coaches that I was seeing online but I knew there was that little voice in
my head.
I secretly wanted to be one of those coaches.
I wanted to be that but I was judging them because I was afraid.
Now if you're listening to this podcast Dream Life Connection you're probably more aware
than I was back in the day when I was judging my friend for going to a movie alone because
if you're listening to a podcast that's essentially about personal development and magic and mindset
and dream work and all of that you're probably pretty self-aware by now.
Okay 13 to 14 years ago when this conversation happened I can't believe it was that long
ago.
Well I wasn't into personal development.
I wasn't into spirituality.
I wasn't really into any type of growth at all.
So if you're listening to this like you're already doing a great job because you probably
already have that self-awareness.
So maybe you don't need to do something simple like go to a movie alone or I don't know maybe
you do.
I don't know give it a try if you're afraid.
Try it.
It's so much fun.
But here is the meat of the episode.
Take a moment now.
This is where I get into my life coaching mode.
But take a moment to think of what is the next level for you?
What is the next step for you?
What are you afraid of?
What is it that you should be doing and a great way to find out the next steps that
you should be taking is by asking just that who am I judging?
What am I judging?
And why?
And my guess is that the why deep, deep down is that you're masking your fear.
So what are you trying to justify not doing by judging it?
And maybe that's exactly what you need to do.
And I've sat with this idea for quite a while.
Even thinking about this podcast episode, I was like writing down kind of the outline
and I was like, all right, so what's my next step?
What is it?
What am I judging?
Who am I judging?
What direction do I need to head?
And I knew exactly what it was and it's something that's been kind of top of mind for a long
time.
But I've really noticed that I can be very judgmental of people who are consistently
present online, especially talking on camera.
So people who are talking on camera about their stories or especially talking about
their offerings on Instagram or TikTok, I'm always noticing this ping of judgment when
I come across them.
And I judge them by saying, oh, they're really vain or they just want attention or they need
validation, et cetera, et cetera.
But guess what?
I need to hold the mirror up to myself and remind myself that these thoughts are covering
up my fear and likely my jealousy because the truth is I'm terrified to show up online.
I'm scared.
And that's part of the reason why I have this podcast.
I don't have to show my face.
And there isn't a comment section where people can criticize me.
It feels safer to me.
And I do love doing this because I love sharing stories.
This is my favorite way of self expression, to be honest.
But I want to take that step further and actually show my face, show my stories on Instagram
or maybe even TikTok because I want to connect with more people.
I want to help people.
I don't want to do it out of vanity or wanting attention.
It's truly because I want to help.
And I'm so afraid of those criticisms that this fear is blocking me from showing up.
And by masking my fear with this judgment, it makes me feel like I'm justified to not
show up.
And that's not okay.
And that right there is my answer.
That is my next level.
That is my next movie theater alone step.
I mean, you are not a loser if you go to a movie alone.
In fact, I'm actually going to a movie alone this Saturday because Ning has plans already.
And I'm really, really excited.
And you are not vain if you talk on camera a lot.
I aspire to be like that and I look up to you.
And yes, there's like a little bit of jealousy because I'm not there yet, which means I need
to take those steps to get there.
So I really have to shift my mindset about social media and view it as an incredible tool
that can help us so much.
Social media, it's not a bad thing.
And that is a reframe in my mind.
It's a tool that can help you connect with so many people.
It's actually a gift.
And will I get criticism or judgment?
Probably maybe.
But self-expression is better than hiding out of fear.
And yes, there is an audience for introverts.
And it's time for us to own our main character energy.
And this has been a fear for so long for me for years.
I can't tell you how many times I've proclaimed that I'm not going to hide anymore.
I remember doing this years ago when I had a blog and I wanted to promote it on Facebook
and I was like, I'm coming out of hiding.
This is who I am.
I have this blog, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I even realized today that when I first launched my website on Facebook, I'm not even kidding.
I think it was the next day.
It was the day that I deactivated my account.
I was that afraid of people like seeing me as a coach.
So this has been a pattern that I've had for a very long time.
And I often don't follow through where I'm like, okay, I'm going to pull myself out there.
I'm going to show up on Instagram.
I'm going to do TikTok.
And then I don't.
I've repeated this pattern so many times.
But I feel intuitively like I'm finally on top of that hill and finally getting over this
hurdle, these blocks that we have.
I'm sure you have something too.
And you have these big blocks.
They can be big, big blocks.
And I fully recognize that.
It's not easy.
But I feel like it feels different this time because I'm finally doing the things that
are aligned with my soul.
I'm shifting my perspective.
I'm finally mending my relationship with social media.
I'm viewing it as a gift.
And I'm also becoming hyper aware of my judgments, my fears, and also the beautiful power and
the opportunities that social media can bring.
So definitely stay tuned.
Stay tuned.
We shall see.
And I hope that by putting this out there, it sparks something in you.
Maybe it plants a seed within you.
And it also lights the fire under me because it's time.
I've even had visions of myself doing future podcast episodes where I talk about like how
I overcame my fear of being seen.
It's going to happen.
It's going to happen.
So I encourage you definitely to pause and start noticing what and who you are judging
and then reframe those judgments.
Recognize that it's just fear and you can work with fear.
That fear is actually the direction you should head.
So take leaps in that direction or take baby steps.
Do whatever feels aligned to you.
Slow growth is okay.
Always remind yourself.
There's no wrong way to do it and just know that I support you.
I see you and I'm so damn proud of you.
Just keep going.
Keep going.
Ugh.
Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you always for listening.
I know this week is Thanksgiving week and I just want to say that I'm so grateful.
Like I could get a lump in my throat.
The people that are listening, the people that are reaching out to me and in my DMs,
you have no idea how much that impacts me.
You are all so wonderful.
I'm just so grateful.
I hope you have a very magical week and I hope you have such a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Bye bye.
See you next time.
Thank you so so much for being here.
It truly means the world to me.
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You never forget, you are magic.