A Personal Note from Orion

Beyonce has Sasha Fierce, Clark Kent had Superman…who is your alter ego? That one character you can step into and explore a different aspect of yourself, or of the world. Alter egos are powerful ways to experience a sense of freedom from the routine, to discover the world as you have never seen it before, to try new things that you would normally be afraid of. Because when you step into that other role, you leave all the insecurities and restrictions of your former self behind.

My guest today first discovered alter egos when she “switched identities” with her best friend at summer camp. Ever since then, Athena Rosette has been helping people tap into their other self, creating a safe place to explore and learn. Tune in to check out how to step into your alter ego, and how she can help you live in the best version of yourself.

 

In this Episode

• [05:12] – Athena takes a moment to clarify what an alter ego is for listeners who may not be familiar with the term or may have other associations with the term.
• [06:24] – We hear about Athena’s earliest experiences with alter egos, which she ties to her childhood in a Catholic home.
• [08:57] – Athena discusses James Lawrence, an athlete who has done something incredible through the use of an alter ego. Orion then talks about some of her own experiences, both in Japan and India.
• [12:19] – How did Athena develop her personas? She answers, then discusses the physiological changes that can occur after the psychological changes.
• [17:28] – Alter egos can be a bridge to the next version of ourselves because they make a safe space for us to have trial and error, Athena explains.
• [18:05] – What does Athena think about the idea that creating alter egos can create psychological side effects?
• [19:22] – Athena has one alter ego (not multiple), who she doesn’t name. She talks about her alter ego goddess and her belief that we, as women, are all connected through the divine feminine.
• [23:29] – Athena feels that there’s a natural integration happening between her and her goddess alter ego.
• [25:01] – We move onto the role of alter egos in the bedroom, with Athena explaining that this is one of the biggest (and most fun) ways in which people use alter egos.
• [28:02] – Orion talks about an earlier episode of Stellar Life featuring Jaiya, sharing a lesson about respect in the bedroom. Athena then agrees that it’s important to have boundaries in place before play starts.
• [29:57] – What are the steps to begin embracing your own alter ego?
• [32:53] – Orion points out that when you talk to people from BDSM and similar communities, you’ll find that many of the people involved are sweet, kind, successful, and happy to help and assist.
• [34:08] – Athena shares a story and corresponding lesson for people who are expanding their identity through their sensuality.
• [35:42] – Orion shifts the conversation into creating an alter ego as a form of healing, sharing some of her own experiences.
• [39:35] – What are some cases in which Athena saw someone embracing an alter ego as a form of healing?
• [42:16] – Athena talks about the difference between her and her alter ego, particularly before she started integrating the two.
• [45:52] – We hear Athena’s advice for women who may have gained weight that they feel self-conscious about or are otherwise unhappy with their appearance.
• [47:47] – Athena goes into more detail about what to do if you don’t know the answers to her questions immediately.
• [49:08] – One of the things Orion does a lot with her clients is mirror work, she explains, discussing what this is and how she applies it.
• [51:55] – Athena shares something that she’s learned through her health issues: the body is a teacher that we can learn from.
• [55:42] – Orion offers a piece of advice to help with Athena’s condition involving stem cell injections.
• [58:48] – What are Athena’s three top tips to living a stellar life?
  1. Meditate.
  2. Don’t worry so much about “getting it right.”
  3. Practice loving yourself and being thankful.
• [60:18] – Athena lists some places you can find her.

About Today’s Show

‏‏Welcome to Stellar Life Podcast. My name is Orion. I am a love goddess. Hi, today we’re gonna speak about alter egos. My guest, Athena Rosette, first discovered the potential of an alter ego when she switched identities with her best friend at summer camp. It backfired because she did not have the ability to remember her name but it gave her a sense of freedom and she realized that she can explore different identities. Since then, she’s been using alter egos to expand herself into almost creating a super self in many areas of her life. I love the idea of an alter ego, I just love stepping into a different character. I used to be an actress, I loved acting because you step into a different character but you bring essence of yourself that you couldn’t express in real life, it’s really nice to be somebody else every once in awhile. I also went through a journey where I explored my erotic creatures with Sheila Kelley. Sheila Kelley is an extraordinary woman and she helps the rise of the feminine through self-love embodiment and through pole dancing, through essential movement. I had her on the show so you can look for her episode, Sheila Kelley. What she does, if you listened to the episode, she’s got 10 erotic creature icons, five of the positive emotions and five of the negative emotions. She allows you to actually play with those creatures, it’s not like you’re coming to class or to the retreat and you say, “Now I’m going to be an ice cream.” You usually will be drawn to a certain outfit that will represent her and then she’ll come out in your dance. It’s almost like the icon is choosing you rather than you choosing her. For me, it’s such a nice way to liberate myself and express all that I am. When I just arrived here to the US, I wanted to be like everybody else, I didn’t wanna have my accent, I didn’t wanna be a foreigner. I started putting myself in boxes and trying to be like everybody else so much so that I forgot what it was like to be myself. I had a big personality. I was big and people were not comfortable with that. They tried to put me down and I put myself down because I wanted to please others. Funny enough now that I’m older, I’m just looking for more and more ways to step into those magnificent parts of myself and express them. I did a lot of shadow work with my, we can say negative emotion personas, my anger, my pain, my rage. Only when you can actually express and tap into those places in yourself, you can heal and you can use it as a source of power rather than a block or something that will block you. What this episode will give you give is a sense of freedom and a permission to explore who you are or something greater than yourself. Listen in and send me a comment, let me know what you think. I would love to know your alter egos and how you integrate them into your life. Now, onto the show. Hi, Athena. Welcome to Stellar Life Podcast.

