Stand In Your Potential w/ James Siler

What if the people who love you are already holding a mirror to your potential—and you’ve been too busy shrinking to look? Today we sit with Mr. James Siler, a recovery pro whose life and work illuminate a simple, piercing truth: you can’t fit a 6’3 life into a 5’9 space. With raw truths and practical wisdom, we unpack how we learn to compress ourselves for acceptance, and how recovery—whether from addiction, fear, or people pleasing—is the steady practice of standing upright in who we are.

We talk about belonging as a human need but it doesn’t require self-abandonment.  If you’ve been editing your tastes, your voice, or your dreams to fit into small rooms, this one invites you to bring your full height, your full brightness, and your whole self back into every space you enter.

If this conversation resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs courage today, and leave a review to help others find it. What’s one place you’ll stop shrinking this week?

Let's connect on IG @conversationswithtai @buildwithtai

Transcript

Seeing Yourself Through Others’ Eyes

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I started looking at all of the things that they said that they saw. And then it came to me, it makes no sense for somebody to see more in me than I see in myself. So I started internalizing and gazing more deeply into what they see, and then I begin to see it. And then I stand up at 6'3 and I start to live. Because now I see it and now I believe. The goal in life is to discover the gift. Purpose in life is to share the gift with others. One of the most cruel things that can happen is for a person to have a gift and die without opening the gift.

Welcome And Episode Intent

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Hello and welcome to the Build with Tie Podcast, where moms and women can come together to share our stories, strategies, and solutions for taking care of ourselves while taking care of everyone and everything else at the same time. Together we can figure out how to build strength and feel empowered in our bodies, how to create real moments of peace and calm through the chaotic seasons of our womanhood, and build real joy and more fun into our lives. My goal is for you to leave this podcast feeling seen and encouraged and with at least one tool that will help you build a life that you truly feel excited to wake up to and that you celebrate yourself for showing up for every night before you close your eyes. So if that sounds good to you, let's get into today's topic.

Meet Mr. James And His Work

SPEAKER_00 1:25

I am excited, thankful, grateful, and hopeful about the conversation we're going to have with Mr. James. We've been working together since November of last year. So going on three months. I teach breathwork meditation and yoga at a recovery center. And Mr. James works there. And I have had the ability to sit in on some of his group sessions and listen to the things that he shares about his own life, the things that he has learned along the way. Some of the messages that he talks about have helped me greatly in my life. And it is profound because we have two different walks in life. But it really shows me that human growth and development, personal growth and development, well-being is not for any one population or another population. The things that we learn as we grow can apply to everyone holistically, no matter if you have had an easy walk in life, no matter if you have had challenges, no matter if you have childhood trauma or not, the things that we talk about in our groups are basic human growth principles. And I think what you hear from Mr. James today will be very helpful. So thank you for being here with me.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

So just to get right into it, one of the things that you said, and there are a lot of key phrases that you use that get me thinking, and then when I hear them again, I think about them differently. But and I want you to say this your way. You said something to the effect of I was walking around at five foot nine, but then I realized I was six foot three and I can't go back to five nine. Can you say that in your own

From 5’9 To 6’3: Shrinking And Recovery

SPEAKER_00 3:15

way?

SPEAKER_01 3:15

It's two ways that that applies to my life. The first way is that at one point in my life, in the earliest stage in my life, I knew who I was. But because who I was was not popular in a place that I should have felt comfort, I stopped being that person. So in that sense, I shrunk myself from who I was in order not to offend or stand out. The other aspect that affects my life as a recovering addict, while living as an addict, I wasn't living literally to my fullest extent as a human being. Figuratively, I'm bent because I'm actively using, so I'm not operating on all cylinders. So in that sense, six foot three is my stature. But because of the inducement of the drug, I am not standing in my potential. In this process of recovery, I realize that at 6'3, I understand how I got to 5'9. Once I look at the evidence of what gave cause for me to shrink myself, I'm gonna have to make a decision of do I want to live like that again?

