Ep. 154 Tell Me About Your Name

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(00:00):

<Silence> Hey there, honey bunnies. Welcome to episode 100 and something <laugh>. Sorry. Usually, before I start recording, I look up the last episode number because I never remember and so I can sound like I know what I'm doing. But this is Laura Michelle Wolff, your host of Sovereign Storytellers. And I met with a lovely person on Friday. I don't know if she wants her name public, so I won't say who she was, but she's a long-time follower of the podcast from the very beginning back when I, where it was called Addicted Mystics. And I ended up changing the name because although I do think we can get addicted to mysticism, and I think a lot of people who are, you know, end up on a spiritual journey, have some aspect of addictions. Either they were raised by addictions, or they struggle with their addiction.

(01:10):

And I was an addiction therapist, a mental health and trauma therapist that has worked with addictions, and have my background of all of that. However, I don't do that work anymore. And so I, when the podcast was called Addicted Mystics, I got an enormous flood all the time from rehab centers for people who are actively looking for help or working with that population. And so I had to, I had to change the name 'cause it was giving the wrong impression. And the reason I bring up the name changes, first of all, if you've been following and listening since Addicted Mystic days, 'cause I think only seven episodes in, I changed the name. That was a while ago, and I like, a long while ago. And I just wanna say thank you, thank you for still being here. Thank you for listening to whatever I happen to be ranting about. And if I've never met you and I never meet you in any form, I just wanna say thank you so much. From the bottom of my heart. While I was talking with this person, she had bought a reading, and we were exploring things and at the end, she'd asked me about my name change. So all these years all my life really, I've gone by my middle name, which is Michelle. So all my online stuff is Michelle Wolff. www.thatmichellewolff.com,

Like all my social media has been Michelle Wolff since, well, whenever, I got online, but all, all my life. Laura is my middle name, and some people will say, well, what's your real name? Well, they're all my real name. My birth certificate says Laura Michelle Carter. Carter is my dad's name, of course. And in 1992, was it sooner than that, 92 or 93? I was in college. I went to college late in life, relatively speaking. I was in my late twenties, and I was getting divorced and frustrated. So this whole episode's gonna be about name changes and how we identify ourselves and how important it is. So in 92 or three, as I was getting divorced and looking at having to change my name again, I got frustrated, and I was like, you know what, what happens if I get remarried someday? And I take that guy's last name, and something happens to him, and then I'm back to not, you know, I've got my dad's name, then my husband's name, now my ex-husband's name. If I remarry, I'll have another name. And I was like, you know what? I'm sick of this. I don't even wanna deal with this. I want my own name. So Wolf is my last name. I chose myself.

(04:47):

Ironically enough, the German spelling of that name, the English spelling is W-O-L-F-E. And then, I don't know, you know, the animals WOLF. And I picked the double FI and looked at all the different spellings. I didn't know at the time it was German, and I was wanting to get away from my German heritage <laugh>. This is why wherever you go, there you are, you can't escape yourself. I ended up picking the German spelling without even knowing it, isn't that funny? So I have already picked a name that was not on my birth certificate and not in my family records.

(05:39):

In theory, it could be a family name somewhere back there. I can trace my family back to this forest that I can't pronounce in, in German Hungary area. Anyway, so I legally changed it. And the, in those days, it wasn't as hard as it is these days to change your name. So I just had to publish it in the paper, do a bunch of stuff, and that's my legal name. So my driver's license and my passport and everything legal has wolf on it. Well, because I'd already done that before I started making a name for myself online, it didn't matter. And growing up there, it, it's not that unusual, I think, in the South for people to go by their first initial and middle name or just their middle name. So you know, F. Scott Fitzgerald or there's lots of people with the, although I don't know if he's from the South <laugh>, but you know what I mean, like, it's not that uncommon for kids to go by their middle name.

