Episode 40: Stand Tall and Be Yourself
Lily Shaw
Lily Shaw struggled with the ability to be free to be who she was since she was born. She was constantly molded by the adults in her life to act in a way that pleased them and if she didn't, they would be disappointed and love and approval would be withheld. It seemed to her that it was rare other people validated her.
Lily Shaw is a powerhouse actress, a contributing writer, and an award-winning motivational speaker who was rescued and inspired by the make-believe world of cinema at the age of 7.
A first generation Indian American, the first woman in her family to step away from tradition to pursue a creative profession, she has been a powerful voice for women’s empowerment since childhood, and now fiercely stands for social justice and equal representation.
As an intuitive and conscious speaker, she leads by example and inspires audiences to use their voice, own their gifts, and authentically become who they were born to be.
Social media and contact information:
INSTAGRAM: www.instagram.com/lily_shaw_la
SUBSCRIBE TO MY NEWSLETTER HERE: www.iamlilyshaw.com
Podcast transcript:
Damaged Parents: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Relatively Damaged Podcast by Damaged Parents where defiled lost tainted people come to learn. Maybe. Just maybe you were all a little bit damaged. Someone once told me it's safe to assume. 50% of the people I meet are struggling and feel wounded in some way.
Thank you for listening to this week's episode of relatively damaged by damaged parents. We've really enjoyed talking to Lily about how she learned the importance of standing tall in who you are. We especially liked when she reminded us every time we get through a struggle, we've learned something new.
And that might make the deck struggle easier. To connect with other damaged people, connect with us on Facebook. Look for damaged parents. We'll be here next week still relatively damaged see you then
I would venture to say it's closer to 100%.
Every one of us is either currently struggling or has struggled with something that made us feel less than like we aren't good enough. We aren't capable. We are relatively damaged. And that's what we're here to talk about. In my ongoing investigation of the damage itself, I want to better understand how others view their own challenges.
Maybe it's not so much about the damage. Maybe it's about our perception and how we deal with it. There is a deep commitment to becoming who we are meant to be. How do you do that? How do you find balance after a damaging experience? My hero is the damaged person. The one who faces seemingly insurmountable odds to come out on the other side, whole those who stared directly into the face of adversity with unyielding persistence to discover their purpose.
These are the people who inspire me to be more fully me. Not in spite of my trials, but because of them. Let's hear from another hero.
Today's topic includes sensitive material, which may not be appropriate for children. This podcast is provided for informational purposes only, and is not intended as advice.
The opinions expressed here were strictly those of the person who gave them. Today we get to talk with Lily Shaw she has many roles in her life leader, spiritual guide friend, sister, daughter, actor, and more. We'll talk about how she hadn't felt free to be who she was born to be because adults kept telling her she needed to be something different.
Let's talk.
Welcome to Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. Today, we have Lily Shaw powerhouse actress, a contributing writer and award winning motivational speaker and the first generation Indian American. We're so glad you're here today.
Lily Shaw: [00:02:50] Thank you so much, Angela. It's a pleasure to be here.
Damaged Parents: [00:02:53] Yeah, we were talking about connecting. Really wanting to make a difference in people's lives. And I think that you're one of those really neat souls that has a deep connection to the world. Am I off on that?
Lily Shaw: [00:03:06] Wow. We're starting with the deep questions right away. I think I definitely am one of those people who loves to create the world as she goes along. I do feel that I'm always inspired by the possibility of something happening of something greater than what's happening in the present moment. So I think you're quite on the money with that whole, connected.
Damaged Parents: [00:03:34] Well, Oh goodness, because we're going to get into some tough stuff. And I think sometimes the only way you can get into the tough, difficult conversations. In a podcast and in such a public forum is that you're confident in who you are and what you stand for. And then that real desire to connect, which is where I was going with that question.
And one of the things that you had said in your pre-interview questionnaire was I think I was meant to be the answer to both my. Parents' prayers and their revenge on the world from an early age. And I was hoping you could explain that a little deeper because I have an idea of what it means, but I think I'm totally off.
Lily Shaw: [00:04:20] Probably not. Yeah, I, was the first born of my parents and, my parents both of them are self-made people. My dad was, my mom is, and in the sense that they had to face a lot of obstacles to achieve, they had definitely achieved a certain amount of status in their life.
Right. in India, I mean, they were living this. Upper middle-class lifestyle. My brother and I went to private schools. There was a certain amount of lifestyle that they created, but it came at a very heavy price in the sense that they had to work really hard. They have to form their own life journey.
At times like my dad, he had to, break away from his family. And like, my mom had to make a lot of, adjustments and lot of compromises in order to create this life that they could. Create independently and then also together, my parents always had very high expectations of me.
