11-18-2019, 09:31 PM
ME: I said that EP should find something awesome about himself, and I think it’s time for me to do the same. I just tore down a personal narrative that I had been defining myself by for decades. As I stand in the wreckage I have a unique opportunity to write a new one.
The previous narrative focused on my weaknesses, placing myself in the victim role, giving myself an excuse for my self imposed limitations, and giving me someone to blame for letting life happen to me rather than taking control and making it the life I want to live.
I want to internalize a story that makes it clear that I can do nothing but succeed in all of the important areas of my life from here on in. If I can believe that with the same rock solid ring of truth that I felt in the old tale, then I cannot help but act accordingly and the universe will deliver the success that I expect.
I can’t change the base facts of my life. The past is the past, and I’m not sure that altering major swaths of my memory would be the hottest idea even if it is possible. Changing the past may be possible as well, but that discussion is pretty much academic at this point.
The first thing I think I need to do is identify the strengths that I’ve been holding myself back from using. This might take a similar digging process to uncovering my fears and self lies, but I’m going to go ahead and assume it will be more pleasant.
(Folks, please don’t take any of what I’m about to say as me saying I’m better than anyone. I’m not. What I’m doing here is talking these things into my subconscious forcefully enough that they stick)
The biggest thing that jumps out at me is that I am a STRONG person. I spent twenty years stuck between two people who were terrified of the world and psychotically angry at it. Neither had any other way of taking out their grudge against the universe than to use me as an emotional punching bag. To make things even tougher on me my peers in school, and even the adults there showed a similar level of cruelty on a daily basis because I was “weird” and didn’t fit in in a very conformist small town school. I know now that both of these things were the result of other people’s insecurities and had precisely jack squat to do with me, but I didn’t at the time. This started at age five or six and lasted until at least sixteen. I had some friends along the way, but they had an alarming tendency of turning on me when it suited them. I had at least a decade where someone tried to destroy me as a person every single day of my life and I had absolutely no refuge or respite. Please note. I’m still standing.
People have been driven to suicide, alcoholism, drugs, and spent their lives as emotional cripples from much less, and not only am I still standing tall, I’ve done a fairly good job of building a functional life even before addressing these problems. Throughout all this, even though on the surface I had really low self esteem, there was always a small, powerful core of ME that held me in very high regard. I don’t know where it came from, maybe my parents showed me enough love before five, or maybe I just entered this plane as a strong soul, but there was always this tough, stubborn, powerful warrior spirit at the core of me that said “F...k NO, I will not let you destroy me.” And defiantly pushed through every shot thrown at me. I didn’t let the hurt that was thrown at me penetrate to my core, so the damage was superficial. Not many people could have done that.
I allowed my inner strength to remain focused on passive defense for a long time after the constant attacks faded into memory, and it had a few dysfunctional expressions even then (the whole considering the school system the enemy thing), but now it’s a pretty damn good foundation on which to build the “new me” who can build a better life. All I have to do is turn it toward my goals and I can’t be stopped.
I am also extremely determined. When I really want something, I go after it and keep going until I get it. I haven’t really used this much as an adult because I had convinced myself that I wasn’t allowed to want things for myself and that I could never get it if I did. As a kid, this manifested as no not working on me when I really wanted something. I’ve covered Mom’s behavior on this, but I haven’t covered mine.
The first time I really remember doing this was when the first Nintendo came out (who else is old enough to remember that?). Well, everyone had one in the mid to late eighties, it was just a thing that you had in the house if you had kids. Mom of course refused, because she could. I kept at her pretty much daily for the next (I think) three years, and she finally relented. Probably because I’d driven her even further nuts, but that’s an example.
As an adult, I displayed similar dedication to getting the job I want. It took me from 2003 to 2015 to finally get hired. During this time, I put in dozens of apps and sat for dozens of interviews. Each time I got the same answer. Each time it was a crushing blow to my sense of self worth. And each time I got up, set it in my mind as fact that I would get the next one, and put all the effort in.
That’s another one that not many people could have done. I maintained focus on the goal for that long, and through that many failures I was hurting myself by getting my ego so involved in every single result, but I took the pain and kept going. Now with a few tweaks, this trait can really get me places. I no longer have the ego involvement, each time I try, it’s fire and forget, and I can focus on more than one thing and not let it become an unhealthy obsession. Also, I do believe that the self sabotage factor that caused it to take so many tries is out of the way.