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

So today, if I'm 6'3, why would I try to exist in a space that's 5'9? It cannot hold me. So once I have the evidence of what happened to me, I have a decision if I want to live like that again. Life will always present an opportunity for you to make a decision.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

Yeah, and as I hear you talk about that, just thinking about how I have seen that present itself in my own life,

Belonging Without Abandoning Yourself

SPEAKER_00 5:10

right? And I think about myself as a high school student. My parents were divorced. You know, my mom moved us to a whole other county where I was like, these people don't look like what I'm used to, what's going on here? And one of the things that I vividly remember is I like all kinds of music. I like alternative rock and roll, I like hip-hop, I like RB, I like jazz, I like all kinds of music, but you can't listen to a certain kind of music with a certain group, right? And so then I have to decide do I want to bring all my music tastes and all of the loves of my music to a group and be shunned from that group? Or am I just gonna pick what's popular in that group? Right. And it's so interesting how something so small as the music you choose to listen to based on the people you're around can really make you abandon yourself, right? But then you get into the habit of that. It's not just abandoning your music and shrinking yourself in that way, it's abandoning yourself as far as what you're wearing and how your expression of what you wear conforms to the groups that you want to be with and the way you talk and the words you use. So I think I hear you saying that in a different way, but it's very similar.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

So here's the thing: everywhere that I go, I take myself with me. I became familiar with a term dereliction. There are a few definitions of dereliction, but we're talking about human beings. So dereliction in this context means abandoning myself. Right? And so again, we're talking about two uh adults pretty much in uh reasonably good shape mentally. So, how much of myself do I leave when I go to different places? And I'm not comfortable with telling myself that I'm living holy when I'm really not.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

Yeah. In regard to the music example, you can listen to this music with this group, and then you can listen to this music with this group, but then you get so confused and conflicted with yourself about what is real. Do I even I don't even know if I even like this music anymore? But this is what they're listening to, so this is what I'm listening to, right? So it feels like I'm whole because I get a little piece of me over here and I get a little piece of me over here. But how do we become more comfortable with bringing all of those pieces together into fullness and taking that version of ourselves everywhere we go?

SPEAKER_01 7:35

That comes with me fully accepting myself totally without condition.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

Because if I grow as an individual and I make determinations about what I like and I incorporate that into my life, when I don't take all of that with me, what am I telling myself? Why am I denying myself the opportunity to be myself wholly and fully? Am I ashamed of that part of myself? Or on the other hand, I tell myself I like what I become through the diversity that is my life. But I'm afraid to show it because when I don't expose who I really am, there's some kind of fear mentally going on with me. So why do I not feel comfortable with my total self everywhere I go?

People Pleasing, Intentions, And Impression

SPEAKER_01 8:20

So do I do I revert back to childhood because it's not socially acceptable here? Do I deny myself the pleasure of being who I am? Who am I living for? Am I living for pleasing people or being content with myself?

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Right. Yeah. I think it's also important for us to understand as human beings, regardless of what phase of life you're in, whether you're in adolescence or early adulthood or midlife or late adulthood, whatever, it is human expression. We were built to actually care about what people think about us. And I think it's it's irresponsible to just say, I don't care about what people think, because that just makes you angry. It really just makes you angry and cold toward the world, right? So I think it's important for us to really understand that we are wired and it is our nature to belong. It's weird to not want to belong, right? You're supposed to want to belong. That's part of who we are as human beings, and that's how we're able to have strong connections, and that's how we're able to build communities. It's through belonging. So I think it's important for us to know what to do when we start to revert back to childhood patterns of people pleasing. We can have the need to belong and we can build community and connection without people pleasing. I think it's understanding that the people, and you tell me how you feel about this, because this is strictly my understanding. I think the people who we are supposed to have in our communities and the people who we are supposed to connect with on a deeper level will meet us where we are with our wholeness and our fullness. We don't have to chop away pieces of ourselves, right? Although the mind will go back to what you said, like your childhood pattern. Your childhood pattern says, well, if I want to belong with these people, I have to kind of shave away some of that stuff. But I think it's understanding, like, no, your your fullness can go. Everybody just can't, everybody's just not going to want to come along with that. And that has to be okay. Did all those words make sense? That was a lot of words.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

That conversation right there begs a question because I believe that in some aspect of living, we are all doing people please.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

Right. How much of what I do is really for me. So, example, when I get dressed, how in determining what I'm going to wear, how much of that is for y'all?

SPEAKER_00 10:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

So there are always going to be aspects of me wanting to please, even if it's not my only intention. One of the things that I say constantly is that my intention is never to impress. My goal is to leave you with an impression.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

I'm saying that I'm bringing the best of me to you when everything that we do, there's a measure of me pleasing somebody in order to gain the acceptance that I want. And I think you just said it. Nobody does not want to be liked.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Nobody does not want to be accepted. And so I also think that in every area of our lives, as long as we live, we will always abandon pieces of ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Yeah. And that's that's challenging because that's where discernment comes in, right? Like how much of this is me and how much of this is you? How much time do I want to spend on what I'm gonna wear gonna look good on camera, or is what I'm going to wear comfortable for me? Like how much time do you spend in that space for you on a day-to-day basis? Because I could spend my whole, I could spend my whole day there, to be very honest with you. But for you, how do you not keep yourself stuck in that? Where does the servant come in for you?