(06:45):

And I had always been called Michelle and not Laura. And in fact, when people would try to give me a nickname or my sister, my dad wouldn't allow it. He was like, we picked those names for a reason. My family would my dad's side of the family would wanna call me Mickey, which is a nickname for Michelle, and he just wouldn't have it. So we were never allowed to be called by nicknames. And I never really questioned why it was my middle name when I got older. And, and by older, I mean about six years old, maybe seven, whenever somebody would bring the name Laura up, my mother would begin complaining about how she hated the name Laura because she thought it was the name of someone my father was cheating on her with when I was born, around the time I was born. Because he picked Laura, she picked Michelle for the Beatles and song, of course, which was as I was born in 66.

(08:00):

So whenever I heard the word Laura, I experienced her anger about it, her, her bitterness, her resentment, and I attached that. And then I hated my first name. But as a child, you don't question why you hate it. You just take on the beliefs of the people you're raised with. This is how racism is carried on. This is how religions are carried on. Things that you eat. Like every aspect of you is influenced by the person you're raised by, people you're raised by the culture you grow up in. And if you never get to the point in life where you question that, you are just a parrot parroting things that you heard. So a, a couple of years ago, maybe three years ago now, I really started dedicating my energy to undoing all the poverty beliefs and things about money. There's several episodes about money that, that you can listen to the unraveling of, you know, why do I think this about money?

(09:09):

Why do I struggle? Why have I always struggled? Why have, why does my mom's side and my dad's side have such a difficult relationship with money? My dad's side suffered more. They were sharecroppers. They all, they never got to go to school for very long. I think my dad got to go the longest and he, they made him leave in fifth grade. But my dad's family started picking whatever crop was in, out in the fields when they were old enough to drag a bag behind them. So I'm talking two or three years old, they would get up, the oldest daughter, my Aunt Irene, who was also a child, would make breakfast for everyone. She had to drag a chair over to the stove. She was that little and that then all those kids and whatever adults were around would head to the fields and pick all day A and then come back.

(10:10):

And then when the money came in, it was spent on alcohol and partying and then cigarettes and things like that. And then it would be gone. And it, so feast, famine, feast, famine, terrible poverty, abject poverty. So I started digging into all that. And I had to undo my beliefs about people who have a lot of money, which I'm glad I did that a few years ago. Or right now, the class war that we're in would probably be eating me alive. Like I'm angry about what's happening. I'm angry about the coup in my country. I'm angry about what's going on and people losing their jobs. And I'm not even gonna list all the things, but I'm angry in a different way than I think I would've been a few years ago because it is the billionaire class gutting everything to give themselves yet another tax break, taking away from those who have very little to give to those who don't want for anything and never will so much money.

(11:18):

They couldn't spend it in a, you know, 17 lifetimes. They couldn't spend it all and they, and they still want more and more and more. And if I hadn't done all that work, I think I'd be impossible to live with <laugh>, because I know it's not about the money at all. It's not at all about the money. So I don't get hung up on that. However the reason when I was digging into all those beliefs, I was like, I was using an alter ego. So I was like, okay, I need an alter ego because I have no idea what it's like to have more than enough money. I've can barely sustain myself. And it's always been like that subsistence level I have just enough and often quite a bit of debt. So I was reading The Alter Ego by Todd Herman. I was run across this idea of having a wealthy, wealthy self alter ego.

(12:17):

So I was playing with all that stuff, and I was meditating, and I was like, you know what? It's interesting that I have a first name that I've never used because I hate it. And when people at doctor's offices would say it, you know, before computers came along, you weren't forced to go by any order in your name, you could just list your name. But then we got computer,s and everything had to be entered as first, middle, initial last name. And so I remember being really upset about that because I was forced to list myself as Laura M at the time, Carter or Fletcher, I think it was, I think I was married already by the time the computer things came along and forced us to start going by names in a certain order. So anyway, I'm doing all that. And I remember I used to get enraged and I would say, I don't use my first name, I go by my middle name, which in the south is no big deal. They're like, oh yeah, what is it? And they make a note on the chart, try to remember to call you that.

