Day Seven of the Rest of my Life – Milestones
God created the world in six days
and rested on the seventh.
For six ‘days’ Helkele tried to
drain all the negative bits from her soul and on day seven she didn’t rest but
came up with a résumé and a somewhat cleansed outlook on life…
Question: What is wrong with me???
Answer: Essentially
– plenty.
Anxiety
and Frustration
These two monsters have
accompanied me as long as I can remember…or as long as I have had the ability
to reflect on my life. They are deeply engrained in my emotional memory and
have crept into me during my early development years. Karyl McBride[1]
(Chapter 6) refers to the roots of this as internal vs. external validation.
With a narcissistic mother as mine, I was denied any recognition or validation when
I was a little girl (See Day Four – The Devilish Child) and later on in life I
have never learned to validate myself or accept myself for what I am. Instead,
I would do more and more and try harder and harder to get external validation
or recognition. At first this appeared to fill the emptiness inside me, and
therefore, I started to rely on this external validation. However, at the same
time, it created and anxiety and fear to lose the recognition for it could be
taken away at any time and would leave me without any control over how I would
feel. This Catch 22 situation of accomplishments, pressure and anxiety has been
my constant accomplice.
So, this the plan of how to get rid of this brain-terror and to finally exit this emotional roller-coaster.
Affirmation Milestone 1:
I learn to rely
on myself for validation, only then I will be able sleep peacefully at night. I
will give myself credit where credit is due.
But this is a tricky one. With my
mother constantly overindulging in praise for herself, there has always been
the fear to become as narcissistic as she is and display a “grandiose sense of
self-importance” and arrogance. Though trying as hard as I could, this
narcissistic streak is in me as well – it took me a long time to finally admit
it and it will take even longer to get rid of it.
Affirmation Milestone 2:
Giving myself
credit for my achievements does not equal arrogance. I have a ton of real
achievements that I can be proud of because I’ve worked so hard for them. I
feel good about what I have already done and achieved.
But what if it’s not true? What
if I am not as intelligent and lovely as some people think I am? Am I an
impostor? Is all of this just a mirage?
Affirmation Milestone 3:
I am not an
impostor!!! I feel worthy of myself and I value myself and my accomplishments.
I am learning to accept my success and the recognition of it for what it is.
However, the tendency to
disparage myself and to play down any positive attributes for fear that someone
will find me arrogant stems from being the target of my mother’s envy and
hatred when I was a little girl. As a result I have lived with a general
anxiety all my life, a lack of self-confidence, depression and a huge amount of
frustration about my inability to meet these ridiculous self-imposed standards
of achievement. Though my mother has hijacked my young accomplishments when I
was little, I myself continue to do so today. Sadly.
What am I afraid of today?? I
don’t live under the influence of my mother anymore!! I think I am afraid of my
own courage, of my own shining light.
Affirmation Milestone 4:
Mind the words of Marianne
Williamson:[2]
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is
that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that
most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God
(I prefer The Universe). Your ‘playing small’ does not serve the world. There
is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure
around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make
manifest the glory of God (The Universe) that is within us. It’s not just in
some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously
give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically
liberates others.”
Well, one does not necessarily
have to bring God into the equation; I prefer to call it The Universe. You know
how I feel about that. But reading it as I may, I do get the message. I’ve been
told many times to ‘let my light shine’ not knowing exactly what was meant by
that. I am now in the process of accepting that I have got a light, that I am a
‘light’. I am full of love, compassion, peace and happiness.
Affirmation Milestone 5:
(These words still hesitantly
leave my mind for all the reasons mentioned above but I am saying them...that
is a start. Believing them will follow.)
I am a true
marvel. I have overcome great odds and am an amazing woman. Now I need to take
care of myself and give myself the credit I deserve. Then I will be able to
enjoy the marvel that I truly am and cherish myself as I deserve.
Affirmation
Milestone 6:
I will remain
positive and active. I will be patient with myself and get on with my life. I
will not let the pain take over. I know the pain will go away, not tomorrow,
but eventually I will make it go away. I will take control of the pain. Hurt
doesn’t mean harm – I will keep exercizing. I will keep running. Running keeps
me sane and balanced. I will throw in a bit of meditation and the perfect
ointment is created.