‏‏Thank you so much for having me, Orion.

‏‏I’m very excited to be talking to you because we’re gonna talk about one of my favorite topics, something that I’m very curious about which is alter ego.

‏‏I love alter egos. First of all, a lot of people are probably thinking what’s an alter ego or if you hear alter ego you would think, “I know that that’s an evil villain on a super hero show.” It can be, certainly. But typically, an alter ego has to do with the sides of ourselves that we don’t necessarily feel confident or comfortable expressing through our main identity. Let’s say you’re a stay at home mom by day but perhaps you love burlesque and you’re a burlesque performer and you have this whole other side of you that comes out when you’re on stage. If you’re not the stage goer type, maybe you’re an athlete. When you get to competition, another side of you comes out that really helps you excel in your competition. There’s a lot of different ways that we have alter egos. I would like to argue and postulate that everyone has at least one alter ego.

An alter ego has to do with the sides of ourselves that we don’t necessarily feel confident or comfortable expressing through our main identity. Share on X

‏‏I know that you learned about alter egos when you were very young. Can you share a bit about that? How did you even start that?

‏‏Honestly, going back, it probably took me back to my Catholic roots. I grew up in a very Catholic home and I learned that I had to be a certain way in order to be a good person or a good girl. A lot of times, when it comes to gender roles and ways that we’re supposed to express ourselves and how we’re brought up, we have a certain way that we’re supposed to be. It wasn’t very comfortable for me to be that way, I’ve never been a very quiet, shy person and I was taught that in order to be good or to behave well, I needed to be shy and modest. I basically had this way of being at home and then I had another way of being when I wasn’t at home, that I felt like I could just be free and more expressed. It started there, for me. As I grew up, I realized that that was just the beginning, it developed to be on that when I started getting into performance and learned about my sensuality through dancing personally. Samba thought me a lot about being a sensual feminine woman in a way that I had never learned before. That continued to unlock the parts of my identity that were repressed growing up. I realized that identity is a growing complex ever-evolving thing, we’re never just one thing even if we might have a concept of who we are right now in this moment, but it changes moment to moment.

‏‏I totally resonate, it’s interesting because I am in the middle of writing a book called Unleashing Your Inner Superhero. I have the Unleashing Your Inner Superhero as a concept of connecting to power and I have a whole group in Facebook, it’s called Awaken Your Inner Goddess. I’m all about alter egos.

‏‏You are my kind of woman, Orion.

‏‏I love it. Unleashing Your Inner Superhero, when I started talking about that, I’m talking about people like Beyoncé or other performers that have alter egos like Beyoncé has Sasha Fierce and many other athletes when they go on the field, they just channel this other part of themselves so they can perform so powerfully in front of millions of people. You can’t just be the old you if you wanna perform this big.

‏‏That’s right, absolutely. Speaking of athletes, one of the people that I had on the Alter Ego Podcast, his name is James Lawrence. He has done something incredible through the use of an alter ego which I think is a great example for how this is applicable. His alter ego is the iron cowboy. When he takes on this persona, when he steps into the alter ego, the iron cowboy, he can do anything. One of his incredible accomplishments, he accomplished 50 full ironman triathlons in 50 consecutive days in all 50 states. Not only was this man travelling, he had a community around him supporting him including his wife and his kids and other people helping him along the way. They would drive from state to state while he was asleep, he’d wake up and do another triathlon, go to bed, drive to the next state, wake up and do a triathlon. It came with this hat he wore, he wears a cowboy hat when he races in all of that. There’s a lot of really cool things that we can do in order to build ourselves and bridge those gaps from the impossible to suddenly the reachable. A lot of that comes through our own concept of ourselves, our self-concept of identity.

‏‏I totally get it. I was a performer when I was younger so I know what it is to go on stage and channel something different. Also for myself, in my life, I think I’ve done it because I’ve been travelling the world. I lived in Japan for three and a half years. When I lived in Japan, I think I almost got into this Japanese persona where I think I looked Japanese because I channeled it. I just came back from India yesterday, I was hugging an elephant, riding her and painting on her and feeding her, it was awesome. In India, I do look like a multinational. I was there and I was adopting the way of the culture and the way they dress. It’s almost like I feel like chameleon where I can adopt myself to many situations and be a different persona. How did you develop your persona?

