My unhealed self interprets my children’s self confidence as monstrous. Only a monster could own their own desires and love themselves, right? My mind can’t comprehend a world in which it’s okay to be the only person in the room who likes something, or feels a certain way. By contrast, I have devoted the better part of my life to being as agreeable as possible, going along with whatever other people wanted. I actively sought to be everything to everybody.
I’ll be honest. It does make me happy to make other people happy. That’s not a mask. Unfortunately, when faced with the question of who I really am, I feel pretty lacking in the personality department. I’m a helper. I want to make other people happy. I’m proud of that, but I also know that I curated that and culled the rest of me in order to be the most perfect female human I could be. Altruism was not my only motivation, but it was part of my perfectionism, a deep desire to appear perfect to others and to mask my own insecurities and shame.
I’m not remotely interested in devoting the rest of my lifetime to naval-gazing in order to find myself. But maybe if I can spend a few minutes here and there identifying and naming what I notice, maybe I can start to better understand myself without throwing out the proverbial baby with the bath water.
BoysRUs 