I am a person of many feelings, many opinions and many words. Growing up having you know, a bit of ADHD (i’m kidding, on good days I can get through the first two sentences of a story without getting distracted), and probably slightly on the spectrum (not kidding at all on this one) I felt different from literally everyone, and was constantly trying to make myself more like the people I surrounded myself with, but I kept getting yanked back to my core. The pull of wearing bobby pins on my ears as earrings in grade three, cutting my own bangs (when I was seven BTW), low riding my pants throughout third to fifth grade because I thought a bit of my butt crack hanging out was cool (which Paris Hilton was doing at the same time so I was indeed just ahead of my time in that era) and playing basketball out on my driveway in heels and a mini dress at the age of eight was stronger than my fear of what people thought of me, but the confidence and authenticity would be short lived, before i’d wrap myself up in the negative scrutiny and convince myself to try and just be the way people wanted me to be; normal. (I never did learn how, fortunately).
This cycle has continued throughout my whole life and still does vaguely emerge as I enter my 25th year. My memories of being convinced that my way of being and doing was the so-called wrong one has created this obscure anxiety, where I haven’t been able to fully commit to being my true self. However, it seems each current day halts me forwards, and instead of being where I used to be; taking one step forward into awakening my true potential then two steps back into the embarrassment and anxiety that might arise, I am more confident than I ever have been. It feels as though it is now two steps forward and only sometimes, one step back (or even just a tip-toe), and I know I am getting closer each day to never even looking back, let alone daring to take a step. I have also become aware that the more I commit to being exactly who I am, it has attracted the right people and opportunities into my life.
I have done loads of work on myself to try and fix my negative traits and proudly lean in fully to who I am because I sincerely believe you should thrive in your life, and not merely survive, and with that, I have seen immense growth in myself over the past four years. Nevertheless, emotions still come, words are still said, but it is a dedicated and consistent effort to form an alliance between the subconscious mind and who you are and want to become. The mind works in such interesting and vast ways, each mind working differently from the next. The way the mind operates is directly attached to your perspective, and your perspective on life and all that comes along with it, is based on your memories and past experiences.
In Jen Sincero’s “You are a Bad Ass”, she notes that the traits you carry with you the most and the beliefs you feel the strongest about are the ones that were demonstrated by others very early on in childhood, particularly from age three. This seems to be because it is the age you start listening, you start understanding “yes” and “no” and what the meaning is behind these words. You start learning how to express your emotions and studying what expression of these emotions will lead you to what outcome. You also start to observe the way your caretakers act and react. This is your first example of how to be a human being and the only thing you know, everything they do and say you are hearing and storing somewhere in your brain which will stay with you for the rest of your life. I personally did not believe this for a very long time, and I hesitated on this idea because I had a wonderful upbringing. My parents are two of the kindest and most selfless, nurturing people you’ll ever meet, however I realized, more actually, I became deeply convinced this is true by recognizing I didn’t have to have a traumatic upbringing to connect the negative traits about myself with my childhood and my experiences growing up.
Watching the show Couples Therapy (highly recommended by the way), I was amazed by Dr. Guralnik’s strategy of the simple question why? It all starts with an emotion, every single thing you do starts from a feeling. For example, let’s say you have a very close relationship with a friend and you two spend all your time together but then they get another close friend, not in replacement of you, but in addition to. You start feeling anger, annoyance, maybe you want to get another close friend just so they know how it feels. Ask yourself, why? You haven’t been replaced nor lost your close friend yet you feel abandoned and maybe jealous. Why? You don’t want to lose your best friend to someone else. But you haven’t, so why is this creating anxiety for you? Now it starts to go back to your childhood, were you neglected as a child and now you’re desperately holding on to the one thing that has brought you the attention your inner child needed? Or maybe it is something you consider to be much smaller, you were left out in second grade when everyone else was playing a game and now it triggers the fear of being left out again, or maybe you were cut from a club or a team and it now erupts the panic that you will be cut out of the friendship.
I had (and even though minimized, I still feel this every so often) a very deep insecurity of being made fun of, of people thinking that everything I do is stupid/ annoying/ridiculous/ embarrassing etc. and of people leaving me out. For people who know me now, I think confidence would be one of the first traits to explain me as, so this is actually quite hard to admit. When I was younger, as mentioned above, I branched out and was noticeably different, I also had (and still do have but now know it is something to be very grateful for) a big personality, and I had a very hard time in school since the day I started. Branching out and having a unique personality obviously lead to other kids making fun of me, and nobody wanting to hangout with me. I also remember other parents whispering about me acting as if I wasn't there (kids can hear you, and they remember BTW). I felt I was letting down my parents constantly by getting bad grades. There were days that I would go into a test and just know nothing after studying so hard, I was embarrassed, always, when it came to school. So, with feeling isolated, alone, stupid, and convinced being who I was, was not the right way to be, all stuck in my sub-conscious, no wonder I have had these deep rooted insecurities. It is only when I decided that I wanted to be a better person to myself and to the people in my life, that I realized where my triggers were coming from and what I had to do to rid them of my life. This is why a substantial amount of self help books make a key point about releasing the past, about how forgiveness can be an incredibly healing act, and about the power in letting things go. If you hold on to all of this negativity, it is only eating away at you and it is only causing you pain and will for the rest of your life.
Back to the question of why? Next time you are in a situation where you feel frustrated, jealous, irritated, annoyed, angry, insecure etc. take a moment to check in with yourself and ask the question. If you can’t figure it out from the first why, keep going and going until you realize what moment/s in your life have created this trigger for you and then make a point of releasing it, letting it go, or forgiving who needs to be forgiven. This is your life, don’t waste it being angry or bitter at the world when you could change your perspective and live a much happier, calm, optimistic life. Oh, and most importantly, f*ck what people think of you (as long as you are being a good person of course).
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