Always a challenge for me

We have issues that we work on for our entire lives. 

One of my major issues has been self-confidence or lack there-of.

I marvel at others around me who jump in confidently, even as beginners, and just believe that they will do ok. 

I have never been that way. 

I can trace this pattern back to my childhood, as we can with many of our patterns. In their attempt to try and help me be my best, my parents unintentionally taught me to never be sure of myself, to doubt what I do, to believe that others could do it better, to shrink back and not try, as I would be sure to embarrass myself (or them?). I don’t write this to blame them, as they did what they knew to do and had their own pain from their very difficult childhoods. But it is important to see how long this has been a pattern for me and the resulting cost to my life.

I am an elder now. I am trying new things, as I want to keep learning and challenging myself and want to be an active participant in this precious life while I am still alive. And this old familiar pattern of mine once again makes its presence known, screaming at me from within, telling me to shrink, hold back, stop trying, let others do things who will do them so much better than I ever will. 

It’s an excruciatingly painful issue for me, to feel my own inner voice beating myself up, trying to hold me back, telling me to fade into the background and to stop being foolish enough to think that I can learn new things and do them well. Just who do you think that you are, the voice within continues. You don’t have what it takes. You will never be as good as. You will never be enough. Stop embarrassing yourself. Stop trying. Hide in safety. 

Can anyone out there relate to this?

I am training for several volunteer positions, one with our local zoo and another with a wildlife rescue hospital. I have been attending classes, trying to pay attention to what I am told and doing my best to learn what I need to know. I think that my anxiety can sometimes get in the way of my learning, as the voices within can get loud enough to drown out my hearing what I need to learn. 

I had a shift yesterday, and the person that I was hooked up with for the day pretty much left me to my own, told me to just do things that, although we had classes about it, I had never actually done before. I kept asking questions, kept apologizing for being slow and for asking all my questions. She was not kind in her look to me or her demeanor. I felt so alone and so once again like the little girl who had dared to put herself out there only to be shamed again into feeling inadequate. I later came to find out that others have felt this way with this particular person and also found out that she does not enjoy training others and prefers to do things alone.

Nonetheless, to meet these issues inside me yet again, now as an elder, is quite humbling. I thought that I would be past this by now. 

I realize that I don’t do well with someone who is critical, who is not supportive and kind, who is demanding and quietly disappointed. It reinforces those negative voices inside me and adds to the evidence against my worth. 

As an only child, I learned to keep things like this to myself, to feel like there was really no one to reach out to, that I had to handle things on my own. I still do that these days, thinking that I deserve the bad feelings that I have, that how dare I have tried once again to think that I could do what others do? Have I not learned my lessons yet? 

So, maybe the lessons are these…

We have deep issues that will remain, and we get to keep working on them.

We get to forgive ourselves as many times as needed.

We get to do our best to heal ourselves into health.

We get to stop comparing ourselves to others.

We get to love ourselves…faults, issues, and all. 

We still can be grateful for it all — the lessons, the challenges, the imperfections, the growth, the gift of being who we are. And maybe being who we are isn’t such a bad thing after all and it’s ok to be good enough, to claim our right to live as and who we are. Of course we can try to do our best, but perhaps we can let go of the constant criticism. 

Aging can bring acceptance. We can finally allow ourselves to fully inhabit this self that we are. We can come home to ourselves, imperfections and all. We can see each ourselves, each other, and our common humanity with empathy and love and even feel closer to each other because of it. And with this can come the healing and love that we have been looking for all along.