Right. I was always expected to do a lot and to be a lot. And early on, you don't think about these things and they just feel part of you. But as I got older and started understanding life, I got to see their sadness and I got to see their struggles. And, and then it's started to kind of make sense why my parents pushed me and not even just me and also my brother because I think inherently, they wanted us to.
Protect from the world. And they also wanted a strong enough to face the world. So I think in me, they were hoping to not create and not repeat history. If that makes sense. So I do think that my parents having high expectations of me was something that's been the motivating factor in my life but I also see that it comes out of sadness and it also comes out of this place of, wanting to be more and then finding.
Themselves, not quite being there. So I think when they had me, they thought that, Oh, all the wrongs can not be corrected.
Damaged Parents: [00:06:17] Oh, okay. That's a really interesting conclusion for a daughter to come to, to see that and have such great empathy for their parents when or at what point in your life were you able to, because I'm thinking that you had to declare your independence. Before you gained that empathy. And so at what, what happened?
Tell us about your journey.
Lily Shaw: [00:06:41] I was raised to be independent and it was independence within the confines of, my parents had their idea of who they wanted me to be. Right. So as much as I became the person that they wanted to me to be, I also was my own person.
I had my own ideas so I think I was just naturally in that position where. I was both supported and then not by my parents, if that makes sense. I was able to be myself and yet there was like a place beyond which my parents were probably uncomfortable if I went there.
Right. So my journey as a child started. With me kind of pushing their boundaries right away, because I had been raised to be independent and to be like independent, not just in actions, but also in thought and mind. And then I naturally was that person. I think I pushed them beyond what they were ready for very early on.
So that was like one aspect of it. And then the other thing was also just being a girl who was not raised to be the typical lady, so to speak and in, in the Indian culture. So I was. Put in that position of standing up for myself, even when I didn't want to, because I was being asked to fit into a role of that, of being a traditional Indian woman and my sensibilities.
Coupled with my parents, upbringing was pushing me in a different direction. So I, from a very early on, had to fight for myself, had to learn, to stand up for myself, protect myself. And I didn't always do it in the most healthy way possible, obviously, as you're growing up, but I did get progressively independent as an and progressively strong as I grew up.
Damaged Parents: [00:08:30] What I think I heard you say is in the Indian culture, there is this idealistic way that as a woman is supposed to behave and that at home, you were learning to be extremely independent, which sounds like it doesn't match with that cultural identity of a woman and that caused a conflict, not just at home, but also maybe out in society.
Lily Shaw: [00:08:55] Like, I can look back at that stuff today and I can say, yeah, it definitely did. But back in the day when I was growing up, it just felt like I was being myself. Right. I was just this person who was naturally driven to do these things.
And my parents were not saying no to me right. So I was just used to getting things. At home and being, and if I wanted to try something new, I would, if I wanted to dance, I would, if I wanted to, like my parents didn't really like create this boundary, which then as I stepped out into the world, there was this.
Absolute boundary of like, well, you're a woman, so you shouldn't really be focused on dancing and acting. You should be focused on cooking and cleaning and taking care of your man because that's going to be your ultimate job. So that was the contrast that I was introduced to very early on.
And my parents were on my side for a very long time. And then after my dad passed away at that conversation kind of changed with the society. So that's like that started another wave of my life experience.
Damaged Parents: [00:10:06] So once dad passed away it changed. Were you still needing support from home and then, so your role changed at home or was it just dad passed away and that's what changed? I don't know.
Lily Shaw: [00:10:19] A little bit of both, I would say definitely in the cultural sphere, the expectation became the sense of and this is again, my understanding as, 13, 14 year old. So I want to be very careful about how I categorize this, but like, I got the sense that.
Society, the world around us was telling us that the life that we had gotten accustomed to was no longer our life because we didn't have a man's support. But then I had my mom who was kind of was on the other side going no, nothing really has changed. You're still gonna achieve the values, the things that ambitions, all of that stuff doesn't really change.
We're still gonna hold on to that. But the real struggle that happened is I got to see how difficult it is for a woman to make that statement and then stay true to it because the world that impedes in and says, Oh no, as a woman, you cannot do what you have been wanting to do. You're going to have to do what we are comfortable with.
So that's where it changed for me. So I did absolutely grow up, but I had grown up before that also like, as you grow. You just grow up. There's nothing you can do about life, right. But yeah, there was a palpable kind of shift in how I saw the world. For the first time I understood the diabolical, the sort of dichotomy of what's said, and what's actually done.
Damaged Parents: [00:11:38] That's pretty young to recognize that I would think,
Lily Shaw: [00:11:41] yeah, thank you. I guess.
