My story
“Men are better than women”.
This belief dominated much of my adolescence and young adulthood. It distorted the way in which I perceived my value and fueled a need for male attention, acceptance and validation. Either that, or I needed to somehow prove to the world I was as good as a man.
Without male validation or extreme competence, I had no worth. As a woman, I would never be good enough just as myself, nor would I be happy.
As you can imagine, the resulting effects were devastating to my self-esteem and my overall sense of self. On top of this, unhealthy ideals of female beauty and a distorted body image further diminished my self-worth.
The resulting shame of never being enough culminated into a sort of tunnel vision. An “at-all-costs” mentality.
I lost track of my personal values. My priorities became unbalanced and my self-esteem continued to plummet. I lost friendships and was socially ostracized during one of the most formative periods of my life. It was devastatingly painful and it only compounded my already low self-esteem and perceived lack of value.
After moving to a new city, starting a new life, cultivating new friendships, reworking my personal identity and finally finding myself a good man, I thought I’d be happy. I quickly learned that wasn’t the case. Tunnel vision and self-sabotage once again set in and I recognized a familiar unhealthy pattern rearing it’s ugly head.
A damaging relationship pattern emerged — a broken sense of self worth and shame was fueling a need for external validation. I realized I had been living my life in what Dr. Gabor Maté calls “The Realm of Hungry Ghosts”, constantly seeking something outside myself to curb an insatiable yearning for fulfillment and happiness.
It manifested into unhappiness, dissatisfaction, blame, resentment and led to broken relationships, infidelity and to the loss of the people closest to me. I was shrouded in feelings of guilt, shame, deep sadness, loneliness and isolation.
I realized I was the cause of my own pain & suffering and that I was the only one who could do anything about it.
I was never going to find peace, happiness and contentment by looking outward.
And so, the inner work began.
