Where are the ones stuffed with hot peppers? photo by @newmanphotog
Name some of your characteristics. Negative or positive, your choice.
Are you smart, good-looking, terrible at relationships, bad at math, a great artist, a supermom, fat, feisty or a hundred other self-images? How did these characteristics get attached to you? Did you decide what you are?
I bet you labeled yourself with input from your parents, teachers, other kids, a minister, work mates, and even strangers. But you internalized those labels all by yourself. What if your teacher labeled you the smart one in the class? Or the lazy one? Or your parents decided you were the most likely to end up in jail, pregnant or in trouble?
As kids we tend to think in black and white terms. If I’m the cute one, then maybe I’m not be very smart. If I’m the fat one, then I’ll never be the thin one. If I’m the boy, I’m superior to all the girls. It’s not a hugely different process when we become adults.
Check this out. When I was a little kid, I thought I was green.
True, my complexion was different from everyone else I knew. One day a friend of my mom innocently remarked that I had such lovely olive skin. I burst into tears, blubbered, and howled, and it took a while to get me calmed down enough to find out why I was so upset.
Turns out I thought I was a walking olive. The olives I knew were green with red pimentos. I bled red when I got scratched so, logically, I figured that if I had olive skin, I must be a human green olive with red pimento stuffed inside.
You might think this is ridiculous but thinking I was green was traumatic for me. I adopted other labels too that I kept inside myself, most of them negative. Internalizing this negative stuff, especially with validation from the outside can stick with you for a lifetime unless you face it, explore it, and accept it. Accept it and move on. Yep, accept it. That doesn’t mean it’s true.
A negative image can fester inside you for a long time. You can ignore it, but it doesn’t magically go away. You may even need help believing in a more positive view of yourself. That’s where change comes in. Don’t hesitate or be fearful. Go get the help if you need it. You deserve to live comfortably with who you are in the world. And for sure you’ll never think you’re a walking green olive.
What the heck is life coaching and why should you consider it? Coaching is a way to get clear on what you really want in life. It helps you forge a path to get there. Maybe you’re thinking of retiring but are afraid of the future. Maybe you want to quit the job you hate but don’t know what you want to do instead. Click here Work with me and let’s talk.
New here? You can get stories, random thoughts and humor directly to your inbox weekly. Subscribe here And I pinky swear not to flood your inbox with stuff you don’t want. Don’t you hate that? Ick, me too.
Here is how the 3 of us kids were slotted: Mary was the brain, John was the boy and I was the cute one. These labels can be long lasting and sometimes devastating.
This is also how caste, class, prejudice, and racism get started. We all look for our place of power, our place of safety and security. For the powerless or insecure to feel powerful, someone has to be below them in the pecking order.
Fast forward to about age 20 something when I boarded an airplane for California to see my sister. I was deeply tanned, reeked of patchouli, had a nose ring, butt length dark hair in a braid, kohl makeup around my eyes and was dressed in an Indian print skirt and non-matching Indian print top. And I had “olive” skin. As I looked for a place to sit, I saw the following prayer reflected in the faces of the people watching me walk down the aisle: “Oh please god, don’t let that hippie girl sit next to me.” I was just a WASP girl from Indiana and the panic and hostility in the air was thick and surprising. I found a place, plopped down, and prepared for a lousy flight to Oakland.
But I was not going to be put off. I turned to the accountant looking guy on my left and said, “Hey, I see you’re reading the New Yorker. I love the New Yorker. I love the music and the fiction. What’s your favorite part?” He looked astonished. We had a nice conversation that went on for hours.
The take-away from this story is how we white folks don’t even realize our entitlement. Just for a moment I was experiencing negative judgements based on how I looked, dressed, and probably smelled. I was surprised but not fearful. I can’t imagine how exhausting it must be to constantly be made aware of your ethnicity, your color, your presumed economic class and to feel unsafe and disrespected by the people around you.