Damaged Parents: [00:11:44] I just, I don't know. I'm just thinking. Wow. I don't think I knew that at 13 or 14 and,
Lily Shaw: [00:11:50] I think it happens for me because you're right. I did have to step up and I did essentially become the second adult in my life, in my home, which tends to happen when you lose a parent. So I think that definitely was an aspect that helped me see the world in a different light, but I think I was having these deeper revelations because I was pushing the envelope because I was not living within the confines of what was acceptable.
So I was introduced to this kind of hypocrisy very early on because I was a girl who was, into sports, into dancing. I was overweight. I was not the prettiest girl around. I was also sort of, I. Was a little bit of a tomboy. So there was a lot of things about me that weren't acceptable. So, and I had ambition and I was good and I was talented, which brought on, the other level of hatred or jealousy and resentment, so I had to deal with things early on because I was already on the front lines of, adulthood of like being myself, if that makes sense, you
Damaged Parents: [00:12:57] It really does make a lot of sense actually to me.
Lily Shaw: [00:13:00] Okay. Because I was like, I don't want to ramble.
Damaged Parents: [00:13:03] Yeah, no, no. It makes a lot of sense to me because being true to yourself, which is what your parents really supported, was not being true to what society and you're on I'm trying to think of, I don't know, Indian culture very deeply. I haven't researched it or anything like that.
But I'm thinking you're on the edge of that transition to what it means to be a woman in that culture of that, what that means changing the definition of what it means to be a woman in that culture, I think is starting to shift from.
Lily Shaw: [00:13:36] A hundred percent. You're absolutely right on the money. I was definitely one of, at least at the time, it felt like it was just me. And of course the friends, my friends, they were also going through that in their families when they. Or being sort of these first groups of women who were wanting to do different things and sort of test the limits of what society permitted, so to speak.
So it wasn't just me. There was a lot of girls in my class. My classmates were also kind of experiencing that kind of cultural shift in their houses. But for me, it was a lot more pronounced because. I was doing a lot of things. So, you know, it wasn't just that I was good in school, but I was also good in dancing.
I was also, you know, so there was a lot of things. So the more good you are, the more you're considered a threat, unfortunately, especially as a woman, so I had to deal with the jealousy and the resentment and the threat, way more than maybe some of my friends did.
Damaged Parents: [00:14:30] So how hard was it for you to keep doing, being true to yourself? If you will, when all of those challenges were coming at you, with all those judgements and I'm certain, there was probably bullying and things like that. What feelings were there. And then how did you keep going?
Lily Shaw: [00:14:48] I was, I gotta say I was pretty disconnected from the world. It's also the reason why I'm an actress, because I learned to hide into my imagination very early on. So, one of the places where I would just not feel any pressure, anything was like, I would disappear into the world of cinema. Like I would watch movies, I would act I would dance.
So that kind of became a refuge for me. And Movies was like the one place where I would just forget everything around me that was happening. So that's the reason I'm an actress today because it's the one place where I don't feel pressured to be anything to just live and to just be myself.
So acting and performing and dancing sort of became that outlet for me. That's like a huge reason of why, how I was able to survive. But on top of that, I think. I was also. At the time I was just, you're just living your life as a teenager. You don't, or at least I was, and you don't really think about these kinds of things.
Right? You don't think that you're being unnecessarily judged. You don't think that you're being unnecessarily questioned. And when I was in India, my mom was a big wall. So if somebody attacked me, she was there to kind of protect me a little bit. So I did have her sort of, by my side a little bit, but.
I learned to revel honestly, in the hatred, I learned to sort of accept it, I didn't know, frankly, that you could. B that there was any other way to be. I just knew that if you were doing something, if you were excelling at something, you are going to be hated, you, people will compete with you.
People will try to bring you down. So that kind of mentality, it's something that, is there with me even today, which frankly I would like to not live with anymore, but I have. I've come to accept that. That's an aspect of me. I now understand that if you are a woman who's putting yourself outside of acceptable norms, or like in America.
If you are a woman of color who wants to be a movie a movie actress or a film actor or TV actress, then you just know that there's going to be a certain amount of hatred. That's going to come your way I didn't at the time. I was just kinda like, okay, it's competition. And I didn't even think about it.
And I was just living my life. But now that I look back at it, I realized that I just kind of made peace with the hatred, which I wish I didn't have to, but
Damaged Parents: [00:17:07] maybe that's not such a bad thing. I don't know what that's. That's interesting because I think even, I've struggled with things like that too. And it's without just letting those people be who they are, the trolls, if you will, in our, lives right.
Lily Shaw: [00:17:26] Right, right, right.
