Friends from Wild Places

The Brave Art of Honoring Your True Self

Subscriber Episode • • Shireen Botha/Tanya Scotece • Season 4 • Episode 5

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Have you ever felt the weight of others' expectations smothering your own dreams?

Shireen knows this struggle all too well, having once followed a path dictated by family expectations rather than her own desires. Join us as we peel back the layers of decision-making and personal growth, guided by the wisdom of Stephanie May Wilson's "Create a Life You Love." Through heartening conversations, Shireen and Tanya shine a light on the exhilarating freedom of crafting a life that truly aligns with who you are, revealing how decisions are not only personal but also perpetually adaptable.

Tanya Scotece

Shireen Botha


Listen to Shireen's courageous journey as she embraces an unconventional path, challenging cultural norms and familial pressures. From the pressure to pursue a traditional university degree to the bold choice of arts school, we explore the liberating concept that life is your canvas to paint. This episode encourages you to honor your unique journey and make choices that resonate with your true self, despite the noise of external opinions. Discover the empowering message that your life's direction is yours alone to decide, and each decision is a valuable stepping stone in your personal growth.

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"Create a Life You Love" by Stephanie May Wilson

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Voiceover:

Tales from the wild, stories from the heart. A journey into the mind and soul of fired up business professionals, where they share their vision for the future and hear from a different non-profit organization every month as they create awareness of their goals and their needs. Dive into a world of untamed passion as we join our host, Shireen Botha, for this month's episode of Friends from Wild Places.

Shireen Botha:

Good morning. My name is Shireen. I am your boutique bookkeeper and QuickBooks Pro advisor. I am your boutique bookkeeper and QuickBooks Pro advisor. Business heroes are you trying to do your books by yourself? Do you have the time to check if your books are compliant? It's time to break free and reclaim your time. I'm Shireen Botha and I can handle absolutely everything, from reconciling accounts to payroll to invoices, so you can focus on what you do best, which is running your business. Of course, if you're using QuickBooks and need a bookkeeping partner, let's team up. Don't let numbers hold you back anymore. Make your 80s dreams a reality. Call me today and let's get back on track. Welcome back, listeners. You are listening to Friends from Wild Places, with myself, shireen, and my amazing co-host, Tanya Scotece. Hello, Tanya, how are you today?

Tanya Scotece:

Hello Shireen, I'm great. How are you doing?

Shireen Botha:

Very, very well. Thanks for asking. It's a little bit rainy here in South Africa. How's Miami?

Tanya Scotece:

Actually cloudy here also, but it's probably about 79 degrees. So warm, but a little cloudy, little rainy Right right, right.

Shireen Botha:

Well, we'll be posting this in the christmas season. It's, you know, gonna be november now, soon it'll be december, so it's the favorite time of the year. So all the christmas jumpers are out, all the christmas decorations are coming out, so, uh, we're excited for this year's christ. But, yeah, thanks for once again listeners, for supporting us and for subscribing. We appreciate you coming and listening to this extra bonus content that we're creating especially for you. No one else can hear these episodes, so let's get into it. Tanya, I think since we have spoken about this book before and we've read a couple of extracts out of it and I think it's just an amazing book. So, once again, the book is Create a Life you Love from Stephanie May Wilson. Again, the book is create a life you love from stephanie may wilson.

Shireen Botha:

This book has really I've read it a couple of times it's got sticky notes all over it. I seem to read and reread it and then catch something else that's quite interesting, that sticks out to me. That's either really applicable or, um, I'm saying to myself oh sure, I really wish I knew that 10 or 20 years ago. You know that feeling, but I'm learning it now and it's just, you can't ever learn something too late in life. You know you do only have one life and it a. You know, absolute art and a easel uh, your own board. You can do with it what you like. And I think people sometimes forget that, and I think people put a lot of pressure on themselves or they have outside sources that put a lot of pressure on them that it has to be a certain way, but it really doesn't. At the end of the day, as you know, stephanie Mae Wilson says you get to decide, you get to make the decision at the end of the day. So make a good one and make it. You know you can't make a mistake, is what she's saying. If you don't like the decision that you've made five months down the line, she's saying if you don't like the decision that you've made five months down the line, change it. You know it's no big deal, it's your life and you can paint it however you like, with all the different colors of the rainbow. So it's totally up to you.