‏‏I have a similar story to you, one of the first times that I recognized that I could be somebody totally different, almost, was through travel. I realized that once I got to this new country, nobody that I would meet there knew who I was before and I could reinvent myself in a way. Whoever I was being in that moment is all anyone would know of who I am. It didn’t matter where I came from or what I had experienced up until then, that if I presented, not just posing. There’s a big difference between I’m faking, that I’m being something, I’m talking about the deep actual way of being that we create through our actions. Not just saying I’m this person or I’m that person because I’m in a place that no one will know, that does not really affect us on a core level. We know when we’re faking it, I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about when we step into the shoes of our higher self, so to speak. We have this ability to be present in the moment and create who we are on a moment to a moment basis, that’s what we’re doing all the time but a lot of us don’t realize that we continue the narrative that we have of ourselves and our mind subconsciously without making the conscious choice of creating and sustaining our identity on a moment to moment basis which is all we’re ever doing.

‏‏Is it a physiological change that happens in the body?

‏‏It can be both. In my experience, what I’ve noticed is that physiological change starts developing after the psychological change. For me, I started really presenting and acting and being, because it’s more than just acting and presenting, it’s a way of being, I started being who I really wanted to be authentically. Usually I would be shy, but this time, what I really wanna be is someone who’s really fun and takes chances and meets people and throws myself out there in a way that I would’ve been afraid to otherwise because I was afraid of rejection. When I went travelling, I just said, “The person that’s going on this trip is the version of me that is bright and connective and is interested to try new things.” I did that. Day after day, this way of being instilled itself into my psyche because I was allowing myself to go there. Over time, after traveling for a couple of weeks, suddenly I was that person. At first, a lot of times we have this idea of, “Am I faking this? Is this the imposter syndrome?” When we’re stretching ourselves into a new identity, there’s a lot of resistance that our ego can have about am I good enough to do this or is this safe.

‏‏Our ego is resisting our alter ego.

‏‏Yes, absolutely. That’s the reason that a lot of us make alter egos, is because we don’t have full allowance of ourselves to be expressed in a specific way that we have the desire to be expressed. We create these safe spaces for our psyche to play and to explore. There’s always that safety that we have there like, if I don’t like this or if it doesn’t go the way that I had hoped, I can just kill this alter ego, it’s not me, it’s an alter ego. No problem, it can go. I haven’t really “risked” anything if this alter ego dies or leaves or however you wanna say it. I still have the safe, in my mind, a version of myself that’s intact. That’s one way it can go. On the other hand, the beautiful opportunity that arises to the embodiment and the putting on and the trying on and the living into an alter ego, is we have the opportunity to transmute from one way of being, this limited way of being, that we’ve allowed ourselves to be into this more fully expressed version of ourselves. Once we see that not only did I not, one, I didn’t get hurt, two, it wasn’t as scary as I thought it was, three, I feel excited about this, maybe this is actually who I am and who I’m meant to be. Often times, what I’ve seen happen is we can make a bridge from who we were toward our alter ego and then bring them together and transmute them into one and it becomes this natural type of development. Alter egos can be a bridge to the next version of ourselves because they make a safe space for us to have trial and error without us needing to sacrifice our old identity, it’s like a little safety blanket test zone for a lot of people.

‏‏I would imagine some people that are listening now will think what about people with split personalities? Can creating alter egos create some psychic side effect? What do you think about that?

‏‏I actually have a couple of people on my show, one woman, her name is Julie Woods. She does have multiple personality disorder, I believe it’s called Dissociative Identity Disorder now, they’ve actually changed the name of it.

‏‏The first name was better.

‏‏That’s definitely an experience that people do have. I haven’t seen that it’s something that becomes a risk like if I split my personality, if I say there’s another side of myself that I’m actually going to have a psychic break. I haven’t seen that in my conversations with people as the consequence. The people that I’ve interviewed that have that experience, the way that they perceive alter ego is through their identity, has multiple parts of it, multiple facets of it already and they jump in between those two. That is a part of the wholeness of their identity versus alter ego as a bridge.

‏‏Do you name your alter egos?

‏‏I personally don’t name my alter ego.

‏‏Is it one or many? How many do you have?

‏‏Mine is one and mine is a goddess.

‏‏Awaken your inner goddess, you’re so aligned.