Damaged Parents: [00:17:27] Then, then gosh, what am I trying to say?
I taking it personally and not letting them own their troll-ness, if you will, then it injures me more than anything. So I think being able to be at peace would be well quite peaceful, actually.
Lily Shaw: [00:17:46] Thank you. I mean, it was, but I don't want to create a false picture with your listeners because. It was something that I had to deal with when I was a grownup, because, you start to understand in my twenties, I had to deal finally come to terms with the fact that I was hated and that it was not okay for people to hate me this much.
Especially after I came to LA and started. Really experiencing those kinds of like firsthand, discrimination and massage any and all of that abuse. That's when I kind of had to go back and, re orient myself and understand that, none of this is acceptable. It shouldn't be this hard for a woman to, you shouldn't be constantly punished, which is kind of what it feels like now that I have done all of the emotional processing and the spiritual work that involves with being that, I can now look back at it and say, Oh, I get that.
They were hated. They hated me. And they resented me, or that. The discrimination that I had to deal with as an immigrant, and then, as an actress in LA, that all of that was mired into someone else's insecurities. That it wasn't me so I, as much as a teenager, it didn't affect me.
I do want to say that it came into my life in a huge way in my twenties, and I then had to take corrective action so that I don't get, I didn't get bogged down and muscled in by Other people's expectations and they're insecure not letting their insecurities run my life.
Damaged Parents: [00:19:19] So that's really interesting. I'm glad that you brought up the difference. Cause while I was thinking of trolls online, where there's this distance, you're really speaking to in-person situations that were totally inappropriate. And this is a big conversation to have about, racism and, feminism and how do you behave and what do you do?
There is a Harvard implicit bias test that you can take. Have you?
Lily Shaw: [00:19:46] Yes, I haven't taken it, but I know it. I know of it. I know people who should take it.
Damaged Parents: [00:19:52] Yeah. Like, I really couldn't understand what was happening in the world. I'm like, I don't understand. Everyone's a person. I don't get this. And somebody said, well, go take this by this test and see if you have a problem. And it said, no, I'm not biased. And I was like, well, now I need to understand why I'm not biased because the world is saying that I'm totally biased.
So it's very confusing out there and I'm betting you. Might have that confusion too. Or do you even have that? If you shouldn't? I don't know. I mean, I can't be the only white female. I mean, I know I've I have a African-American or black history in my family, but I'm, if someone looks at me, they're going to say, Oh, you're a white female, right?
Like there's no question. I'm clearly white, at least right now. I
Lily Shaw: [00:20:38] Well, I'm fairly Brown, even though I'm like light-skinned, but we're good.
Damaged Parents: [00:20:42] Right. Right. So how, I mean, and I really want to understand, like, from your perspective, how can. How can I do better? I mean, is it okay to call that out and say, dude, I'm a freaking white woman and I want to be better or do better. And I don't know what that is instead of, because now with everything that's come up within in the world now, I think I actually freeze more often than not because there's so much, and I'm not sure I can always say.
The best thing for the situation. I mean, it's really hard, I think on both sides.
Lily Shaw: [00:21:23] I really applaud that. You're asking this question. I think it's a great question to ask. It is frankly, a question that most Americans should have asked at least a hundred years ago. You know what I'm saying? But I want to preface this by saying, first of all, that my experience as a Brown person is very different than as a black person.
So, black, black people, as we have now seen go through the kind of abuse that is harrowing. I mean, any simple police encounter can lead to death. We now see that, so I want to be very cognizant of the fact that I'm only speaking about my experience and I don't want to be in a place where I'm speaking for any other community.
you know, As, I mean, even though with the rise of like this Asian American violence that we're seeing It's a very, I mean, you're right. It is a tough conversation to have. Right. But it is a necessary conversation to have. And the reason I'm saying that, and it's better that you freeze. And not know what to say, at least from my point of view, then to not talk about it at all.
And then just pretend that everything is okay, which has kind of been the modus opera and Mo the modus operandi of America, at least in the last 20 years that I've been here. So. What you and I are doing right now is definitely a step in the right direction, right? Like us having this conversation and putting it out in the world where we we're actually genuinely trying to know each other, I think, is a huge step in the right direction.
The other thing that I have learned from my experience is this idea of, we have to know that as a world, as a planet, we are now moving away from toxic masculinity, this thousand year patriarchy that has taken over everything and has kind of polluted the idea of being a woman, of being nurturing, of being kind, these things of having integrity.
These womanly qualities are not. You know, They don't make you sissy. They're not bad qualities to have we as a human race have just over the last thousand years, forgotten that having empathy, listening to somebody, giving them time to grow are good things in the end, they do work for the betterment of humanity.