Shireen Botha:

And today I thought the question of what if people disagree with the decisions that you have decided to make in life? Huh, like there's a lot of family and friends that have crossed our paths, that have been a part of our lives, maybe for a really long time, and we might have had made some decisions, uh, which was not something they would have made. You know that, you, that you know that advice. Well, you know, if it were me, I wouldn't have really made that decision. You know that, that feedback you get, and so I'm going to read a little piece out of this book regarding that and we can chat a little bit about it. So here we go.

Shireen Botha:

What if people disagree? Okay, we have to pause here, because if you're anything like me, you love the idea of living an authentic, creative life that fits you just right, but there's something holding you back from believing that this could be a reality. What if people disagree with you or, worse, disapprove of you? Now that we've talked about how to make a decision that's all your own, we need to pause and recognize that there might be fallout because of the decision you have made, and we need to talk about what to do with that. First, let's just be honest. This is hard. There's a reason we follow the pack it's easier. There's a reason we do what other people tell us to do it's because their disapproval and disappointment hurts. It's one thing to have a stranger give you the side eye in the grocery store I don't even like when that happens but it's quite another to have a key person in your life disagree with a big decision you've made. What do you do then? Defend in your decisions?

Shireen Botha:

No matter how long you've been creating a life on your own terms and how intentionally we've done so, we're going to have moments when we feel criticized for our choices or when an innocent comment pokes at a place that still feels tender An old decision we made, maybe one that was hard and that we still question. Sometimes, expectations, whether it be explicit, implicit or assumed, still weigh on us, no matter how long or how intentionally we've tried to shake them up. This is all normal. It's hard, painful at times, but it's normal. And just because it happens, just because it bothers you, doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong. There's no right way to build a life. Everyone has different fixed elements and different variables to play with. Everyone has different needs and wants. This is even true for our closest people friends and family who are familiar to us in both personality and values. We still have different cards we're playing with.

Shireen Botha:

Learning that our life decisions are not binary is a constant process. Rarely is there a clear, singular, correct answer and an opposite, wrong decision. We'll always be making decisions about our lives and other people will always be making decisions about theirs, and there will always be moments when we choose differently from someone else and when we or they feel tension as a result. Finding ourselves in these moments isn't a problem, but how we handle those flashes of panic or shame matter deeply. There was a time in my life when I would have totally rethought a decision because of an off and comment. And I'm going to stop there because isn't that true, brian?

Shireen Botha:

So often in life we we value, we put a lot of value on, uh, people's inputs and the people closest to us family members, best friends, um, even your significant other and intentionally, unintentionally, when they find out your decisions, they can make like side remarks or just, you know, give their opinion, whether they were asked or not for their opinion, and many times it hurts and it hits us in a way we don't realize.

Shireen Botha:

And then we go away, we don't realize, we're now overthinking it, or maybe I, maybe I shouldn't, maybe I should rethink this decision that I've made and some people can convince themselves out of making that decision, thinking that it was totally them that had made that decision. But it actually, if they really look deeper into it, it might have been aunt Pamela's comment a week ago that made them rethink about it. So it's a really interesting topic, um, and I think a lot of different factors can come into it. You know people pleasing again and all of that, but I think at the end of the day, um, to take everyone's input and opinion with a pinch of salt is really important. What do you think, tanya?

Tanya Scotece:

So do you have an example, shireen? For example, like in your life, when you asked somebody their opinion and then you decided to do something different, and you know how did that work out for you.

Shireen Botha:

I have a lot of examples where I took the other person's opinion and regretted it afterwards. I have a lot of examples of that. Uh, family members that got you know they were doing their best to try and guide me in the way that they thought I should go. And again, um, I, I, I know that if I had full control of the decisions I wouldn't have made that decision. But because I felt that pressure of what you know, it's that whole explicit, implicit expectations that I felt that was upon me that I made that decision based on the opinions and um, and then afterwards, I gotta be honest, I think those were times where I did look back and go, oh gosh, I actually regret it. I wish I would have made a decision that was more me can you shed it?

Tanya Scotece:

can you give us an example or two on something that you regretted? No, no.

