Why did I think I was dumb?

Why did I think I was dumb?

We all do it, tell ourselves stories. We live in our stories every day and make decisions from them, whether true or not. We believe what we tell ourselves, especially after living in a story most of our lives.

Like childhood ones.

“We craft a narrative, a story, as children, then drag it into adulthood,” says Ian Morgan Cron, author of The Story of You. And, we live as if it is still the truth for us and “become a prisoner to our story.”

I wondered, “Was it possible the stories I was telling myself are stale and no longer valid? Have they been holding me prisoner?” After all, it’s not as if our stories come with an expiration date – like a product off the shelf with a “sell by” date.

Which brought me to another critical question Ian asked, “What story are you in now?” Was it possible I still lived with old expired stories, and the “sell by” date passed by eons ago?

I didn’t think so until I examined it further – I only had to look at my behavior, how I reacted to things, and what triggered me to realize how many stories I’d carried forward from childhood into adulthood. And, even more shocking, I still believed them as an adult, and unbeknownst to me, they ran my life as if they were still valid.

These stories are sneaky and run unnoticed in the background of your life.

They confirm, again and again, the beliefs you hold about yourself. Here are a few that I noticed for me; maybe they’ll resonate for you, too. I’m not important, I’m not enough, I don’t have any friends, I’m not smart, and no one likes me, to name but a few. All based upon childhood experiences and family dynamics that I carried into adulthood.

I remember my struggles with arithmetic and math vividly. Even though it was 56 years ago, I see it as if it was only yesterday. There I sat on the floor in front of my dad’s chair, the footstool between us. He leaned forward to show me on paper which lay upon the footstool what seemed like a straightforward explanation. However, even though simple to him, it didn’t make sense to me. His frustration made it clear they were simple concepts; however, all it did was convince me that I was just hopeless and dumb.

I have spent a lifetime proving that wrong. 

How did that play out in my life? I strove to better myself, be more intelligent, and educate myself. None of which is a bad thing, mind you – it all depends on why you think you must do so! In other words, what was the driving force behind this behavior?

Another stale story was that I was unimportant and not enough. The story that sticks with me the most was when my brother was born. It had only been a short while since I’d been released from the hospital, at 3 ½ years old, for severe and life-threatening pneumonia. I remember sitting in the backseat of our car. I was alone while my parents and infant brother were in the front seat. I distinctly decided then that I was no longer important; my brother had replaced me.

And, what about the lifelong belief that I have no friends or no one likes me? I have a distinct memory of kindergarten. I was younger than all the other kids in my class, definitely not ready for school. To put it mildly, I didn’t fit in and struggled to make friends. That struggle followed me through school, where I was always the youngest. Later, my mother said she regretted enrolling me so young and wished she’d waited a year.

Those are just a few of the experiences I remember, ones that set in place those beliefs I then carried forward into adulthood. They affected every decision I made – until I realized they weren’t true.

And, until I realized I could change the story! No longer did I need to live life from those long-held stories.

As Ian Morgan Cron guides, using the acronym “SOAR:”

S = Story. Recognize the story.
O = Own it.
A = Awaken from the story to another way of living.
R = Rewrite. Now you get to rewrite it.

In other words, you are the narrator of your own story so take ownership of it. You no longer need to be held prisoner by it. You, too, can make up a new one!

Enjoy the freedom and the rewrite!