Right. So I think. This is why we're having these conversations, because we are done living in this patriarchal, toxic masculinity world that we have created. And now we are moving into the world that is more empathetic, that is more open, that is willing to share. Right. So that's why I think we're having this conversations.
And as far as like what you can do more. I don't know. I honestly don't know. I mean, I'm a woman of color and I don't know. All I know is that lot of opportunities have been held back from me in my profession as an actress over the last 10 to 15 years, because I didn't have the right skin color, and that opportunity is what needs to come back.
We have to be in a place where we value talent. We value opportunity. We value hard work more than we value skin color. So that is the direction that we need to move and also gender and also sexual orientation. We need to be in a place where we see the person before we see their sexual orientation, their skin color, their immigration status, their religion, anything and everything.
Their disability. Oh my God. Oh my God. Their disability. Or even like, their eating habits, whether or not they're a vegetarian, whether or not they're, you know, like we need to be able to talk to each other. Right. So that both that's my 2 cents.
Damaged Parents: [00:25:00] So it sounds like in some ways, what I hear you saying is let's look more for the similarities than the differences. Let's look for the common humanity, the talent, the ability, the hard work. And then who cares about the differences they're there, but they're not important.
Lily Shaw: [00:25:19] Oh, yeah. In a sense, yes. But also to understand that. We can't use those as the parameters to hold back opportunity. The problem is it's the moral, at least again, this is just me and my opinion. And I am not saying it, as a statement for anybody, but the problem is that when you hold back, Opportunity based on moralistic reasons, whether that's religion, whether that's skin color, whether that's your sexual orientation, you are holding back economic opportunities.
That's the problem, right? That's why we only see a certain amount of people progressing and making money and getting wealthy and getting opportunities and a certain amount of people being held back. And we see that very, very strongly in white versus black communities right? So. This is the problem. In my opinion, is the idea that holding back socially leads to being held back economically.
So what can we do as a society so that at the very least we can keep our differences alive, right? We can be different people. But we don't use that as a reason to stifle the growth of a certain amount of, of somebody who has talent, who has vision, who is, fat, but Hey, maybe she's, maybe she's good at her job who knows.
Right.
Damaged Parents: [00:26:37] Right.
So I think what I hear you saying is even if the part is written, let's say there's a part written for. Or when the writer wrote it, it was very clear. Very clearly. Maybe I don't know what the scripts look like, but it was very clearly for a white woman. What a woman of color or a woman with a disability or anyone of those who have been, or someone who identifies as a woman, anyone should be able to play that part.
If they've got the ability and the talent to play that part and just take the white. It doesn't have to be a white woman anymore. I think that's what I'm hearing you say.
I'm not.
Lily Shaw: [00:27:14] We can make it colorblind fantastic. Or the other thing we can do is we can write more parts, which is what we're seeing, Hollywood. Starting to do now. Right. We're seeing a black cinema. We're seeing Asian cinema. We're seeing, Chinese and Indian and we're seeing French cinema, right.
Especially with Netflix and with Amazon, we're seeing. All different genres, so I'm totally okay with us coming out and, I mean, black Panther, for instance, with such a huge hit, right. And it was all black casts. you know, we can create stories that are, written for someone else, but we can still watch them as a country, as a culture, so we can do either way frankly, if we want to just write a character and then.
Be as colorblind as possible. I'm okay with that. If we want to specifically write culturally correct stories and then past culturally, correct. Correct people in that. I'm completely fine with that too. I think the only thing that's important that can no longer be done is that we're going to have ones like the white male heterosexual be the equivalent.
Of everybody, in the end of the day, I think we have to recognize that America as a country is 40% diverse and 60% white and only 50% male and 50% female. So, it doesn't matter what it looks like as long as we are no longer saying, Hey, when we mean white, we really own, we mean the whole world.
No, we don't. We have to recognize that. People from different parts of the world are here and, you know, American cinema is global cinema. So we really, as late for those of us who are now going to be into the create, like, and be part of this next generation of, cinema, we have to be very cognizant that we understand that when, we're making movies in Hollywood, the whole world is watching them.
So we can really just make stories that are about this small facet. We have to know that we have to write stories that are about the whole world, that somehow one way or another connect with the whole world.
Damaged Parents: [00:29:10] Yeah. That's really interesting because the other thing I've noticed that on my Netflix, if you will, is that there are more movies and shows with subtitles because their languages, I don't know. And I think as which is really, I think, intelligent and smart of Netflix to do, because it gets.