(13:20):

So a few years ago, when I was looking into this, I was like, wait, I've never used my name. I have a name that's sort of untouched, and can I bet y'all can hear Juniper Hoot playing in the background? He's got a little cloth mouse that he runs around and makes a lot of noise with in the evenings.

So I was like, why don't I use that first name and make like my wealthy self's name be like luxury Laura? It felt, and it felt ridiculous. And then I was like, wait, I can't do that until I figure out why I hate that name so much. And then on reflection, I was like, wait a minute, I never hated that name. My mother hated that name. And every time it came up, it was such a blast of anger and bitterness and resentment and all this stuff. I just associated that with that name. I had no reason to hate that name at at all. Like that's my first name. So I was like, this is crazy. This is how embedded that stuff is that I just literally would have a visceral hate for that name. But that's how we are conditioned. So if you're into human design, that's the deconditioning process. How come I don't like this? How come I hate that? Why do I think this about those people? How come my

(14:50):

Attitude is why do I curl my lip? Why do I have contempt? How come I really love this food and really hate that food? Like really digging into all of that, which I had done a lot of, but not with my name. So for me, being online since 2015 in a big way and all of my social media accounts and my website and everything has Michelle Wolf on it and like my acuity scheduling, I can't change that. I'd have to start a new account. But I really wanted all of me, once I realized what had happened, I was like, I've got a fresh name that doesn't have any pain associated with it, that's mine. Once I stripped away what wasn't mine, I was like, oh gosh, I actually really like that name. And at the time I, I was going through this, I was substitute teaching in a title one school that was mostly Hispanic children.

(15:50):

And because of the, you know, the way the system is set up, my substitute teaching tag name tag had Laura on it. So they were calling me louder and I was like, wow, I love how that sounds. I love hearing them say louder. And the kids were from all, all all over the place south of us, Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua El Salvador, like all over the place. And I was like, gosh, that sounds really great. I love it. So I didn't change it. And I really wrestled with changing it online because it creates confusion and it, and it has created confusion. So, but it felt so important to me to have all of me present. And it's not like I was hiding. I definitely wasn't. Y'all know, if you've listened to any, listened to this podcast for any length of time, you definitely hear all the things and then some, like, I hold very little back <laugh>.

(16:58):

So I wanted to continue that. So when I'm meeting new people they're addressing me by Laura or Laura Michelle. And then I was like, I really like Laura Michelle, and also it's a double name. Is that pretentious? Is that Hollywoodish? Is that silly? And I was like, well, no, not really because I have a younger cousin who's also named Laura Michelle, and her whole life she's been Laura Michelle, a double name. So again, that's like a thing in the south, a double name Betty Lou Robin, Robin Lynn, you know, whatever that double names are. Betty Sue, not, I mean, that's the old one. But there, there are a lot of double names. I really like how it sounds. And also I don't really care what people call me. I like the sound of both names, but most people still at this point know me as Michelle and I still like that name.

(18:09):

So I'm fine with people calling me Michelle. That's what's familiar to them. That's how they know me. That's the identity piece, right? So new people coming in, I list everything as Laura, Michelle. Some people call me Laura, Michelle, and some people call me Laura. And I'm okay with all of that too. It's like we don't have just one identity. We, the, and the identities that we know each other as are constructs. They're constructed by our projections, by what people tell us. But no matter how close you are with someone, you'll never know them inside and out 100% because that's not the nature of humanity. We are one on some level and we are very separate from each other while we're physical. And even the things we think we know about people are often they're colored with our lenses. They're colored with, oh, it, so it's, let me give you an example.