‏‏It’s funny because people are like, “Athena, a goddess, I get it.” It actually has nothing to do with my name and it has everything to do with the way that I feel as an embodied woman. When I was starting my journey of discovering what it is to be a woman, I felt just very limited in my own experiences and I didn’t really know how to be expressed and how to be not only present with myself as a sensual being, first of all, but how to relate my gender with my sensuality, with my humanity, with my connection to divinity was just totally lost on me. What I’ve learned and what I’m continuing to learn is that we as women are all connected through the divine feminine. This is my own personal journey, my own personal belief. To share them, what I’ve learned is that we all have aspects and connection to the divine feminine. The more that I allow myself and open myself to being a powerful, connected, grounded woman on this planet, in this life, in this experience, the more I feel like I’m able to be freely who I am. I feel like I’m not expressing it super well.

‏‏I feel that you are, just keep going.

‏‏When I connect with my idea of what is a goddess? Who is a goddess? To me, a goddess is a woman or a feminine identified being, because not necessarily woman by physical expression of gender, who is fully present in who she is and who her power is, she’s comfortable in her yes, she’s comfortable in her no, she is not afraid to share herself regardless of whatever the response will be and she does so powerfully with intention and purpose and play and fun and laughter and intuition and intention. There’s so many things, but for me the concept of goddess, as an alter ego, has been a bridge for me in order to move from my self-perceived identity of where I was before allowing myself to have these characteristics into bridging the gap, into fully embodying these characteristics. For me, the alter ego of a goddess is all about bridging the gap between my self-perceived limitations and being disconnected often times in our culture. There’s a very hyper masculine way to approach business and I was taught to that connection. I was taught about connection a lot more from my mother than from my father which is not necessarily related to masculine and feminine, it’s just how it went in my family. One of the things that women are so good at and have such a skill and such knowledge to be able to teach is connection. I feel like the more I get in touch with connection and intuition and sensuality and my sensitivity as a human being and as a woman, the fuller and the more beautiful and grounded my experience becomes.

‏‏Do you feel that there is an integration that is naturally happening between you and your alter ego, the goddess?

‏‏Yes, absolutely. I’ve seen the progression of alter egos go a few ways. First, one example would be, if it does integrate. With alter ego as a bridge through bridging identities, what happens is that there’s a side of ourselves that is actually something that we are pulling toward energetically becoming and we just have a disallowance for our experience. A better way of saying that may be the way that I feel like alter ego has helped me become more like the goddess is I’m able to let go of my old identity and put on or try on this hat, so to speak, of what it is to be a goddess. The more and more that I allow myself to be in that space, the more closely aligned I become with that identity and that way of expressing and that way of being. That’s one way that alter ego can manifest. Another way that alter ego comes into play is it’s not necessarily a bridge from an old identity to a new identity but it is a safe space in order for us to express parts of our identity that perhaps are not appropriate to integrate.For example, the sexual world. Perhaps a school teacher but I’m also a dominator. Those do not mix and they shouldn’t.

‏‏That sounds like fun. Let’s talk more about that.

‏‏Those are some of the funniest ones to talk about and honestly, they’re the most listened to episodes that I have. Probably, the biggest area that people or the funniest ways that people have alter egos are in the bedroom. For example, some of my favorite ones that I’ve learned about, that I didn’t really know about before diving into the wormhole of alter egos is there is such a thing as a cuckold. Here’s a fun and interesting one. If you haven’t heard of what a cuckold is, basically it is typically a man who gets off on the idea of being humiliated. A lot of times, these gentlemen are high powered individuals by day. They need some balance or release for the side of themselves that wants to be submissive. It goes to the extreme where the submission comes in the form of being humiliated. My most popular episode of all time on my podcast is episode seven, it’s one of the earliest ones. It’s about a guy who’s a cuckold who likes to be humiliated and made to watch his partner have sex with someone else and he’s not allowed to have sex with her.

‏‏That’s painful. I don’t have the concept of ever doing that but I do understand a bit about this world. People totally embrace all kinds of different alter egos from a grown man that dresses up like a baby to people that loves balloons, there’s so many.

‏‏To people who like the pony play and they like to dress up like horses and being lead around on whatever their leashes are called, I’m not a horse person.

‏‏Ponies and dogs and there’s so many more.

‏‏The bedroom is a big place for playing with identity absolutely because I feel like the bedroom is a space that it comes out where all of our things that we’re either afraid to explore or we don’t have the safety to explore in our waking lives, in our day to day public lives. Typically it becomes a space of bedroom exploration, that’s often how it goes.

‏‏On this podcast, Stellar Life, episode number three is Jaiya who’s a sexologist. We mentioned a bit about safe place. One things she mentioned, I just wanna make sure people understand that with those type of alter egos in the bedroom, make sure that you have a consent with your partner. It doesn’t have to be a 24/7 type of deal, you have to talk about it, have a consent and then maybe decide to play for an hour or two hour or half an hour, whatever it is. When the play is done, you’re done, you’re two normal loving people that respect each other. When there was 50 Shades of Grey, a lot of people were going into BDSM not knowing the rules, not knowing how to respect their partners. I just wanted to emphasize especially in that world of BDSM and role play, there’s a lot of respect and consent where most people really make sure that their partner is protected, that they know their limits. I’ve seen in sexual workshops that I took, a whole two or three pages of are you willing to do this and are you willing to do that, they actually sign it before they start playing.