I think us as Americans maybe, or definitely me to recognize that there is talent in other, like there in differences, I think is what I'm trying to say. Let me, that
Lily Shaw: [00:29:42] Yeah, no, I know you're you're right. You are. I hear what you're saying. Yeah, because one, it opens up your eyes. To something other than what you know, to be true. And it creates economic possibilities. I think for everybody, which honestly, I think is gonna be the thing that's gonna make us all a little bit more even, and then hopefully a little bit more connected.
Right.
Damaged Parents: [00:30:09] Okay. Ultimately right.
Lily Shaw: [00:30:11] right. I mean, that's the goal. If we can do it,
Damaged Parents: [00:30:13] Yeah. The whole idea is getting there. We just have to get there,
Lily Shaw: [00:30:16] Yeah, if only if only it was just, snap our fingers and be done with it. Right. But yeah, for now doing the things that we're supposed to do, right. That's such a huge thing.
Damaged Parents: [00:30:26] Yeah. Okay. So off the hard subject for just a second.
Lily Shaw: [00:30:31] easy breezy conversation.
Damaged Parents: [00:30:33] know. Right. Okay. So I had never, ever seen tall poppy syndrome as can you tell? Okay. So, so listeners, what she said was that she's a generous person and on top of it has been a victim of tall poppy syndrome.
Lily Shaw: [00:30:50] Oh, my God. I
Damaged Parents: [00:30:51] did, I do not know what that is. Well, you tell me.
Lily Shaw: [00:30:56] Tall poppy. So this is a relatively new concept. So I was sharing my life story with one of my acting coaches. When I was saying how, like, every time I put myself out there, I would feel, you know, I would get like this sense of like, I'm not being accepted. I'm being you know, I got a lot of like, ah, it's okay.
Like the sense that I would always get from the world was that I'm not good enough. Right. So that's the consistent, constant messaging that I've gotten from the time that I was little, that I'm not good enough. Right. And the reason I'm not good enough, I now know is because I'm a woman. That's why I'm not good enough.
It has nothing to do with the fact that I'm not talented or that I'm not hardworking or that I don't have ambition. None of that thing, it's just that, because I am a woman, a female identifying person by definition that makes me not get enough. So as a child and to this day, that's been the one consistent thing I've had to deal with.
So it got to that point, which has been, you know, I was talking to you about you know, when I said how I had to deal with this, all of this drama and come to peace with that. So the not good enough syndrome is basically putting people down. For whatever reason. So let's say I would do, an interview, right.
And it'd be like, Oh, you look great, but your hair was messy and your hair is the reason you're not getting hired. Right. So finding something in the other person that allows you to exclude them. So, which the reason it's called tall poppy is because when you go out, like for someone like me, like I would go out and I would like do the best that I can.
From what I understand is like actually doing the best you can and actually being the highest sort of in my case, the best actor that you can be in a room, but still you're not getting hired. You're not getting a job. You're not getting the validation and the respect that you deserve.
And the way that that's done is by cutting you down. So the way that you're cut down is, you're told you're not good enough, or, you're told, Oh, we're looking for somebody younger. We're looking for somebody thinner where, you know, we're looking for someone not you and the thing about tall poppy is that tall poppies are cut down.
They're cut down. So they're even with everybody else. So that's the syndrome is like every time you go out and put yourself out there, you're cut down. So you're no longer a threat to the other poppies in the field.
Damaged Parents: [00:33:17] So lo and behold, I actually took us back to what we were talking. I don't mind asking this question.
Lily Shaw: [00:33:24] it's, I'm sorry, this isn't a more fun conversation.
Damaged Parents: [00:33:28] no, it's fun because we're laughing.
Lily Shaw: [00:33:30] Yeah, that's the tall poppy, tall poppies are cut down, man. They're made even with everybody else. And in my kids, the weapon that was used was that I was told I wasn't. Good enough.
Damaged Parents: [00:33:39] And now people pleasing. Is that in your background and how much does that play into? Not, I mean, yeah. Gosh, that's a hard one. So if you're a people pleaser. And you do everything they want. Yeah. Tell us, tell us from this perspective.
Lily Shaw: [00:33:57] So I was in, it was interesting to me because I didn't think of myself as a people pleaser because I was so used to like being myself and doing what I wanted to do and sort of being disconnected from the world around me that it didn't even occur to me that I was actually people pleasing. And the weird way that it played out in my life is that I decide I held myself back.
So I would just cut myself down before I was the tall poppy. So I would just hold myself back, make myself small, make myself fat, make myself ugly. Sorry, I don't like using that word or fat, but you know, I would hold myself, make myself as small as possible, knowing fully well that if I went out into the world, I was going to be attacked.