(19:16):

There's some people that do things that don't bother me at all, but if somebody else does them, I get really upset about it. <Laugh> like the people I like and love sort of get a pass for doing annoying things. They don't, I don't even notice it. And if I do, I'm just like, oh, you know, whatever, that'll just ignore it. But somebody else can do the same behavior. And if I don't like them, this is so petty. If I don't like them or I don't know them, then it can be super annoying to me. And which is interesting, it's like, oh, I decided that this person can have a pass, but this person is gonna catch the wrath, right? It's ridiculous. So when we really look at identities, they're constructed, they're constructed for us from birth on, excuse me, for yawning. And then, ideally, we reach a stage in our development where we start to question what's been constructed for us.

(20:16):

And we start to ask ourselves, wait, I got handed a playbook. I got handed a character sketch, and I've been living with that character and following the playbook my entire life.

Now, wait a minute, which of these do I want to keep? Which of these do I wanna get rid of? And what can I be that I haven't even considered?

So a great way to do this is, and I did this, and I have a video about it somewhere. It's mind mapping out on a piece of paper. It's radical acceptance. It's listing on a piece of paper your name in, in a circle. And then you draw spokes out from this circle with your name in it. And you write every positive and negative thing about yourself that you can think of. Even the things you would just die if somebody else found out how petty you can be or how mean you can be, or how cold-hearted you can be.

(21:19):

And you write it all down so you can see it on a single piece of paper so that you can recognize that you're not just one thing and you're not just a handful of things. You're like 50 to a hundred things. I encourage people to write as many lines around that circle and label every line as many as they can. I drew mine on a giant piece of poster board and I wrote everything, generous, gossipy helpful animal rescuer, like all the things I'm proud of and all the things I'm not proud of. And then I traced those back. Who taught me social services? Well, my aunts, my aunts were interpreters for the deaf. We went to church. My aunts interpreted we, we got taken to festivals for the deaf. Both my aunts were foster parents. They were very much involved in social service.

(22:23):

So for a long time I thought that's why I ended up in social service and advocacy stuff because I was raised by them. But the more I learned about astrology, I was like, oh, there was no way I wasn't gonna be an advocate for something. And then when I learned about human design, I was like, oh God, I couldn't have avoided social work if I tried. Like I was never ever gonna be a computer programmer, which I did try. 'cause I was like, whoa, those guys are making a lot of money, and their job doesn't look that hard. But it actually is that hard. And I do website stuf,f and I, I can do a little bit of coding, but it's way beyond me <laugh>. And it's not, I mean, I can build a website, but that's not me, right? I'm a social worker at heart. <Laugh>. So all these pieces of identity and names are very important. Most recently, there is a bill that has passed the house. That would mean that you can't register to vote unless you have a US passport because to get a US passport, you have to supply evidence or supportive paperwork for all your name changes. If you've changed your name to get married, but you don't have a, you haven't gone through the rigorous nonsense of getting a passport, you won't be able to vote or register to vote and you won't be able to vote. That's what they're trying to do. Not everyone can afford to get a passport. Not everyone has some people have legal histories that won't allow them to get a passport. They will not be allowed to vote. So they're messing with people, and it hasn't passed the Senate yet. But we don't know, maybe it won't go anywhere because it's pretty ridiculous. And you're cutting out, you know, not only people who've changed their name because they're trans or because they're in hiding from violence but because they got married. Some people get married these days and both people change their names. So it's gonna impact men as well, not to the same degree. But there you go. So our names matter a lot.

Our names matter in how we think about ourselves, but names also carry energy. If a name is strongly associated in a family, like you have a whole bunch of Michael's Michael Sr. Michael Jr. Or Michael Jr. Ii Michael the fourth or, or whatever, like the name carries energy, words carry energy. We know this. Our speech has a frequency. So names have frequency and it matters what we call ourselves. It matters how we think about our name and what our name says to us about us.

