To Be ME, I Can’t Live Up To Others’ Expectations

I am continuing my self-work on shame. I have just barely scratched the surface. Shame is the skeleton-in-the-closet, the thing no one wants to discuss. It can be embarrassing for the person talking about it and for the one listening. But if it isn’t talked about and brought to the light, it remains shame. I intend to change that. After all, what do I really have to be ashamed about?

Brene Brown’s book “I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Wasn’t)” is helping me access and understand some of the issues. I realize that most of my life has been a battle to live up to what was expected, wanted, and perceived of me. There is the constant inner battle because many those beliefs were not who I felt I was inside. And, for some reason, I believed that everyone else knew better – which meant, I was wrong, am wrong.

This morning I am contemplating my shame triggers; the things said to me, what I have read, what I’ve been taught, what the media has pounded into me, what I learned to believe – everything that has ever made me feel not worthy. If I can list these things, then I can look at them and let them go.

(Here is my analogy of the inner well where stuff has been buried for years. Sometimes it’s necessary to stir around in the muck. Bringing issues to the light will allow them to release.)

How have I felt shame because I think I don’t live up to what others think of me? That’s what a lot of it is about. What others think of me. That wanting to be accepted and thinking I’ve failed because I’ve not been the person I THINK they want me to be. 

Think about what this statement says: I feel shame because I THINK I don’t live up to what I think others THINK I should be. Is that a true statement? 

The biggest issue about this subject is because people are afraid to talk about it. Oh, we might make a comment in passing, but it’s quickly brushed off. I’m determined to wend my way through this maze of the journey of my self. So often I find when I do take the courage to admit to a so-believed failure, I discover that others also feel the same. We are not alone. We have all experienced some kind of not being good enough.

So, will I start my list? Maybe not today, but just talking about it has me thinking. It’ll come. This is already making a huge step in helping me be OK and satisfied with who I am. And, as always, I hope that my discussions will help others, too.

Thank you.