Just because I’m talking to myself, it doesn’t mean I’m listening. It’s not that I ignore myself entirely, it’s just that some of the voices inside my head are not saying things that I want to hear anymore. In particular, I’ve stopped listening to the critical, scolding voice that tells me incessantly that everything I do is wrong.
It took me a lifetime to realize that I am essentially three people. Most people only know me for the person I present to the world, the person I pretend to be. This is the “me” that I want the world to see – an optimistic, confident and happy person. But this “pretend me” mostly tries to conceal another person – my negative self-image. And buried somewhere deep in my psyche is a third “me”, the real and authentic person I was meant to be.
But by far the most important thing that I have ever discovered about myself is that my negative self-image is not the truth. It is not reality.
Every day of my life, my energy was focused on a battle between the person I wanted people to see and my negative self-image. There was no hope for the person that was truly me.
For years, I soaked up emotions but never let them show on the outside. Feelings circled inside me in a loop of rage and fear, helpless to change anything. Everything I did was to prove that I was not worthless. But I failed. Inside, I was still the worthless child, desperate for approval, afraid to make loving relationships for fear of rejection and abandonment.
It is the same for most of us. Only by knowing that our negative self-image is not the truth can we begin to rejoice in the person we truly are, the person we were meant to be. To know that love does not automatically result in rejection. To know that we are not worthless, that we have as much right to be here as anyone. To know that the world would not be a better place without us.
Picture yourself as you know yourself to truly be. Not the negative self-image that other people gave you. And not the person you pretend to be. Picture yourself in every detail and imagine the incredible thrill of what it would be like to be the real you.
Don’t get to the end of your life knowing that no one ever knew who you really were. The real you is longing to see the light of day.
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