Teaching Myself

Don't hold me to this, but I'm kinda working on writing a memoir. Basically I've started reading about it and working on random writing exercises. Very early stage stuff. I still can't see myself as a writer (even though I went to school for a degree in English) but life keeps leading me back to words, so here I am again, trying something new.

Anyways, this post isn't about a memoir project, it's about some realizations I've gained in these early stages of work.

First, it's not about where I'm going, it's the journey. Reflecting on my memories, haunting or happy, and analyzing, reflecting, and processing makes me realize that sifting through my feelings and finding my truths is the real point to writing. I already do this quite often while trying to combat my depression, but trying to boil down and refine meaning from my life is a much more challenging task than just teasing out feelings!

A finished product isn't as important as the transformative process of writing, thinking, and creating.

Second, I struggle to internalize my insights because I lack self-validation. As much as I wish to throw off hurtful rules that have guided my life for so many unhealthy years (namely that I am worthless, not good enough, and have no authority) I fail to transform insight into altered behavior because I don't respect myself. How can my insight be meaningful if I don't respect the source of the revelations?

Historically, I take in other people's advice, comments, and opinions like air. It goes right down and settles in my soul. Societal norms, advertisements, media-it all gets under my skin. Well lately I've been in turmoil, a small part of me resisting that pattern, challenging the "norm," another part of me wanting to blindly forge ahead without questioning the system.

My need for acceptance and validation lends itself well to herd behavior but wears on my soul. I have been forfeiting power over my life for far too long. Following the rules like a good girl and trying to fit in with a dysfunctional norm has exploited my weakness, the original lesson I learned so long ago that I am worthless. My life has been based on a lie. Now that I recognize this, it's up to me to change it, up to me to rewrite the internal laws governing my life. Up to this point all incoming information has been revised to support the conclusion that I'm worthless, now I have to reverse it all. I have to save myself from the inside out.

It's on me.

I'm terrified of that responsibility. I've been avoiding ownership of my life for fear of failure and disappointing others, and in doing so I have disappointed myself.

I have changes to make. I realize that the pressure and expectations I toil under come from within and not from others. Like a broken slave I have been brainwashed. I have learned bad lessons, been bombarded with misinformation, and lived my life based on erroneous beliefs. It doesn't matter how the damage was done or what mistakes have been made. I can change now. I matter now. I have authority to change the rules that I live by.

Change is happening. It's messy, it's confusing, but it's happening. Part of that mess is declaring my authority as teacher, my authority to question as well as generate valid conclusions-and believing in that declaration. It's not self-evident, it's a practice of faith. I believe in me.

I believe in me.