It’s a pretty important question, after all you have to spend 24/7 with you so is it a joy or do you sometimes wish that you could tell you to just shut the F up and leave you alone? Do you love to just go out with you, do some shopping and have a coffee with you or do you try to make a dash for the front door and pray that you doesn’t notice that you’ve gone?
It’s a pretty important question, after all you have to spend 24/7 with you so is it a joy or do you sometimes wish that you could tell you to just shut the F up and leave you alone? Do you love to just go out with you, do some shopping and have a coffee with you or do you try to make a dash for the front door and pray that you doesn’t notice that you’ve gone?
I’m going to be honest, totally honest………..Ok that’s not as easy as I thought it would be. Oh shit what do I write here? If I say I don’t really like myself (which is the truth) I’ve just written down something utterly negative which will do nothing to improve my self-esteem (or lack thereof). On the other hand, if I say I do like myself………well, to be blunt I’d be lying. There I’ve said it. The thousands of pounds that I’ve spent on self-improvement books and motivational videos and CD’s was just a complete waste of money which could obviously have been put to much better use in a shoe shop.
Right, I’ve had a cup of coffee and a think and what it boils down to is that I don’t trust other people and I don’t have enough faith in myself to believe them when they say nice things about me. Do you remember the quote in Pretty Woman “if people put you down enough you start to believe them?” well, that sums it up. I didn’t ‘fit in’ as a kid, for many reasons that I won’t bore you with, and I was bullied as a result so I tried to change myself in order be accepted. As you might imagine that was a dismal failure but I kept it up for years and then got hit by depression and a feeling of not really knowing who I was – well no shit Sherlock!
I suppose that’s driven by a feeling of inadequacy. I wasn’t joking about the money I’ve spent on self-improvement (Christian Louboutin would be crushed if he knew how much he’d lost out!) and I’ve followed all the advice religiously but I never seem to quite get a version of me that I’m satisfied with. I know what to do on an intellectual level but I never seem to absorb whatever it is that they’re trying to tell me…….
I’ll give you an example and this is intensely personal so don’t tell anyone else please. The first time (and possibly only time for reasons that will become apparent) that my husband told me I was beautiful I went up the wall! I was furious. He wasn’t best chuffed by my reaction as you can imagine and the worst part, the awful, frustrating part was that I couldn’t explain why I was so annoyed. I’m thinking about it now and I believe it stems back to being teased about my appearance when I was a kid; my nose was too big, my legs were chunky etc etc. It was probably just kids being kids but I believed what they said ergo when I was told I was beautiful it could only have been because I was being mocked, laughed at and I guess I was waiting for the punchline…….perhaps, when it comes to compliments, I’m still always waiting for the punchline…….
Writing this I am beginning to realise how cathartic blogging can be; I don’t really like me because I compare myself to others and find myself wanting (punches the air in a moment of epiphany). Other people are more interesting, more confident, calmer, funnier; less prone to being stroppy, introspective, stand-offish and miserable. Other people are spiritual, they have found an inner peace that I crave with all my being and try so hard to find. How many hours have I spent sitting on the floor with my legs crossed chanting Om? How much time do I dedicate to exercise, to being outdoors? I’ve listened to Tony Robbins, Osho, Sadguru and Dale Carnegie until my ears are raw and my brain is filled with great advice for being happy and contented but it just doesn’t stick….
That’s not true, some of it sticks, like the ‘if you are happy, you will attract people to you’, ‘no-one likes being around a misery guts’…….hang on a minute, that doesn’t sound like a world famous life coach, that sounds like my mum!???? There you go – another realisation – I believe that I need to be happy all the time if people are going to love me. It’s great when I am happy but it’ not easy to fake it when I’m not and, the trouble is, when people think that you’re a happy go lucky, fly by the seat of your pants kind of girl and then they realise that you’re really not they tend to go off you. So, that leaves me with being happy (sometimes faked) = being loved and being sad = being lonely; the obvious answer then is to be happy all the time…………
Perhaps I try too hard…..yep there’s no perhaps about it but what else can I do??? Maybe just accept that I am who I am, warts and all (not literally…..WHY am I so shallow, I didn’t need to point that out; if I was a better person I wouldn’t care if I had warts!). Maybe I should take myself off to a desert island and spend a few weeks alone to truly find myself…..aaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhhh!!!!! PANIC!!! Ok, no, that’s not going to happen any time soon
I don’t know what the answer is so I think I’m going to stop thinking about it and go shoe shopping…..
That was another lie, I will keep thinking about it because it bugs me and, until I get to the bottom of it all, I won’t stop trying to become someone that I can live with rather than someone I find slightly embarrassing and, frankly, a bit irritating.
If you love yourself, please tell me, help me to understand…….HOW?
Lisa
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