‏‏Thank you for saying that, it’s super important to have those boundaries and consent in place before any play starts. That way, when you go into the experience, you’re able to do it in a safe way with mutual understanding and respect between two people, that’s a huge, huge thing.

‏‏If one of our listeners wanna embrace his or her alter ego, how can they do that? What’s the process? What are the steps?

‏‏First, I like to encourage people to spend a little bit of time by themselves thinking about the areas of their life where they have this calling for more expression. Typically, the way it will start is, here’s an example, I’m a teacher, I have a lot of rules and a lot of ways that I need to control things, my schedule is very tight, I’m just feeling really restricted in that. What I would love to have in my life is… If you’re looking at areas in your life where you would like more expression or where something just feels like it’s a little bit stifling, that’s typically the first place to look. From there, you can feel out what am I wanting to express. Let’s talk about the sexual realm since we brought that up, I think it’s a big area that a lot of people may want to explore. First you wanna look at safety. A question you wanna ask yourself is where is this side of me appropriate to express? If you already have the communities or the space built into your world and you can identify that, great. If not, start by identifying some communities who are interested in the areas that you would like to explore. I’m so thankful that we’re in the age of the internet right now because not only is there access to many different types of knowledge and learning out there for you to explore whatever it is that you’re interested but typically, there’s a community that is associated with that specific interest or identity. Start there and then reach out. Speaking with some of these people, I know it can feel a little bit scary sometimes and it might take a little bit of time before you feel comfortable reaching out especially if it’s stretching your own self-concept of your identity. I want you to know that you’re not alone in your desire to expand and explore and have more freedom and play in your life and every single person, not everyone probably. Some people are like “I’m free, I’m free” no matter what but many, many people who are on a journey of self-discovery have gone through the point of feeling, “Is it okay for me to do this?” As long as you’re operating within the bounds of safety, consent, and respect, the answer is typically yes, it is okay. Start there.

‏‏Mostly, when you actually talk with people from BDSM communities or other communities, you’ll find out that more people than not are really sweet, kind, successful, really amazing people. They’ll be more than happy to help and assist in a loving way because, I think, most of them understand the difference between who they are and their persona.

‏‏Often, in those communities, you’ll find people with a really advanced understanding and ability to verbalize the experiences that they’ve had and gone through. Not everyone is going to be able to have the ability to share that with you. You’ll be surprised, you’re likely to find fellow human beings who have had similar experiences to you, similar desires to you and have been able to find those and fulfill those to the communities that they’ve established.

‏‏Go talk to fellow human beings because they will help you.

‏‏I have one thing that I wanna share to you, for the people who are expanding their identity through their sensuality. This is something funny. There is a woman that I had that’s really into a latex fetish on my show. It’s funny and awesome to keep in mind whenever exploring a new community. When she started exploring the latex fetish world, she bought her first latex suit. She was, “Oh my gosh. This is so risky, this is so wild, this is so out there.” She took the steps in going to her very first latex club. In her mind, she felt so scandalous about what she was wearing. When she showed up, when she arrived, she was the tamest one there. She was like, “Woah. I am not the weirdest one out here at all.” Do you wanna put a value judgment on it? In her infancy of the exploration of that interest of hers, she realized, “I’m not as weird as I think I am.” It’s okay, people are people, we’re all having experiences. The more expressed we become, often times, we can feel really scared like, “Is this too much?” A lot of times it’s not too much, just go for it, have fun, be yourself and just follow that exploration as far as it feels comfortable for you.

It’s not too much, just go for it, have fun, be yourself and just follow that exploration as far as it feels comfortable for you. Share on X