(25:22):

If you're in the Kennedy's having the last name, Kennedy comes with a package of stuff, right? If you're in the long family lineage in certain parts of Mississippi, my last name Carter comes with a package of stuff attached. And if people know who my dad was, it opens doors for me, not doors that I'm interested in, not doors that I would ever walk through, but knowing, oh that's that guy's daughter, she's okay or let her in or whatever. You see how that name and identity stuff is connected. When he died and I had to make a few phone calls to his friends, a lot of people were like, you know, oh, he meant this to me. He meant that to me. You ever need anything, you let me know. Don't keep my number. I don't care if it's 20 years from now. You need something, you let me know because you're his daughter. Names are important.

(26:44):

I worry about people who don't feel like they can call themselves something different because people do make a fuss about it. People don't like it when you change your name because you, I I'll say some people, not everybody, but it does, it does make, it creates a ripple in the brain. 'cause You have to readjust your idea of a person, your image of them, how you think about them. It's interesting that we make such a fuss about it, but we don't make a fuss about it. When, when, when women get married and they change their last name, we don't make a fuss about that. They're like, oh, I've always called you Carter. Now I gotta call you Fletcher. Oh, that's right, you got married Michelle Fletcher instead of Michelle Carter. And oh, you've changed your name. Oh, now it's Michelle Wolf. And people just train themselves to call you by your new last name.

(27:43):

But when you change your first name or you have the audacity to pick a name that is like beyond the pale <laugh>, it's so funny when people are what's not funny at all, but when trans people wanna be called by a new name and people make such a stink about it and like, oh my God, I can't remember, I'm sorry, I keep calling you Trey, when you wanna be called Theresa. I just can't remember. I can't, I can't believe you changed your name. I just can't remember to call you that. I'm just gonna call you Trey. And it's like, well that's not true because we can remember to call married women by their new last name. It might take us a few times, but we don't make us stink about it. We make an effort and we don't continue to call them by their maiden name. So we are very conditioned. This type of name change is okay, this type of name change is medium and this type of name change. Well now you're just a freak. Now you're just a weirdo. Like the people who changed their names to the, like in the sixties, that was, I don't know if it's as popular now, but I know a lot of kids got named like summer rain and you know, oak leaf and, and things like that. Nature names or names that are not air quote normal or average.

(29:15):

And people have very different responses to them. So the way we respond to someone changing their name lets us know how important identity is. And it lets us know how hard it is to change your identity when you've always been the poor one in the family and you wanna 'em now become wealthy and work on a wealthy identity. People around you don't like it when you've never had boundaries and now you wanna be known as someone who has boundaries. People don't like it. They'll, they'll actively try to prevent you from changing. Even this happens in weight loss. Somebody in the family's always been the fat one. You start to lose weight or the friend group. This happened to me when I lost weight. I had one friend who criticized me constantly called me a. Even like, oh, you're just wanna be a skinny.

(30:13):

You know, like, well actually I'd like to live longer and feel better in my body, but okay, if that's what you have to frame it as, you know what I mean? So I wanted to tell you about the name change so that it makes sense. Don't think I've changed it on the podcast yet. I'm not sure if I even can, but I know I haven't changed the graphic and I can't change it on my scheduler 'cause I don't want to, like, when you guys go to book of reading, it's Michelle Wolf dot as.me/clarity or slash Celestial or whatever it is. I can't change that. I don't want to change that because I'm on like a really good plan with Acuity. And as they've raised their rates over the years, I've, I've been kept at, I've been grandfathered in at the same rate. So I don't wanna change it <laugh>.

(31:07):

So I may just have to put a disclaimer, like if you're looking for Laura Michelle, you're in the right place. If you're looking for Michelle, you're also in the right place. So take a notice. Like, do you like your name? If you could change your name, would you, do you have a nickname? And do you like that nickname? I've been given nicknames that I didn't like and I did. They were projections like, oh, you're this, so I'm gonna call you this nickname forever. But I wasn't that that was a projection that they were seeing. It had nothing to do with me. And at the time, and lots of times I just don't care enough about it to be like, Hey, yeah, don't call me that or No, no, my name's Laura Michelle. No, no, you can't call me Laura. No, no, you can't call me Michelle.