There’s a lot more, but that’s enough for one night.
The previous narrative focused on my weaknesses, placing myself in the victim role, giving myself an excuse for my self imposed limitations, and giving me someone to blame for letting life happen to me rather than taking control and making it the life I want to live.
I want to internalize a story that makes it clear that I can do nothing but succeed in all of the important areas of my life from here on in. If I can believe that with the same rock solid ring of truth that I felt in the old tale, then I cannot help but act accordingly and the universe will deliver the success that I expect.
I can’t change the base facts of my life. The past is the past, and I’m not sure that altering major swaths of my memory would be the hottest idea even if it is possible. Changing the past may be possible as well, but that discussion is pretty much academic at this point.
The first thing I think I need to do is identify the strengths that I’ve been holding myself back from using. This might take a similar digging process to uncovering my fears and self lies, but I’m going to go ahead and assume it will be more pleasant.
(Folks, please don’t take any of what I’m about to say as me saying I’m better than anyone. I’m not. What I’m doing here is talking these things into my subconscious forcefully enough that they stick)
The biggest thing that jumps out at me is that I am a STRONG person. I spent twenty years stuck between two people who were terrified of the world and psychotically angry at it. Neither had any other way of taking out their grudge against the universe than to use me as an emotional punching bag. To make things even tougher on me my peers in school, and even the adults there showed a similar level of cruelty on a daily basis because I was “weird” and didn’t fit in in a very conformist small town school. I know now that both of these things were the result of other people’s insecurities and had precisely jack squat to do with me, but I didn’t at the time. This started at age five or six and lasted until at least sixteen. I had some friends along the way, but they had an alarming tendency of turning on me when it suited them. I had at least a decade where someone tried to destroy me as a person every single day of my life and I had absolutely no refuge or respite. Please note. I’m still standing.
People have been driven to suicide, alcoholism, drugs, and spent their lives as emotional cripples from much less, and not only am I still standing tall, I’ve done a fairly good job of building a functional life even before addressing these problems. Throughout all this, even though on the surface I had really low self esteem, there was always a small, powerful core of ME that held me in very high regard. I don’t know where it came from, maybe my parents showed me enough love before five, or maybe I just entered this plane as a strong soul, but there was always this tough, stubborn, powerful warrior spirit at the core of me that said “F...k NO, I will not let you destroy me.” And defiantly pushed through every shot thrown at me. I didn’t let the hurt that was thrown at me penetrate to my core, so the damage was superficial. Not many people could have done that.
I allowed my inner strength to remain focused on passive defense for a long time after the constant attacks faded into memory, and it had a few dysfunctional expressions even then (the whole considering the school system the enemy thing), but now it’s a pretty damn good foundation on which to build the “new me” who can build a better life. All I have to do is turn it toward my goals and I can’t be stopped.
I am also extremely determined. When I really want something, I go after it and keep going until I get it. I haven’t really used this much as an adult because I had convinced myself that I wasn’t allowed to want things for myself and that I could never get it if I did. As a kid, this manifested as no not working on me when I really wanted something. I’ve covered Mom’s behavior on this, but I haven’t covered mine.
The first time I really remember doing this was when the first Nintendo came out (who else is old enough to remember that?). Well, everyone had one in the mid to late eighties, it was just a thing that you had in the house if you had kids. Mom of course refused, because she could. I kept at her pretty much daily for the next (I think) three years, and she finally relented. Probably because I’d driven her even further nuts, but that’s an example.
As an adult, I displayed similar dedication to getting the job I want. It took me from 2003 to 2015 to finally get hired. During this time, I put in dozens of apps and sat for dozens of interviews. Each time I got the same answer. Each time it was a crushing blow to my sense of self worth. And each time I got up, set it in my mind as fact that I would get the next one, and put all the effort in.
That’s another one that not many people could have done. I maintained focus on the goal for that long, and through that many failures I was hurting myself by getting my ego so involved in every single result, but I took the pain and kept going. Now with a few tweaks, this trait can really get me places. I no longer have the ego involvement, each time I try, it’s fire and forget, and I can focus on more than one thing and not let it become an unhealthy obsession. Also, I do believe that the self sabotage factor that caused it to take so many tries is out of the way.
There’s a lot more, but that’s enough for one night.
