At one of the many PD’s I’ve attended, I heard the statement, “You don’t have to believe everything you think” and I found myself pausing for a moment. How profound?!? If I had a nickel for every time I thought something negative about myself, I would need a fountain. I have thought some of the most terrible things about myself. I have enough presence of mind to realize that we all do this, right? We all have that self-talk going on pretty much perpetually, but when we are feeling emotional for some reason or vulnerable, sometimes this voice can be counterproductive. Sometimes, it can be downright abusive. Mine has had some decent things to say to me, but more often than not I am immensely critical of myself. I think many of us are in some way, shape, or form. It isn’t exactly a ‘bad’ thing per-say, but it can get out of hand and become self destructive. I want to maintain a standard when I’m critiquing my work, but I also need to learn to demonstrate the same patience I use with my students. Even as a professional, I am still learning new skills and uncovering parts of myself that have been hiding, hidden, or too insecure to flourish over the years.
So, I have decided that when my head is saying things that aren’t healthy for me, I am going to mind my own business. Sounds silly when I say it out loud! Lol! I am my business, right? Of course I am. I recognize when my emotions are speaking, and not my heart or my mind. This is a difficult task for someone who has built their foundation using emotional trauma responses. I am working in therapy now to do a deep dive into my emotional make up, and how to process my feelings before responding. This can take time. The process is different for everyone. It is a struggle, as I am having to unlearn certain habits and traits my experience has allowed me to accumulate, and reconstruct new and healthier paradigms for the lens with which I choose to see myself. I no longer compare myself to other women, at least not in the surface sense. I thrive on sharing information and resources with the women in my circle, as knowledge is always power, and I speak truth to power in those relationships.
In that sense, we compare our experiences and I learn a lot this way. I just don’t compare the superficial, anymore. It has taken me far too many years to discover this, but I am not interested in being better or prettier or thinner or more successful than anyone but me. Life is about continuous improvement for me. I see how silly it is to compare myself to other women, when it is me I am developing, but it is understandable. I’ve been conditioned to resort to this scrutiny. I am my competition, because it is that constant voice in my head bucking at my confidence. There isn’t anyone else in there but me so why would I be concerned with external factors? I am learning to be comfortable with being in a room of people that have achieved far more than I have ever dreamed. This room is where I have worked very hard to gain entrance to and it is time for me to quiet my mind, and just listen. This space is inundated with vast amounts of stories and narratives of how someone built their empire. In my field, this is what we call “social capital” and it is called this because knowledge (in any form) can create opportunities we never realized were accessible to us. I am learning that all the doubting and wondering and waiting was always supposed to happen, in order for me to be in this place now. I am learning to love myself as unconditionally as I love everyone else in my life. You really don’t have to believe everything you think, until you learn the right love language for yourself. Once we learn this language, and we understand that we deserve Grace as well, there is no limit to what we can achieve. There is no limit to what I can achieve.
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