What became a part of her childhood became a habit hard to let go of. Tara had slowly learnt to let her surrounding, people and situation take control over her decisions and thought process. On any given day, she tends to feel that everyone around her is better than her.
Smarter, more capable, highly accomplished. She tends to think her cousins are more capable than she is or she can ever be, even when logic tells her that’s not true and she quickly hears herself say “You are just pacifying yourself Tara!” In a family dominant with male counterparts, she constantly told herself that she is less significant!
She wrote ….
I will do anything to feel my worth! I want to be able to achieve! To get away this feeling that says I am worthless! I want to get better. I want to be happy! But how will I do that? Does anyone have any advice? Can anyone point me in a direction that may save me? Why am I looking for others advice even here?
Why can’t I just take one step a time to better myself? Why am I like this? Why can’t others see what I am worth!
Discounting arises when others beliefs about you becomes a reality! When you allow their thoughts rule your life!
She was 19! She went to college, dropped out in the 2nd year. She dropped out because she felt she was not good at anything! She was not good at sports she thought, though she won all her inter college badminton matches during the two years! She has been told constantly and consistently that she is not good and she believed in it! She is good with words, but she can’t draw confidence through that! Why? Because others who read it did not find it appealing!
Discounting mostly occurs when from perception rather than the actual case. One draws conclusions based on their experience! These experiences are not facts and are highly likely to get distorted! When we allow self-doubting act as a parasite, Sorrow sets in! Compensating behavioral patterns set in. We tend to thrive on inflicted false superiority complex! We find ourselves saying “Oh they think too much of themselves!” or “I am sure I can do a 100 times better job at this!”
We move into a bubble abandoning our soul! We create an unusual rhythm that sounds harmonious to our ears but is sheer noise to others! We develop this deep skill of finding faults with others! Tara had started to develop the same! When her cousins looked down upon her, she felt it was her right to look down upon them! She started to criticize!
When her brother walked up to her and said “Maybe you should try your hand at home science!” She quickly snapped to him and said, “Why don’t you try it! You look half a girl anyway!” When her mom said, clean up the room, she would quickly comment why should I do it all the time? Slowly people started to believe she was rebelling! The common term, black sheep in the family! Whereas in Tara’s mind, she was still that lone girl, who did not make a difference in any one’s life nor in her own!
Overgeneralising doesn’t solve the problem it only leads to escapism or being a rebellion
What matters is what you think of their belief systems against yours! Intensity of the criticism, the feedback, their importance in your life against how important you are to yourself, how relevant is your feedback to yourself, how critical can you get about what you do and above all what you believe about yourself.
Why do I see you think? Does that sound familiar? Are you nudging your soul? Search! If you can, and I suggest that you do, make your memory one related to your current feelings of inferiority. Let me, drop a line here to help you look into your feelings? Have you ever had anyone tell you to stop talking because you have nothing good to say? Or any such episode in the recent past!
Now answer these 5 questions:
- What were you thinking when you heard them say that to you?
- How would you summarize your emotions at that point?
- What did you tell yourself after the remark?
- How long did it take for you to disregard the remark?
- How intense did you feel?
The answers to these questions will determine if you are discounting yourself.
The posts to follow will take you through the effects that discounting causes in your day to day life and what it did to Tara after she dropped out from college, her short career and then marriage.
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