SPEAKER_01 12:20

So the realization that I have never been anywhere where everyone has liked me. Ever. And so I get a greater level of acceptance of who I am, good, bad, and different, because none of us are totally good or totally bad. Right? And so do I have the carriage, do I have the strength to be totally who I am all the time?

unknown 12:49

Yeah.

Free Will, Perception, And Choice

SPEAKER_01 12:50

No, all the time. Because here's the thing, here's the thing. I don't excel so much when everything is going right. Right? It's those moments where it feels like the world is falling apart because that's where the growth comes. That's where I find out who I really am. That's where I find out if everything that I've done that has got me here can take me there.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Because here's what life tells me. Life says that it will never be perfect. You are given free will, but that free will is not free. There's a cost. And the cost of the free will is the burden of all the decisions you make in your life. Is free will a gift or is it a curse? Yeah. Or is it a mixture of both? And then does my perception determine what it is? Because is is there really a bad feeling? Or or is it just my inability to identify the feeling, and because I can't identify it, I say it's bad. And so perception, perception governs everything in my life.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

Because how I see something determines how I respond to it.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

So then bringing it back to allowing yourself to see your potential in m moving from 5'9 to 6'3. Right. Do you find that there are because I feel like for me, I'm 5'4. But I can see how sometimes I might reduce myself to 5'1. My my mind, my perspective, the work that I do will keep me upright, right? Will keep me in my power pose, my power stands, walking with my head up. How do you ever feel like the world? It's so tough because I don't want it to, I don't want to say this in a way that makes it feel like I think the world can control us, but sometimes the world does kind of beat you back down, right? If we think about everything that's going on right now, like the world can kind of make you feel a little bit reduced. So how do you

Holding Height When The World Pushes Back

SPEAKER_00 15:20

how do you fight that back? When it's not when it's not you, so to speak, when you know you're doing the mental work, the emotional work, the spiritual work, but the world is still pushing back and pushing back and trying to shove you back down in the box. What do you think we do then? Do we succumb to it? Do we what do we do?

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Everything about life tells me that life will never be perfect. And so I can't control the climate of what's happening outside. I'm aware of the climate, right? And I know that the circumstances of life don't always re respond to how I want to live my life. So I do the best that I can do to stay where I need to be. One of the things that I've learned that you absolutely cannot avoid is the responsibility of making a decision.

SPEAKER_00 16:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Because life is always going to present the opportunity for me to make a decision. So do I fold because the circumstances of life don't fit my particular narrative at this time or the things that I have planned for my life, how much control do I have?

unknown 16:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Right. So I have to be honest with myself about how much control I have because outside of myself, there's really no control that I have. And so again, we make adjustments like look, I get up in the morning and I look out the window. And I see that it's raining. So what do I do? I prepare for a rainy day.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

I can look out my window and see that it's raining, and my perception can take me a whole lot of different place.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

So when I think about everything that I see in the news and on social media and how it's affecting people in their day-to-day lives, and I still get up and I still follow joy, right? And I still follow light, and I still follow what feels good in my soul. Honestly, I feel a little bit of guilt, like everybody else is in turmoil, everybody else feels like they're having a hard time. You know, I just thought to myself, how dare I not? How dare I not be a beacon of light in a sea of darkness? How dare I not be a lighthouse when everybody else is having a hard time? Yeah. So I answered my own question. It can be offensive to be your full height, it can be offensive to be your full lumen of brightness, it can be offensive to live in your full joy. It's hard because you don't

Gifts, Assignment, And Accountability To God

SPEAKER_00 18:05

want to offend people. But what is the alternative?

SPEAKER_01 18:08

One of the things that I pay close attention to because I believe in God. Let me say that. And I understand how much God has played a role in my life. I understand the gifts, everything that God has done. I see it now because I'm able to live in it. So one of the things that I'm mindful of is what I'm saying to God based on what I know He's given me.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

And so I understand that I have been gifted. I have been blessed continuously. Grace, mercy, favor, all of that. Like what am I telling God?