(31:56):

I just really ultimately don't care that much. I care what I know myself as. That's what matters to me. So it's kind of like I, I mean it when I say call me what feels comfortable to you. If you've always known me as Michelle, call me Michelle. If you just met me and you feel weird saying Laura, Michelle, which is four syllables, then just call me Laura. Like, make yourself comfortable. I'm going to answer to it all. Now <laugh> for about I think I did this what, a year ago maybe, I don't know if it's even been a year ago, but people at work would call me Laura and I wouldn',t and I would be like, oh yeah, that's me. So, it was more of a healing journey for me. More of a, oh, human design talks about deconditioning. I don't know if I finished that thought earlier, but the deconditioning process takes us back to who we were without all the stories attached.

(32:53):

That's why this podcast is called Sovereign Storyteller. It matters to me more than anything that everyone be sovereign in their stories. But to be sovereign in your stories, the stories you tell about you and the stories you let other people tell about you takes a lot of work, right? It takes a lot of effort, it takes a lot of being willing to look at your own shadow. It takes being able to look at yourself and go, man, I really love this part of me. And wow that part of me is pretty or mean. Like, oh, I can see there's a part of me that would really like to go down revenge road on that. I won't do it, but I have to acknowledge there's a part of me that would like to <laugh>. You know, we have that devil and angel part of us and we need to have them both. And so the name thing was sort of me deconditioning and owning all of me. But it's important to me. That's what matters most to me. And it did rattle some people and I was, I knew they would get past it. It was just like you know, you expect it to be sunny outside and you go outside and it's snowing and you're like, whoa, what? Wait, what? And you just adjust and it's not that big a deal.

(34:13):

I will probably change the graphic and, but I wanted to leave an episode about it. 'cause In talking with this delightful person, I realized I hadn't done that. I had thought about doing it and I think I may have referenced it, but I never actually did it. Okay, so I'm gonna leave this. I'm using a new microphone. We're gonna hope that I've been talking for nearly 35 minutes and we're gonna hope that this microphone comes out good because I hate post-production editing <laugh>. That's why y'all get background noise and yawning sounds. And the cat meowing is 'cause I'm just too lazy to hire a sound editor. It's not even about the expense because I have a guy who will do some editing and if this sounds like absolutely atrocious, I will send it off to Mark. He's at number three productions. If you ever want his name, let me know.

(35:07):

He does a great job. I will send it to him. If this is horrible. I hope it's not though, because just to let you know, if you're, if you're a sound person or you like to livestream, what, what I'm talking to you on today is road RODE, their new wireless micro, which is absolutely adorable. It's literally about the size of my thumb and it has a tiny little wind screen on it. It's got amazing range. Like I could put it on my shirt and go to the other end of my house and talk to you and it would still connect. I don't like to wear it on my shirt though because then you hear a lot of breath sounds. I tried it out yesterday, so anyway, it's completely irrelevant. All right, so that's the story of the name change. I'd love for you to reflect on your name.

(35:59):

Do you love it? Do you hate it? Would you ever change it? Have you changed it? If you have changed it wherever you're listening to this, I'd love to hear a comment as to why you changed it and how that affected you after you changed it.

Okay, one more thing I totally forgot about my mom changed her name a lot. And so growing up with that, I was aware of people who would criticize her for that, but it also kind of normalized it. So when I was a kid, I had named myself Misty when, so people who knew me from middle school and high school knew me as Misty <laugh>. 'cause I had changed my name and I insisted on everyone calling that. And because my mom was an activist for name changes, she made the school list me that way. And like I said, but you know, this was before computers, so you could kind of do what you wanted. I don't think you could get away with that these days.

Anyway, what's up with your name? I'd love to hear about it. And until we talk again, think less, feel more. And I will talk to you later.

XO,
LMW

Last day to enroll in Woods & Writing!