Over the past few weeks, I have become aware of some painful memories and experiences that have been repressed and which require to be released. One particular issue that came to my attention was my unconscious and automatic desire to be liked by others and to also meet their expectations of me in order to feel like I belong as they have given me the green tick of approval if you like.
There is a deep rooted belief that if you are validated by others, then there is proof that you’re liked and accepted. The only challenge is you can’t be liked by everyone and so trying to control other people’s feelings about you by projecting a way of being in the world that is ‘acceptable’ will inevitably lead you to a very exhausting and outwardly driven life. I don’t want to shape my life based on what others would validate, rather I would like to live my life knowing I’m aligned and in balance with all the various parts of me (heart, mind and body).
I know there are various different sources of where this complex belief has stemmed from, but it wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago that I realised an experience I had in 2nd grade in the Gold Coast, was one of the biggest contributors to this belief. The memory was around what my 2nd grade teacher did one day when she saw that another girl was incredibly nasty towards me and had said some unkind things about my mother. I broke down crying and so she stopped class and got everyone to sit in a circle with me sitting next to her. She took out a big cardboard and a purple square piece of paper with my name written on it in capitals, which she stuck to the middle of the cardboard. Then, she went around the class and asked everyone to say what they liked about me.
Now for the 8 year old me, that felt amazing because I felt loved and seen but when I recalled this memory a couple of weeks ago it dawned on me that I actually learned some really unhealthy beliefs and messages from what was intended to make me feel confident and better about myself. The problem was that most of the kids didn’t even know me as I was new to class and just moved to Australia from Iran. So, I wasn’t friends with most of the people who were asked to then talk about what they liked about me.
Everyone was well behaved so they called out generic traits like she’s kind, she’s creative etc. but there was only one real honest answer and that came from the girl who actually was unkind to me. When her turn came, she said she doesn’t know me and my teacher insisted that there would be something kind that she could say that she liked about me and so she said I like her scrunchy.
In this innocent exercise I subliminally learned that in order to belong you need to be liked, in order to be liked you just need to know what others would look for and or validate as good traits. None of the traits that were listed resonated with 8 year old me because they weren’t from a place of knowing me, they were from a place of saving face and being friendly. This started the journey towards what would translate into an implicit and deep rooted belief that I have to be liked by all in order to belong and in doing so, I just need to know how they want me to be, as opposed to how I would like to be in the world.
My teacher had the best of intentions at heart and there is no blame being casted here. But this sense of validation that has now become such a core part of my way of operating in the world is causing issues that deplete me of my joy and instead, encourage me to seek external confirmation of me belonging and being liked.
I have bee bullied for most of my school life, and to be fair to my younger versions they handled the bullying with so much grace, strength and confidence and got through it the best way that they knew how. Fast forward to the adult that I am today, I recognise that these experiences have shaped unhealthy beliefs which in turn drive unhealthy behaviours that don’t serve me.
On our Soul Journey we will all be impacted and shaped by our experiences, there is no stopping that. But there is a sense of empowerment when you recognise that as an adult you have a choice, either to retain all the beliefs and narratives that you’ve learned as a developing child or to rewire your brain and go through the journey of re-establishing beliefs and narratives that serve you more as the adult that you’d like to be. As an adult I have the rational mind that helps me see that I can’t be liked by everyone and I can’t be accepted by everyone either. I also have the wisdom to know that if you like and accept yourself, then it really doesn’t matter what others feel and think about you, because you recognise and celebrate your own worth and sense of belonging internally.
The rewiring will take time, but it will be worth it.
Love Always,
M
Souloom™ 