Sunday, October 21, 2007

What? Who Said That? Who's There?!

Lately, I've noticed how my fears manifest, how I project them, and how I let them get a hold of me. Often, I find my reactions are as a result of my own critical voice sneaking around, highlighting my insecurities, and convincing me that they are true. But when I really think about it, I realize I'm mostly (if not entirely) reacting to my own fears and assumptions about what is true. I blur the lines between my insecurities and what is reality. I'll automatically assume how people feel about me and start building my internal reactions to it. By doing this I think I'm protecting myself and yet it only makes me more insecure and stressed. So while I've always known I'm my own worst enemy, I've only recently been able to notice when I'm steeling myself in anticipation of false assumptions. Its time to shed some light on this.

I hear the fears and insecurities from within...all the things I'm scared of (not being accepted, looking silly, sounding stupid, not being liked or likable, not performing well, being judged as high maintenance, narcissistic, feeling as though all this self-analysis is a turn off, and so on). It adds up and can make me feel small, scared, stuck and powerless. As a result I'll get uptight, stressed, sad, and withdrawn. And usually these feelings and my reactions to them sneak up on me. The insecurities and fears feel true enough. So I'll try to mentally and emotionally prepare myself and plan to make all the right moves so I won't be hurt.

But when I take a step back from my emotional reactions and do a check of whether or not I know it to be true, I realize that I don’t really know. When I've deconstructed these situations its actually ME saying all of these things to myself. Not others. And when I’m not caught up in it, I can see how much of my concerns come from within. How much of these stressors are assumptions that I've absorbed as truth and without question. I notice that I give so much away. But why? Why have I allowed my self-worth to be defined so much by external factors? Contrary to how this sounds, I do value myself. But the feedback from others carries so much weight. Too much. Where is my inner power and strength? Why am I so vested in someone else's feelings about me and not my own?

I don't know all the answers. I'm a work in progress. I know its not my responsibility to measure up to others. Ultimately, I am accountable only to myself. My values. My ethics. My standards. Nobody else's. The trick is being able to take back my power and let go of the rest. To be true to myself and honor who I am without cluttering it up with assumptions and fears. I need to do the gut check more often to really test the assumptions so I can stop the emotional spiral.