SPEAKER_00 18:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

Because each gift that I have been given, there is an assignment attached to each gift. So I can't say, no, I don't want to do that, because I understand where the assignment comes from. So I can't wake up one morning and say, I don't want to go to work, I don't want to do that today. No, you've been gifted with the opportunity because I gifted you with the talent to do because I need you to do this. So I can't say, no, not today. So again, you know, my perception about everything, it governs me.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

And I think you had said something about following or being curious about the things that people who love you tell you, right? Like if the people who love me and genuinely care about me are saying wonderful things about me, what does it look like if I follow that thread? Because I know what it looks like if I follow the thread of the things that aren't supportive that I'm saying to myself. Like I know, I know what that looks like. But what does it look like to follow the thread of you're amazing, you're smart, you're bright, you're how does that look? The consequence of not following those threads.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Living small, I did an exercise one time when I was doing group. I stood in front of the group. There were

Following Supportive Threads Of Love

SPEAKER_01 20:15

guys sitting on both sides and in front of me. And so I asked each group what part of me they could see. So my point was that you can always see me better than I can. My family has always nurtured, watered, pruned all of the things they saw in me. I didn't see it because by that time I had already shrunk myself. And so I got to a point in my life where I was living in desperation.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

Because I no longer wanted to exist like this. And so I started looking at all of the things that they said that they saw, but then it came to me, it makes no sense for somebody to see more in me than I see in myself. So I started internalizing and gazing more deeply into what they see, and then I begin to see it, and then I stand up at 6'3 and I start to live because now I see it and now I believe. One of the most cruel things that can happen, right, is for a person to have a gift and die without opening the gift. The goal in life is to discover the gift. So again, the assignment. So if I understand the purpose is to share the gift or gifts that I have been given, I understand the assignment.

SPEAKER_00 21:47

I think it's very important that we know you truly don't have to be in a place of desperation will oftentimes create a situation where you need to do something different. However, you don't have to be in a place of hopelessness and desperation to change.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

Nobody stands up for, raises

Desperation As A Catalyst For Change

SPEAKER_01 22:15

their hand for being in adversity.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

Nobody volunteers for that. So what I found is desperation is a gift. There are a lot of traumatic things that happen that lead to desperation. I don't start my life in desperation mode. Some things happen throughout the course of my life. I make some decisions, some bad decisions, that lead me to a place of desperation. So it is often said that pain is a great motivator for change. Being uncomfortable in my present circumstances is a motivation for change. That's desperation.

SPEAKER_00 22:50

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

That's desperation. I need to get out of here. Desperate. I'm willing to do anything to change these circumstances. Desperation, that's a gift.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

Because everybody doesn't receive it. Some people stop.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

Yeah. So we have to start being able to see our discomfort as an opportunity rather than an inconvenience.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

And again, perception, state of mind. Because I can tell myself that an uncomfortable situation is really comfortable.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

And I can live in that uncomfortable space until I realize, because all I know is what I know until I know something different.

SPEAKER_00 23:33

Yeah. So I think the biggest thing for me is because we all know that change, transformation, growth, it doesn't happen overnight, right? And all of us aren't truly ready. And some of us have changed a lot in one area and still have some work to do in other areas. But I think the biggest thing here is to stay curious about what could happen if you just take a step and another step in another step. If you just follow the thread of the first thing that comes to mind is love, because love is the hope, right? The people who love you are the ones who are giving you the hope. The people who love you are the ones who are leaving little break crumbs and hoping that you pick them up to nourish yourself along the way. So follow

Try The Heavier Weights: Testing Limits

SPEAKER_00 24:30

those threads and just try. And this is something that I teach in fitness all the time, right? Like the ladies, they'll be like, okay, I need the, I need the eight pound to do the chest press. And I'm like, try these 15s. And next thing you know, they're baiting out 15s. And I'm like, you actually, actually you're stronger than you gave yourself credit for, right? So just try. If you're unhappy, if you're not, if you're feeling like there is more for you, just try something different and see if that will work to get you to another place. And if not, then try the next thing.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

I use this analogy when I grew about pigs, right?

The Pig And The Mud: Seeing Clearly

SPEAKER_01 25:06

One of the things that everybody knows about pigs is that pigs love playing in mud.

SPEAKER_00 25:13

Yes, okay. I love this analogy.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

In the midst of playing in the mud, the pigs don't see anything wrong with it because their circumstances dictate that this is pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

And so one of the pigs slides out of the mud, and the farmer hits him with a water hose, and now he sees his whiteness, the purity.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:33

It is now that he sees something wrong with the mud.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

So when I'm in a situation, I don't see nothing wrong with it. Most times I have to come out of it in order to know that I was ever in it.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

Yeah. Yeah. All right. That's we're going to end it because Mr. James could talk to us for the rest of the day. Thank you

Closing Gratitude And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 26:00

so much. I'm certain that we will do this again because there are so many threads that we can follow with this conversation. This has been very helpful, and I will get any information that you want to give for where we can find you and get more motivation and encouragement from you. But for now, thank you so much. This has been great. Yeah, we'll talk to you soon. All right.