Yep. I'm Stupid
Last Saturday my boyfriend (ok, there has to be a better word for him at this age, right?!) asked me to play a video game with him. He bought tennis for Xbox because he thought I would love it. I was so excited to play. But when we stood to go to play, it occurred to me that he was talking about the Xbox and not Wii sports which is interactive. My chest tightened.
“Babe, this game is played with the regular remote, right? It’s not interactive?” I asked. “It’s the regular remote,” he said. He looked up, and said, “what in the world is wrong with you?” It was written all over my face. How could I explain my life-long hatred of video game controllers? I’d tried every which way to figure out how to maneuver all the buttons and make them do what they were supposed to do when they were supposed to do it but to no avail. He said, “Just chill. I’m learning, too. It will be fun.” I tried to explain that no matter what I had done before I couldn’t get the damn thing to move where I wanted it to, and felt confused by the number of things you had to do with your hands at the same time but he insisted I try, so I did. After thirty minutes, I was angry, frustrated and on the verge of a meltdown. I stood up and said, “I’m done!”
He asked me to play dominos and I said sure. We are obviously now spending our weekends playing games! We sat at the table and I watched as he systematically blocked me out and made me draw all the dominos. I lost. Again. I felt tears welling up inside. WTF? I’m not actually going to cry over dominos, am I? He saw it on my face and asked what was wrong? I couldn’t explain why I was crying or why it felt like the crying wasn’t going to stop. He said, “Come here,” and put his arms out to hug me. I just couldn’t. I sat at the table, frozen. I felt the familiar feeling. My chest was so tight. I tried to fight it off. I wanted to get control. Finally, he said, “You want to go lay down and talk about it?” I shook my head yes and we went and laid down.
This particular meltdown had been a long time in coming. How did I know? Because if it’s hysterical, it’s historical (my good friend Megan taught me that one!) And this felt hysterical. And once something like this starts to come up for me, the movie reel of my life starts to play, and I see so clearly whatever it is that I’ve been covering up for so long.
So, I just put it out there. “I feel stupid,” I said. And then I just let myself sink into it. It was going to come out one way or another. The day before had found me in the midst of a conversation with a fellow cohort from another coaching program I enrolled in to help build my business acumen and self-esteem around running a business. She asked me what was in the way of me making videos and podcasts that I desired to do? I told her, “I don’t want to look stupid.” As soon as I told her, I remembered my kindergarten teacher accusing me and my friend Billy of cheating on our math test. I told her I was trying to get my pencil back from him, but she pulled us both to the front of the classroom and spanked us with a wooden paddle. In front of EVERYONE. Five-year old kids don’t know what to do with that so of course they laughed at us. I was humiliated. I felt stupid. I vowed never again to feel that way. And voila, a shadow was born inside of me. Haunting me all the way through school, and adulthood, afraid to look stupid. Afraid to ask for help. Just afraid.
I knew I was smarter than how I was performing in school. Teachers repeatedly told my parents that I had so much potential but needed to work harder. I scored very low on my SAT and no matter what I did, couldn’t improve my score. Luckily for me, I was athletic, so that helped my college acceptance rate! In college I decided to go to graduate school to study English, until my senior year advisor told me that my critical writing skills weren’t strong enough to withstand a graduate program. I took the GMAT anyways, but my scores were so low, I allowed myself to turn away from this dream and told myself I didn’t really want to go to graduate school anyway. Afraid of looking stupid.
I had no idea until my middle child was being tested for learning disabilities six years ago that anything was wrong with me. As the psychologist described his exact disorders, I felt myself tearing up. For him, but also because a lightbulb went off in my head. I had learning disorders that no one knew about, not even me. A few months after his testing, a marriage counselor who was seeing me and my ex asked me if I had ever explored the possibility of having Attention Deficit Disorder. I went home and started reading. Oh my. Did I have ADD? Of course I freaking had it! In retrospect I did have an ADD diagnosis from UNC-Chapel Hill that was given to me my junior year of college. Instead of trying to understand what it meant or getting help, I covered it up and used the medicine to have more fun partying! In addition to ADD, I clearly had the math equivalent to dyslexia and some sort of processing disorder. Oh what life would have been like if I had been born into my son’s era! Each appointment I went to with him to help him with his various disabilities, I learned something about myself.
What does all this mean to me now? It means every time I think about a video I want to make or a course I want to teach, I back down. It means that growing up I took low level math courses, so I didn’t have to feel stupid but by the time I reached high school, I was so lost that it took a teacher, a tutor and my brother just to help me pass. In college, it took me three tries to pass the one math course I had to have in order to graduate with an English degree. I somehow always managed to keep at least a 3.0 GPA. I compensated and overcompensated in places where I was strong. No one was going to know how I felt inside and the more I covered it, the more I hid the truth from myself. As I watched my child suffer in school, it all came reeling back to me. It was ME. But, I didn’t have the benefit of knowing. I just felt stupid. And no one was going to know.
So, now I’m 44 years old and crying over a dominos and video games! I tried to explain to my boyfriend how stupid the Xbox controller made me feel. All those buttons and switches and multi layered plays that he seemed to just understand and I sat feeling like I’m going to throw it against the wall. Or how I try to follow his lead while he counts up all the dominos on the table and knows exactly what’s in my hand but when I try to do it, I just end up frustrated and taking too much time. I felt stupid.
This is how our shadows work. They make us masters of disguise but keep us small in areas where we really want to succeed. Because as I learned through my own coaching process, we have all the ways of being inside of us when we are born. It’s through our upbringing that we figure out which ones are acceptable and which ones aren’t. We systematically own and disown qualities based on our environmental feedback. I learned that feeling stupid should be avoided at all costs. Yet, avoiding it kept me from achieving things I really wanted in my heart. It had me pretend I understood something so I could avoid feeling stupid. It has had me paralyzed in creating content for my coaching business because I don’t want to be on camera and look or say something stupid. It had me avoid publishing anything I ever wrote until last year when I just said, “FUCK IT!” and started this blog! Yet, every time I post it, I feel anxiety and just have to sit with it.
The hardest part about disowning parts of ourselves? If I can’t own the stupid side of me, I certainly can’t own the brilliant side of me. It’s ALL in there. I’m ALL of it. So, I’m left trying to hide it all and not experiencing the kind of success I want in my life in some areas. In fact, on Sunday, we played tennis again. Interesting how I was able to calmly move all the buttons and play. I didn’t feel as frustrated and I even won some games! My avoidance of my shadow is what causes me pain. It’s not stupid that causes me pain. It’s me trying to cover it up that wreaks havoc.
So, once again, here I am, just admitting to ya’ll what really goes on in my head and in my life. Especially during a time where life has basically come to a stand-still. Sitting with ourselves can be uncomfortable, if not down-right painful. We may want to overeat, drink too much, watch TV til your brain feels like mush in order to NOT feel, to not admit what is really in there. But, there is freedom in admitting it all. There is a peace that comes with bringing these things to light. A peace and freedom that can be had if you are willing to dig down deep and do some discovery. Freedom to be real and not covered up. Freedom to fail AND to succeed. Just owning all the broken bits. Owning all the put together bits. Just owning it all. Because in owning it ALL, we get to experience our lives at a whole new level.
Stupid? Yep, I’m stupid😊
Until Next Time,