Anxiety,
Frustration and Pain
Anxiety, stress and frustration
release certainly chemicals in the brain and into the body that make us feel
‘not good’. And if there is a physical ailment or pain in a specific part of
our body already (in my case my lower back – go figure!), the negative feelings
and their accompanying chemicals cause the pain to intensify, be prolonged and
ultimately become chronic.
Emotional traumas are engrained
in our muscle memory just in the same way, and not dealing with them properly
has got the same effect as anxiety, stress and frustration combined. Put these
two together and you get ‘the passion of Helkele’. Painkillers don’t help. They
only temporarily release the pain but don’t get to the bottom of it. Patience
is the magic word. Patience and picking the right people to ask for help. I
think I am on the right track as I can see small improvements and am happy
about it.
Love
Not having been able to have a
long-term, deep and meaningful relationship leads to the ultimate conclusion:
There has got to be something wrong with me!!! Now, don’t say ‘no’ because as
previously established – there is …plenty wrong with me. But all of this does
not really matter and is actually irrelevant.
If a man happens to fall in love
with me he will do so anyway, faults or not. There is not much I can do to help
because I don’t have the power to influence other people’s feelings about me.
Ultimately, that is the part that I don’t really like, I have to admit, the
fact that I can’t control it. It is time for me to step out of fairy land and get
real.
If somebody does eventually fall
in love with me he will do so for his own reasons and not because I’ve lost a
stone or because I’ve been over-polite or been trying hard to be funny when as
a German I am not even supposed to have a sense of humour.
If a man does
fall for me it will be because of me. Full stop. (I can’t believe I am saying that but yes, that’s it.
No magic, no tricks.)
All I can do to
“help” this is to start making myself happy – in the meantime and forever.
There are laws of attraction – you attract what you send out – or something like
that. Which means: if I am happy and chirpy and relaxed, I will most likely
attract men or human beings in general that are similar and swim in the same ocean.
And that in turn will make me even happier. Easy-peasy.
Also, the less
freaked out I am about this and the bio-clock ticking, the more I am likely to
bring what I want into my life.
Affirmation
Milestone 7
I recognize the
things I can change and the things I cannot. I will take it easy, relax and see
what happens. If there is one thing certain about life it is uncertainty.
I will find out
what is toxic in my life and get rid of it.
I will find out
what I want in life and will be honest about it.
I will find out
what is fantastic in my life and will be thankful for it.
I will think
more carefully about whom I am getting involved with and I will keep my wits
about me when it comes to meeting new people.
I will try not
to assume what other people are thinking because I don’t know.
I will try not
to predict a negative depressing future but rather think of what it would be
like if it were happy.
I believe that
whatever happens happens and that I will be able to adjust and adapt to
whatever situation arises.
I believe in my
positives and in what is good about me.
I believe that
only I have the power to determine how I feel and I will not let other people
or circumstances make me feel bad about myself.
Finally, I love
myself for who I am.
Epilogue
The route to self-discovery is
long (time), wet (tears) and painful (literally). I started out by realizing
that something wasn’t right and that something needed to change in order to get
better (Day 1). I faced may own demons (Day 2) and life-draining loneliness
(Day 3). Going back to my childhood was the part that harboured most of the
anger I felt (Day 4) and the attempt to establish a sense of self (Day 5) just
left me even more confused. And finally, trying to shake off all the emotional
pain and healing the scars that were caused by growing up in my family was the
most painful part.
I know that my journey isn’t over
yet and I will keep ‘travelling’ and healing. But it is important to draw up a
resume just to see where I stand in my development. Since I’ve consciously
started this journey I have met a lot of people and made friends. In one way or
another all of them have given me some input or highlighted some interesting
aspect of myself. But all of them have taken a piece of me as well, a piece
that I have willingly given and will continue to give willingly. I am very
fortunate to have been surrounded by people who saw (and hopefully continue
seeing) the good in me that I never could. I am so thankful for their patience,
their friendship and their help (consciously or not) to unearth the real me.
I love you guys. xxx