So that's the way that I pleased people around me was to make sure that my talent, my intelligence, my presence never made anybody offended, anybody, ever. So that became the way that I existed. Right. And, and ironically, thankfully it doesn't work because people who hate you are gonna find a reason to hate you no matter what.
So, in my case, when I was making myself as small, as possible, as invisible as possible, I thought. That would make people not hate me, not attack me as much, but that doesn't work. I was actually still being attacked because I was who I was. Right. So my people pleasing was, not like knowing the answer, but not giving it, not saying what I know to be the truth, knowing fully well, or like doing.
The thing that someone else wants you to do? Even though I know in my mind, in my heart that I can do this better, I would still do it their way because there was just no way I could convince them to do it my way. So in order to avoid the conflict, not, you know, so I was just like, let me just do it.
And this is something that happens even today. I just, I still like in some relationships in my life, I just do it their way, just so it gets done. And I don't have to deal with the drama that comes with me saying, I can teach you how to do this better, or let me do it in my way. It might not be your way.
It's my way, but it's not wrong, just because you've never done it this way, it doesn't make it automatically wrong. So that's how I, people pleased. And then like, it was literally like holding back my intelligence, like knowing the answers of questions and not giving them, you know, letting people like impressed me by giving these stupid facts that I would know the answer to.
And I was so being like, wow, that's amazing. That's awesome. Knowing fully well that what he's telling me is completely wrong So that's what I did. I heard myself because anytime that I went out into the world, I was attacked and I got tired of being attacked, and I didn't know that that's what I was doing till I hit rock bottom and finally understood that that's what I was doing, that I was holding my individuality back because I was so tired of being attacked it's all the time.
Damaged Parents: [00:36:46] So you hit this bottom and then how did you start to learn to love that part of yourself and let it shine.
Lily Shaw: [00:36:54] The loving, the parts of myself only happened. I want to say over the last couple of years when I finally started working with people who were like me. It started working with women who were like me with women who were strong and powerful and who were leaders. And finally, I was able to, like, I started putting myself out there working with strong, independent coaches.
Most of them were women. And I started to come back into myself. So that was like, you know, it really happened in 20. End of 2018 and then 2020 is when it really took off for me is when I finally was like, Oh my God. Yes, I'm now starting to be myself again. So the accepting of the worst, only happened now.
But the rock bottom happened a couple of times in different ways in my life. And I had to do different things to get out of. Different, issues.
Damaged Parents: [00:37:56] so you had to find your strength.
Lily Shaw: [00:37:58] Yes.
Damaged Parents: [00:37:59] So the people pleasing, it sounds like led you down a road that maybe wasn't healthy, and then you had to find your strengths and then use the tools to find the way out of that situation.
Lily Shaw: [00:38:12] Yeah, and for me, it came in the form of law of attraction. It came in the form of spirituality and which really in my case was just reconnecting to my intuitive self. The, this person that I was as a child that had been subdued because I was trying to fit in because I was trying to, not get attacked really in my case and just, be accepted.
Throughout the struggles, I was very actively involved, with spirituality, it came to me. At one of the rock bottoms of my life, but I've had like two or three, right? So
Damaged Parents: [00:38:46] Yeah, I love that. You say that?
Lily Shaw: [00:38:48] I'm like,
Damaged Parents: [00:38:51] No, I guess I think that's like a truth of the human experience. We're going to have struggles and probably multiple of them.
Lily Shaw: [00:39:00] yes,
Damaged Parents: [00:39:00] Gosh, darn it.
Lily Shaw: [00:39:02] Yeah. And the fantastic thing is that if you learn to just accept that and not run away from it, life gets a little bit easier, honestly, because then you're like, okay, yeah, I know this is going to be messy, but I survived the first one. I'm going to survive the second.
But to get back to your to answer your question fully As spirituality, which became a way for me to empower myself and listen to my heart and my truth, and my inner star became the guiding light. So no matter what was happening externally, and no matter how much I held myself back, there was this constant ringing in my years, right.
There was this constant thing of like, this is not me. This is not me. This is not me. So it's that voice inside of me that. Wouldn't let me accept as awful as the experiences I was going through, they would come. If the voice would come back to me and say, this is not me. You know, When somebody says that I don't deserve because I'm not good enough, yes. I held myself back and yes, I made myself small and did everything in my power to win their approval. But in my heart, in my voice was telling me that I didn't need it to do any of that. So my journey became. More about accepting that voice and following the guidance of that voice, because that voice would not shut up.