Shireen Botha:

Yeah, of course you can. Some of them are quite deep, so let's try, just give you this one. So just after school there was a lot of pressure on. The expectation inside of me was when I finished school, I've got to go straight into university. My brother did it, my sister did it, it's now that's what's expected of me from the parents. And so there was the decision of right now I have to go to university, but what am I going to study? Have to go to university, but what am I going to study?

Shireen Botha:

Then it was looking at my sister and my brother again and the advice of, if you don't know, you should just do a BCom, bachelor, commerce, just to start off with in the first year, and then you know you do all these subjects in business and then you can decide whether you want to go into law or into accounting or into business or whatever.

Shireen Botha:

So that was the advice. Um, and I think, because of the pressure, that was okay, I have to do university right now and so I have to choose something to study. And on top of my feet, I didn't know what I wanted and I would have liked to have a little time to find out more of what I wanted to do, um, but it was a lot of pressure on me, so I ended up doing what they suggested, which was a Bcom, and I absolutely hated it. I absolutely hated every moment. I think the only the only topic uh, not topic subject that I actually passed was accounting, hence my now current career, um, but I just didn't enjoy the the rest of the topics, what you know where we were going, um and you completed it, though right, you did complete it.

Shireen Botha:

I, I, the counting side, I went for that year, I did accounting, I passed that.

Shireen Botha:

The other topics, uh, the subjects I did not pass, I didn't enjoy it, um and so um yeah, no it was a disaster, and I wish I, actually I wish I actually took a few years break first and figured out more about what I wanted to do. I must be honest, though straight after that I did go into, I dropped out, went into an arts college, did that, and then actually, and then I actually took, took a break and went into camp counseling in an au pair in the US. Remember that part of my story? So that's basically where that came from, but that the example I'm trying to explain to you was that pressure of having to choose it as something to study. And you had to choose something because now I have to study, this is the decision is. Now I have my study and um, and just deciding something. That was really not me.

Shireen Botha:

Um, I didn't enjoy the rest of the subjects at all and I think I just needed more time. I think I just needed more time to to narrow it down at that point, um, and figure it out. Um, on my own, listen, I don't. I regret the fact that I didn't make the decision that I wanted to make. Say, nats, if I did not do that year of accounting, it wouldn't have triggered me to continue the road of bookkeeping, or maybe it would have, I don't know. I will never know, but that is what my road is now, is that? And so I regret that I followed the that pressure and did what was pressured on me. I would have liked to have rather taken a break and decided on what I wanted to do.

Tanya Scotece:

Interesting interesting and I think a lot of times I think people have that quote unquote pressure, whether it's to go to school or to not go to school, right, because some cultures it's like why do you need to go to school? Why don't you just go get a job, why don't you open up a business, right? So that's a lot of pressure too, especially if people are not of that entrepreneurial spirit mindset. So that's pressure is put on just in the same context. So that was. It was kind of like my experience. I had tried a few college courses back in the day and I preferred to go to work. Like work for me was easier. I liked working in the medical office, I liked having the instruction of what to do. And I did it and I was very good at it. And then I decided like a year later like, oh, let me try going to college. Well, it was like a fish out of water. I just felt like the college environment, university environment was not supported. Fish out of water, I just felt like the college environment, university environment was not supported. I was not successful. I don't even know if I made it one semester and then I just kind of shied away from it because it wasn't for me.

Tanya Scotece:

And then, many years later, I was a single mom. I think it was like 35 years old. I decided to. I wanted to go to mortuary school and that's another podcast. But, um, my family thought I lost my mind. It was like you're going to do what and why? And you already have a job. What do you? You don't need this. What are you going to get from it? Like there was a lot of resistance in why I was choosing to go to mortuary school, so it was not received like oh, it's great, you're going to school. And so it was. There was a lot of initial resistance about why I was doing what I was doing.

Shireen Botha:

Yeah, yeah, and I think that that, that and that alone must have been really hard, because, especially for people that are so close to you and I don't know if you feel that, but for me I wanted to make people happy, you know, and so I had a tendency of doing things for other people to make them happy and not necessarily myself happy things for other people to make them happy, and not necessarily myself happy.