‏‏I wanna shift the conversation into creating an alter ego as a form of healing because I’m looking back at my life. This is just a thought that came up from this conversation, I never thought about it that way. If you look at my photo albums from when I was a teenager until today, I look like a different person. Every two, three years, you can see that, I don’t look like the same person. People mentioned, wow you look so different, how much you’ve changed. I’m just the type of person where learning is one of her highest values. I keep learning, evolving, travelling, expanding, trying new things. I’ve been to India and I tried everything. Surprisingly enough, I ate crazy and I lost four pounds. That was awesome. Now I can call it an alter ego, until right now I didn’t call it an alter ego but I can see it now. I went through an abusive relationship and ended up in a hospital and got very, very depressed. The thought that ran my life at that time was, “How can I not get hurt?” One of the things that I did as a form of healing was taking on MMA and Aikido. Back then, I was very present with my martial art. When I was MMA and you see a photo of me, you’re like, “Oh my God, she looks so sweet and delicate but look at this photo.” I was channeling my masculine warrior full on like there was no messing with me, I would enter a room very strong. When I did the Aikido, I was the deshi, I was the sensei’s assistant, I was very strict and I excelled really fast because it was almost like I needed to gain that persona of nobody can hurt me, nobody can mess with me. Eventually, that was really good for then. What I do right now, I’m a love coach and I help women awaken their inner goddess and find their soulmate because I’ve been to that transformation when I was so strong in my masculine that I wasn’t able to date. I went to an event, I learned about masculine-feminine polarity, I had a breakdown breakthrough and I met my soulmate. He proposed to me nine days later in a hot air balloon in Vegas. I said no. Nine months later I said yes. After meeting him, I went through a whole journey into finding what it is to be a woman and what it is, for me, being a woman for me, what is it and how can I find strength in vulnerability, how can I find power in being a woman because up until then, I was blaming myself for being a woman. I was blaming myself for being sweet and open and in my feminine because for me, being sweet and open in my feminine equals you’re gonna get hurt, really hurt, physically, mentally, emotionally. I had to go to one polarity in order to find the other polarity and then integrate them together and understand who I am today which is always ever expanding and evolving. What were some cases where you saw people embracing an alter ego as a form of healing?

‏‏Actually, her story is a little bit similar to yours. It’s a great episode to listen to for anyone interested in a journey that is similar to what you spoke of. Her name is Miss Meeka Madness. She’s a black Latina woman, she also had an abusive relationship situation where she was just feeling really beat down, so to speak, and had a really hard time expressing herself and extricating herself from that relationship. She discovered and built the side of herself in order to do that, she started exploring making horror comedy. She started doing these comedy videos of a horror situation, it’s like a vampire coming and surprising her jumping out. There are these tiny little snippets she started sharing through social media that shifted the way that she viewed herself as a woman who is overcoming these horrible situations through her interactions on social media as almost like a play or as a way of sharing that she could overcome and she could be somebody who survives in the face of really strong challenges. Through that, she learned that, “If I can do this as a fake character on screen, I can do this in my life.” She built this alter ego named Meeka Madness that helped her not to step outside of this abusive relationship and create a new life. She was able to leave that relationship because she created a character that was stronger than how she perceived herself to be in her mind that had limited her and kept her in that relationship. Overtime and after being outside of that relationship and really stepping into this persona more and more and more, what you were saying about integration has happened for her and she has integrated it to becoming this strong, bold, sexy, feminine woman who has control on sovereignty in her life. I love her story, she’s really well-spoken about it too. Meeka Madness is one example of that.

‏‏What’s the difference between you and your alter ego?

‏‏Speaking of integration, I’ve been integrating more and more.

‏‏Who were you before? What’s the difference between the two of them from before?

‏‏The Athena before my alter ego was afraid of her body, was not very expressed verbally, I didn’t really know how to ask for what I wanted or even stand comfortably and confidently in my own skin especially when I was being looked at by men or anyone. I feel like a lot of times as a young woman, we grow up learning to hide, we learn to hide our bodies, we learn that our bodies are either shameful or they’re dangerous. That was something that I took to heart a lot as a young woman and I was really afraid of my own body, I was really afraid of being expressed and being visible and if I get attention then it’s not gonna be good for me, something’s gonna go wrong, I’m either gonna receive negative attention that I don’t want or things I don’t know how to handle. Over time, through the use and through the living of the alter ego of a goddess, it was almost like putting on a superhero cape in a way. For me, the first time that I was able to express that was when I wore my Brazilian samba costume which is a huge feathered headdress and back piece and this tiny little bikini. It’s funny because even though I was wearing, probably, less clothing that I normally wouldn’t public when I perform in this costume, my feathers feel like a cape and feel like a shield at the same time. They taught me and I learned how to be confident in my body. The confidence in my body became a gateway that once I learned how to walk through that, I became confident not only in my body but in my mind and in my expression and podcasting has given me confidence in my voice. It’s been a journey, absolutely, I really relate to what you said about having a journey that you go on and you continue to open and develop. The more and more that I allow myself to do that, the more confident and comfortable I become and I really do feel like a goddess in my life now. I feel amazing in a way that I never have before and the beauty of it is it’s not over yet, it’s still continuing, I’m not “there” by any means but oh my gosh, how far I’ve come. I have such a passion for assisting women in that and helping people to really fully unmask their potential and step into that, it’s an incredible journey and I love seeing people take it, it’s inspiring.

‏‏Theoretically, there is a woman who is listening right now who, maybe, gained some weight, she’s not comfortable with her body, she feels like she used to look a certain way, now she doesn’t. What will be your advice to her in order to embrace that beautiful goddess part or an alter ego? She writes down those traits but how does she make the transition between this is who I wanna be, to this is who I’m becoming?

