I went to this thing last night, essentially a group life coaching session. A friend invited me, knowing I’m often in need of an attitude reset when it comes to personal pursuits.
I don’t think either one of us came away from the evening floored by groundbreaking revelations. After all, this was not our first self-empowerment, pursue your passion rodeo—we’ve both been trying to ride that bull for years—but that didn’t make it any less valuable. Like I said, I can always use the help.
It got me thinking about how easy it is to internalize negative messages about ourselves and our potential for greatness in this world, however you choose to define the great.
I’m going to try to avoid too long of a maternal guilt trip on this. How heavy it is to realize I have already instilled core beliefs in their souls about their limitations and self-worth. I didn’t even bother to put maybe in there. I know it’s been done. We can’t all be Shefali Tsabary.
All it takes is one sentence. A collection of as few as five words, maybe less, and they stay with you for a lifetime. They become your subconscious religion, indoctrinating you with a belief that your potential for happiness has a limit. Maybe everyone else deserves joy, success, love and belonging, but you, your inner sermon preaches, you are not among them.
The shitty thing is you probably don’t even know what words they are, or who said them to you or how they’re affecting your every day. For our coach last night, it was a teacher. A side comment. “Don’t get too big for your britches.” And all of a sudden there was a ceiling. Believe in yourself if you must… just know that I don’t.
That was one instance for her. I suspect there were more. We all have several. One that comes to mind for me was in high school, also known as the cauldron of shame and disgust. I hung around the popular kids, at least they seemed popular at the time. I suspect most everyone else thought they were jerks, and therefore I by association. I had to work to keep my deck-swabber status with this crowd and it often hurt. There was a constant message of judgment, a ticker tape to fuel self-doubt.
YOU DON’T BELONG… WE DON’T LIKE YOU… YOU’RE WEIRD… DON’T SPEAK TO US… YOU’RE NOT GOOD ENOUGH… STOCKS IN YOU AT AN ALL TIME LOW.
It’s heavy shit that so many of us carry through life, assuming it’s there for a reason, whether it’s to protect us from potential humiliation should we want to try something new or rejection should we dare to stand out. It makes sure we stay subscribed to the struggle, no matter how many times we try to opt out.
Clearly, I know what I’m talking about, which brings me back to my point. I didn’t spend a lot of time fighting off those messages of ostracization. Eventually, I just took it as gospel that I would always be “less than.” It’s only been in recent years that I’ve come to realize that I have no obligation to live by this code. They’re not going to come back and check on me, proliferating an anti-Alison hashtag should I start to feel a little too comfortable.
This is the part that fascinates me. Over the past few years, I have heard countless versions of this lesson. I have read books, listened to podcasts, had energy healings, gone to therapy, brought various teachers into my life and sought out reassuring and fulfilling relationships. There is an abundance of proof that, to the right people, I do belong and I am good enough, ESPECIALLY because I’m weird. So why, for the love of all things holy, do I ever turn back to the opposing side?
The answer is easy: because I’m human. For some reason, whoever designed the human brain decided it was a good idea to hard wire it for negativity. By our very nature, more so for those of us with challenging chemistry, it is harder to entertain the positive than it is to embody the doubt. It reminds me of my favourite quote, which seems a bit dismal but often inspires me to get back up and keep fighting, in a screw-the-bastards kind of way.
“Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight,
Gotta kick at the darkness ’til it bleeds daylight. ”
This is how life coaching has become such an important and successful endeavour. It’s because of people like me who need constant and equally powerful messaging to the contrary, who need to wake up every morning to a neon sign reminding us of our right to exist, dream big and find happiness within ourselves, and who likely need another sign over the coffee machine and one on the dashboard of the car, and so on. It can never be enough, until we finally feel that we are.