Like it kept saying, you are better than this. You deserve more than this. They are wrong, no, you don't have to do that. So even though I was doing things that were not my true things, my true self, I had, Oh, an early sort of a warning system. I came naturally factory installed with it. That would keep reminding me that
this isn't my truth. So that thing became the saving grace. So throughout like the last 10, 15 years, every time I hit problems, every time I hit what I called rock bottom, every experience taught me to go back to that voice and using that voice is how I would climb myself back out of the drama, that issue and solve it,
Damaged Parents: [00:41:00] so along the way, how after each struggle, how much easier did it get to starting to find that voice again when you lost it? Cause it sounds like you've lost it a few times along the way. And I'm wondering also, if you were able to find it sooner, as life progressed on and on.
Lily Shaw: [00:41:21] I was able to, what happened with me is that. Because I have that strength guiding me, because I had that upbringing, it was very easy for me to cut off things that weren't working for me. So I found myself walking away from situations, from people, even at the expense of like hurting my career you know, even at the expense of like not making money.
And I chose to like walk away from situations that didn't feel right. After every kind of life challenging experience, life altering experience, I would find myself making the right decision listening by listening to my voice, but what would happen is like I would get hold of this one area and then some other issue would pop up you know, I worked very hard for instance, to become an actor and I became a very good actor and everybody around my life my coaches, everybody started saying things like, yes, you have a future and you have, potential to do this and do this well. Right.
But as I started, as I focused my energy on being the actor, you know, I started gaining weight and all of a sudden that became a thing of like, Oh no, you can't make it. If you are overweight. So then I Took care of that. And then it became this thing of like, well, you know, it was really written for a white woman, we would love to see you, but we have someone else in mind.
So, you know, or love being loved in the room, but then not getting the job, which I will say is the experience of every actor. But it started happening more and more and more and more. So I found myself going from sort of one rock place to another, And then having to dig myself out of that hole.
So I did use my own intelligence, my own higher consciousness, my own voice to come out of it. But I don't know that I could have done it any sooner. You know what I'm saying? Because every experience led to the next experience, which then I had to solve in a way that was truthful and, and aligned with me. Did I answer your question?
Damaged Parents: [00:43:19] I think your answer was, I'm not sure, but at the end of the day that you were able to do it sooner, it's that you learned along the way each time you had that struggle, maybe each time you got better at staying true to yourself. Before it got too, as far down as it would have gotten before.
Lily Shaw: [00:43:38] Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's true. I think so. Yeah. I think that, it was just, basically the answer to every challenge was listened to yourself. If only I had done that, you know,
Damaged Parents: [00:43:53] really, I really, really loved that answer. Be true to yourself and the decisions that you make. And that's what better way to come to the close of the podcast here and which I know, right. Which is where I generally ask for three tips or tools, which you may have mentioned throughout the podcast for anyone going through the challenges or struggles that you might be going through, that they could implement today.
And I'm thinking one of them is just that.
Lily Shaw: [00:44:22] Be true. Absolutely. I mean, I would highly, highly, especially if like a recommend, especially if like there are women listening and I would, the number one thing is that you need to know who you can trust. I think having that discerning ability, because as a woman. Everybody's going to think that they have the right to tell you how to live your life.
So you have to be very, very careful about whose advice you take. So my number one advice to women and women identifying people would be to. Be cognizant do not open up to everybody because not people will not give you their best advice because you're a woman. And I wish that wasn't the case, but that's the world that we're living in.
So my number one advice would be to be very cognizant, of who you let into your inner circle. Um, My second advice would be to please go ahead and create a community of like-minded people. Something that I have. I mean, my, I honestly feel like my life would have been a lot more bearable if I had people that I could rely on and not just like people who love you the most, but people who understand you the most, because even people who love you.
Are not going to be able to understand why you have to do what you're doing. Right. Cause I remember being asked by a buddy of mine is like, why, why don't you just quit? Why do you have to do this? And it's like, I don't know. Like, I don't know why I can't quit. I just know that I have to keep doing this.
Right. So you want to be around people who understand that drive. And if that means that you have to hire coaches, experts, Go for it. Like, don't be scared to invest in yourself and yes, last but not the least is to listen to that tiny voice. The one voice that would not shut up till you do what it wants you to do.
So listen to your true self and you'll be happy.
Damaged Parents: [00:46:11] Awesome. Thank you so much, Lily Shaw. I'm so glad that we got to have you on the show today.
Lily Shaw: [00:46:17] Thank you very much. I really appreciate the questions. There were so in depth and they got me thinking this was a wonderful chat. Thank you.
Damaged Parents: [00:46:24] You're welcome.
Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We've really enjoyed talking to Lily about how she learned the importance of standing tall in who you are. We especially liked when she reminded us that every time we get through a struggle, we've learned something new that might make the next one easier.
To unite with other damaged people, connect with us on Facebook. Look for damaged parents. We'll be here next week still relatively damaged see you then.
