Dear Thirty Year Old Me,
One of my favorite authors: "Brene Brown" writes and talks about Gremlins. These refer to the voices that play out in our heads when we want to do something that exposes our vulnerable self. One of the Gremlin tapes is "You're not good enough." The other Gremlin tape is "Who do you think you are"?
I know these Gremlins all too well. I hear them when I work and I hear them when I try to meet up with men that I'm interested in. At work - it had been easy to shut them up. I guess - you can say that I've survived so many challenges at work - that I have learned to hustle my way through the situations which trigger the Gremlins' persistent nagging.
The challenge lies with my dating life. You see - I've grown up being told that I am an ugly fart. I've been told that I am not attractive. I have also had pimples on my face - and every movie out there where the protagonist is portrayed as ugly - has portrayed ugly with "artificial" pimples planted on their face. The thing is - it might be fake pimples for those actors and actresses - but that was my reality.
Just recently - when I asked someone "Why do you think I have not been in a relationship?" The response I got, "I think because your standards are too high." This response immediately hit my ego - and I retorted back, "But shouldn't I have standards? Should I just settle for someone even if I'm not attracted to them?" After the defensiveness faded - the Gremlins started talking and kept on telling me, "You're not good enough for the men that you like." And the other Gremlin kept on saying, "Why do you even try hitting on those attractive men, who you think you are?"
These voices - definitely torment me and can actually lead me to do stupid things. The actions I take fall into three categories. One - I numb the pain. I numb it often by shopping and buying things that I don't need or things that I think attractive people use or endorse in their commercials or instagram accounts. Two - I find validation from other people - usually by logging onto Grindr or other online dating apps and immersing myself in praises and adulation of men that I don't really like. The worst thing that I can do is to go on a date with these men - just to counter the pain I feel from feeling unattractive. Lastly - I do stupid things just to be noticed by the men that I find attractive - and making a fool of myself by pretending to be cool in front of them even if what I'm doing is clearly an awkward fit for how I'm perceived by most people.
But my dear friend - I want you to learn from my mistakes. The three actions that I have written above - is not how you deal with the pain and the torment of the Gremlins in your head. You must answer this question: "Whose voice do you think are the Gremlin voices coming from." What I mean by this is that - who is telling you "Who do you think you are?" Is it your Mom? Is it your Dad? Is it your best friend? At the moment in time that you think of these thoughts - who is physically telling you this? Isn't it that the answer to this is that - nobody but you? So the Gremlin voices are not external voices. They are voices coming from within. You are the one who is telling yourself that you are not good enough. To quiet those voices - you need to tell yourself to just shut up.
One too many times, all of us will hear other people say, "You must believe in yourself." It gets repeated so many times that we have actually thought that it's just something people say to make other people feel better - but it doesn't really mean anything. Recently, I have come to realize - that statement - as much as it is a cliche - has a lot of truth behind it. This is the reason why I hear it over and over again - because it is the universe telling me that it is a fundamental truth. To experience joy - true joy - in what we do in our careers and in what we do in our love life - we must believe in our self. We must believe that we are lovable and stop second guessing other people when they say that you are a being worthy of love - because we are. We are good enough. The Gremlins can continue to say what they want to say - but our resolution is strong enough to overcome those voices - until they sound like comedic small voices that are to be laughed at.
My friend - you will find that there will be times that you will meet people who will actually flat out reject you. The thing is the feedback that you get from those people is a reflection more of what they are thinking about the world that they live in and the world that they grew up in and it is not a reflection of you - you can be a magnificent beautiful unicorn - but someone who has been trampled on by unicorns when they were young may actually see you as a rhinoceros.
It may still take years for you to truly accept this universal truth that you are worthy of love. That's okay. It isn't important when you wake up from the bad dream that you're currently living. What is important is that you do wake up eventually. Listen to the universe as it sends messengers around you reinforcing the beauty that you possess. And when you wake up from the bad dream - I promise you, you will find the love that you have been searching for all your life.
With much Love,
The Forty Year Old You
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