‏‏What I would say to her is when you close your eyes and you connect beyond your body, we’ll get back to the body in a second because this is an important piece of it. Stripping away our bodies, stripping away our genders, stripping away all of that, the question that I would wanna ask is who am I at my core and what is it about me that is loved and how am I loved. First, start there and connect beyond our identity, who are we at our core? For me, what I’ve learned from myself is I am a movement of energy, I’m an embodiment of presence, of love, of divinity, and spirit. Beyond my body, beyond the expression that we have in this plane, one is we are spirit, first of all. That spirit is love and connection. Starting there, stepping back into our body and looking at who we are in this plane, in this experience, asking who I am today, who I am being today, the expression of that love, the expression of that connection. Moving forward from there, I would start with those two questions first. A couple of things that I would probably start looking at too is how is my body as what it is now and who I am now, the expression of that love, how does my body express love.

‏‏What if they can’t see it? You ask the question and they’re like, “I don’t know.”

‏‏Sometimes, that will be the first reaction that we have especially if we’re used to seeing ourselves in a specific way. If we don’t know right now, continue to be with it and be preset with it and sit with it. We don’t have to get an answer right away but the exploration of it and the ability to be with it and be present with it oftentimes will lead to a breakthrough. I know that’s not what people wanna hear like, “What’s the answer?”

‏‏Instant gratification like Facebook.

‏‏That’s why it can be a journey of returning to it and being present with where we are and who we are in this moment. I wish I had an instant gratification answer for it but for me, what helped me to step through is to be present beyond the physicality and beyond the body of it, beyond the body of who we are and our body, who are we underneath the surface of our body and how can we express that through our physicality and through our presence which will often change our concept and relationship to our body.

‏‏One of the things that I do with my clients a lot is mirror work from Louise Hay. She just passed a few months ago, unfortunately. I had the honor of seeing her in person once and that was just a magical moment. She’s got a book, it’s called You Can Heal Your Life. She talks about the connection between affirmations and disease and how, by changing your subconscious mind through affirmations, you can change your biology and heal your body and heal your soul. One of her techniques is called mirror work. Louise says that when something good happens, run to the mirror and say, “I love you.” When something bad happens, run to the mirror and say, “I love you, I love you no matter what.” One of the exercises that I give my clients is to look at themselves in the mirror and say “I love you” because at that dark time that I spoke about, I didn’t love myself but I had the information. I did mirror work, in my first few times, I looked at my eyes and I said I love you and my reflection started crying. There was no love, there was lame, shame, guilt, self-loathing, I couldn’t love myself. Like you said, you stay with the process and you might not get your answer or your breakthrough the first time but keep doing it, the question that you asked, where is my expression the soul is love. If you can’t get the answer, keep with it, ask it again and again and again. If you can tell yourself I love you the first few times, keep doing it because eventually, their reflection will smile back at you and say, “Yes you are. I love you back.” Another process that can be added to that is Ho’oponopono. It’s a Hawaiian method where you can look at yourself in the mirror or look at your body. There are four steps, you say, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you. Just repeat it, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you. I think it can be a stepping stone for developing the alter ego.

‏‏I have one more thing that came to my mind when you were sharing that. One thing I’ve learned through my own experience with my health is that my body is a teacher. The question that we can look at our bodies and ask ourselves is what do you have to teach me and how can I love you and how can I learn from your lessons. That’s deeply a beautiful teacher. We may not be able to say, “This is beautiful.” About three years ago now, I experienced a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. At first, I thought it was a death sentence and I was so angry about my body. I know this is different than the issue of the physical appearance but it had to do with what is my ability going to be, is it going to degenerate and am I going to die and all of that. All of those questions and everything comes up when you’re faced with something like that. I had a lot of blame and I had a lot of shame around it and I couldn’t even share about it for the longest time. When I saw my body as a teacher and I started to ask, “Okay body, what do you need? How can I love you? How can we get through this together?” Because we are not our bodies, our bodies are part of who we are but it’s not all off who we are and they can be teachers if we let them. For me, I had to learn that the way that I was carrying myself and my life and the kind of stress that I had in my life was not supportive of my body and my body wanted to teach me about that and that’s part of my diagnosis. What I was eating was not healthy for my body and I didn’t know, I didn’t know that my immune system was being affected negatively because I thought I could eat anything because I haven’t really had a lot of weight fluctuation up and down or anything, I’ve always been pretty consistent throughout my life so I’ve never thought anything was wrong or anything like that but no, my immune system was seriously compromised because of my diet and I never knew because I never learned anything about that. Growing up, I just ate a lot of TV dinners and no problem, I didn’t really have any allergies or anything but little did I know that my immune system was slowly, slowly, slowly stressing more and more overtime. We have an opportunity through body struggles and challenges whether it’s health related or whether it’s self-perception because of body and weight to look at what can you teach me, body. Sometimes it can be hard to be thankful for that, at first. Staying with it, this is another lesson of looking in the mirror and staying present in the body. What I’ve learned from my own journey and each person has to go on their own with their body and the lessons that our bodies have to teach us is now I can look back and I can honestly say thank you, thank you for teaching me that and showing me that because going through that journey has taught me to be not only connected with my health but connected into gratitude for what my body does for me every single day because I can live any moment. This life is a very tenuous thing even though it can seem otherwise. Gratitude is a huge thing. That’s a good place to start too, gratitude.

