I was just reflecting upon a conversation I had on Dave Gray’s School of the Possible Discord server when something reared up its ugly head and slapped me full on in the face.
Within the conversation, I was talking about how my main fear is that people won’t understand what I’m trying to communicate.
Ok that’s fine. That’s a fear I’m aware of it. That’s good. By making myself aware of it, I can work on overcoming it.
But then I started thinking about that’s why I often don’t converse with people enough and get their feedback because a lot of what I’m talking about is very deep and complex stuff, thus they probably won’t grasp it.
Almost five to ten minutes after thinking that, I realized what I was doing. I effectively have a fearful belief that no one will understand me which is why I then believe it’s not worth communicating with others because they aren’t at my level of comprehension and perception and thus probably won’t understand me.
Do you see what I’m doing here? I’m creating an elitist, victim mindset, perception, and belief that in turn justifies my initial limited belief and makes it ok for me to do my work alone without others.
You have no idea why this realization hit me so hard.
It’s because this very last weekend a family member of mine effectively pulled this exact very same narrative on other family members as well, saying that others were ignorant and stupid because they couldn’t comprehend the same thing they could with their experience and level of knowledge.
Even more so, this perfect ties into what Richard Barrett confirmed as a narrative that people fall into when they are unable to level up and overcome their fears, as I described below.
Now I think I’m understanding all of the above but the way forward, if I’m understanding what you’ve communicated in your books, is paradoxical to what the average conventional person might think. For example, a conventional person may say that if these needs weren’t addressed as a child, then I just need to find a group of people who can help me feel seen and heard, recognizing my ability, thus boosting my sense of belonging and self-esteem. But you’re not saying that are you?
You’re saying that I need to overcome these needs on my own. I need to find a sense of true belonging within myself, accepting myself as I am, and thus giving myself a sense of self-esteem that isn’t dependent upon others for it. Is that correct?
So until I can truly accept myself and “be at home” with myself, I’ll continue to be angry and frustrated at the world, no matter how positive a space I find with others. In effect, I’ll sabotage potentially positive relationships until I work out these lower needs and become truly “independent”, not requiring society to fulfill them for me.
Nollind Whachell
You got it exactly.
Richard Barrett
What’s even more poignant is that my response to this family member afterwards was effectively what I said above. I said that they need to stop looking for acceptance from others in their beliefs to accept themselves and instead needed to believe in themselves first. The same very issue I’m experiencing with myself. And the very same advice I need to embody myself.
In effect, within Dave Gray’s School of the Possible, I’m looking for more than just acceptance of my ideas, I’m looking for an acceptance of myself. But the acceptance from others won’t mean anything until I can accept myself first.
This is the merry-go-round that I keep spinning around on. And only I can choose to get off of it, if I have the courage. It’s effectively the reverse of something Seth Godin said a while back about getting on the carousel of life.
But if you’re waiting for the perfect horse on that carousel to come around, you’ve miss three, four, five, seven cycles while you were waiting. All the horses are just as good, it’s the same carousel, just get on the damn horse!
Seth Godin
That’s my problem. I’m standing around, wasting time, chatting with myself and others about why I’m not doing this or not doing that because of this or that (i.e. victim mindset), when I effectively should just be taking action.
This is exactly similar to something Chris Do spoke about with a client of his on one of his videos. She wouldn’t increase her rate with her clients because she didn’t believe and value herself enough, thus she was stuck in this endless loop until he threatened to drop her as a client. The next day, she overcame her limited belief, increased her rate with her clients, and she couldn’t believe how easy it was to do once she actually did it.