Tanya Scotece:

Yeah, I think that's. I don't know if it's like with wisdom or with age, but I think, as we all, like you know, just get older and wiser. We kind of not put that much emphasis, if possible, on what other people think and just like be more like self-directed as far as whatever our choices it is. But I think and that's another fascinating topic it's like you know, some families are very cohesive and live in the same area geographically and so people spend a lot more time where there's other folks that live in another country and another time zone and they're not, as quote unquote, in each other's business about who's doing what, when and how. Right, so that's another, I think, cultural difference or similarity. However, you should meaning that that's projection, right, like oh, you should do this or I think you should do this. So I'm very aware of that phrase and I try my best to not say it and help the person kind of decide for themselves what they should or should not do.

Tanya Scotece:

It's funny that you're sharing about the college experience, shireen, because in my day-to-day teaching I have sometimes students will say you know they're going to stop school because they don't know what they want to do. Right, that's very common, like, oh, we'll take a semester off and the funny thing, objectively, it's the best place to be if you don't know what you want to be is school, because there's more opportunities in school than anywhere else. Now what it sounds like you're sharing from the South Africa school system is that you have to decide a major, so you just can't start just taking random classes and decide and then declare a major, maybe 20 credits in.

Shireen Botha:

Right, there is that it's a whole lot of that. But because, yeah, it's the same, it's the same. But if someone doesn't know where to even begin, I think giving them time to figure that out for themselves pack a backpack, go travel a little bit, learn about it is any right or wrong answer for any of this, really, um, and that's why, when I was busy speaking and telling you my little story of example of what happened there, I'm I'm trying to make sure I say that that year that I did end up studying was not a waste of time. It wasn't.

Shireen Botha:

It was not a waste of time and I want to make that clear because there's no such thing as you wasting your time anywhere in any of your decisions, because wherever you are, even if you are studying the complete opposite of what you really want to study, you're learning, you're growing, things are happening in your life. You know it's not, you know you're not wasting any second of your life by making that decision. You've made that decision. You've learned down the road. You either complete it Some people complete the whole thing realize you don't want to do it and you do something else. That doesn't mean that you've wasted those four years or five years or six years, by completing a degree that you're never going to use. That's not true, because during those four years, your mind was developing, you were making decisions, you were having life lessons, you were learning, you were finding out more about yourself, and that's all part of life.

Tanya Scotece:

Right, right. And I think think again, going back to that cultural expectation back, like in Connecticut where I'm from, it was the expectation was you're going to get a job and you're going to stay at that job for your whole life, which that reality is kind of false nowadays because people can reinvent themselves at any age. So we may have listeners out there in their 40s, 50s, 60s, evens, even older, some younger, that say you know what? I want to do something different. So who's to say that you have to stay in the job that you're given at the age of 18 years old for the rest of your life? Like it's just false. But I think sometimes that's the expectation because maybe previous generations have done it that way.

Shireen Botha:

Right. So true, so true. I love this topic we chatted today because I think it's important to, no matter what your age, wherever you are right now in life. It's important to know that people are going to disagree with some of your decisions. It's not a wrong decision. It's not. You know, it's not about right or wrong. Whatever decision you've made, you know it's. It's not about right or wrong. Whatever decision you've made, you've made, you made it. Do it, do it and see where it takes you. You know what I mean and it's you learn from it. You change direction, you carry on with another decision that you've made and you live your life. You paint it however you like it to look, and when you have people that disagree with you, it is just their opinion, it's just their point of view, doesn't mean you have to take it.

Tanya Scotece:

Yeah, and I think you know, having the people in the, in the peanut gallery, as we like to say you know, louder and stronger in the, speaking with conviction, it makes it feel as if their words are the truth when, as reflected, it's just their opinions. So well. Thank you so much for sharing with us this morning, Shireen, and about your story, and if the listeners have any stories that they would like to share with us, feel free to send us an email. Drop us a line. Free to send us an email. Drop us a line. Uh, let us know what we can provide to you I'm always looking for new, fresh content.

Shireen Botha:

So, all right, thanks so much, guys. Uh, we appreciate you, um and uh, we'll see you next time and remember you got this and stay wild. Bye, guys, bye-bye.

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Shireen Botha

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Tanya Scotece

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