‏‏Thank you, Athena, for being open and vulnerable about it. I’m sure that it helps a lot of people that are listening right now. One thing that, maybe, can help with your condition and you might wanna look into it is stem cell therapy. My husband has a podcast, it’s called Get Yourself Optimized. He interviewed Dr. Harry Adelson, I don’t remember what number episode it was but it’s Dr. Harry Adelson on Get Yourself Optimized. He was talking about stem cell therapy and how you can actually bank your stem cells from your bone marrow and your adipose tissue and inject them into different parts of your body and that can really help. I saw a video of a dog that I think had dog condition but I’m not sure and had it really badly. You see the difference after three weeks and three months and it went from not being able to climb up the stairs to jumping. The earlier we bank our stem cells, the better. You can harvest them but in the US, you’re not allowed to bank them so you’ll have to bank them in different country, in a foreign country like maybe Mexico. There is a lot of information about that. You listen to the Dave Asprey show where he was injecting stem cells to his brain and his male parts that gave him a lot of pleasure and power and he actually put it on his face and he looks younger. Harry Adelson is the guy that operated on Dave Asprey. Listeners, you can listen to Dave Asprey’s podcast on Stellar Life, it is an incredible episode, Dave Asprey.

‏‏Episode 38.

‏‏Oh my God, thank you. You’re amazing, you’re awesome. Future medicine is pretty incredible. I’m actually gonna be at the Bulletproof Conference tomorrow, it’s in LA. I think it’s Pasadena for the next three days where I’m gonna learn a lot about biohacking and mind hacking. I think there is a lot about relationship and sexuality in the conference this year, a lot of this type of topics so it’s gonna be awesome. Before we leave, it was such a pleasure. I wanna thank you very much. Two questions, one, what are your three top tips to living a stellar life and two, where can people find you?

‏‏Number one, meditate. Oh my gosh, I used to hate meditating and now I love it. Meditation has helped me in my mindset, it helped me in my business, it helped me start my day on the right food. I think tip number two goes along with tip number one, tip two, don’t worry so much about “getting it right.” Being a perfectionist helps no one and I promise it doesn’t help you all the time. It can be helpful for specific projects and for specific parts of your business and everything like that but it’s not the way to live our lives as far as mindset all the time, you don’t have to be right all the time. I’m speaking to myself, by the way, for Orion’s listeners but I promise it helps. Tip number three, really practice loving ourselves, being thankful, gratitude. Tip number one meditate, tip two don’t worry about getting it right, tip three gratitude. You can connect with me on Twitter and Instagram at @bealterego or my website is bealterego.com and the podcast is the Alter Ego Podcast. You can find it on iTunes, Apple Podcast now, on Google Play and Stitcher. You can always email me as well at athena@nullbealterego.com.

Don’t worry so much about “getting it right.” Being a perfectionist helps no one and I promise it doesn’t help you all the time. Share on X

‏‏Thank you so much, Athena.

‏‏Thank you, Orion. I loved having this experience with you on your show, I really appreciate it.

Your Checklist Actions to Take

✓ Change your perception about alter egos being a form of multiple personality disorder. Alter egos come from the process of stripping away all your inhibitions to discover who you are at your core. 

✓ Never be ashamed to admit what makes you happy. As long as you are not hurting anybody, it’s alright to keep doing what you love.

✓ Spend some time by yourself thinking about the areas in your life where you can engage in more self-expression. 

✓ Find communities with similar interests so that you can have a safe place to express your innermost desires without feeling judged. 

✓ Discover forms of art that enable you to be free and open up your thoughts. Artistic expression can come in the form of drawing, dancing or playing music.

✓ Talk to the people in your community and find friends who have similar experiences to your own. Connections will help you in your journey to self-discovery.

✓ Don’t be afraid or hesitate in your self-exploration. It’s a healthy exercise as long as you’re comfortable and having fun. 

✓ Create an alter ego that is stronger than you. Your alter ego should not be afraid of self-expression and should have the strength to lift you up when you need it most.

✓ Be yourself and don’t let society dictate what you should or shouldn’t do. Don’t hide from who you truly are because you’re afraid of how others will perceive you.

✓ Travel and discover something new while you’re on your journey. Travel is the best way to reinvent yourself since everything in the environment is unfamiliar and new. 

Links and Resources:

About Athena Rosette

Athena is passionate about the power of Alter Egos to help others transcend accepted limitations. Using movement practices, meditation, and intentional embodiment, Athena helps her clients unlock seemingly unreachable results through allowance of the Super Self!