Just when I think I have the upper hand, I’m humbled in the best of ways.
I mentioned before my struggles with inner wounds that have sullied my perception of who I am and my worth. Particularly, how worthy I am of romantic love and its role in my life.
Of course, my limiting beliefs have affected other perspectives of mine but 6 months ago, my relation to romantic love was my sole focus, or really, my sole anguish.
Staying on theme, I found myself again, angrily pulling out my journal and pen to state my grievances.
See, one key part of manifesting or receiving the things you desire is believing you can have them or believing you already have them.
Well, if that’s the case, in my eyes, I was at a major disadvantage because my experiences up until this point have proven me right. That love isn’t meant for me and if it was, it had to come with some self-sacrifice that would prove I was enough to the other person.
So tell me: In what world would I ever be optimistic about romantic love?
Because I had, and have, never been in a relationship. There was this one time I found myself falling in love with someone who promised me their intentions were commitment only to spend the next year convincing him to commit and realizing he never actually wanted to.
Not only that, I spent my most formative years creating a 7-year plan to naturally lighten my skin complexion because I knew my parents wouldn’t buy skin lightening creams.
I spent my most formative years obsessing over high fashion models and magazines because that was the only place I saw darker skin uplifted. I fell in love with Grace Jones and Naomi Campbell.
I spent my most formative years being told there’s no way they made my color foundation, that black on me was practically camouflage (It’s okay to laugh because I do all the time now), and being likened to a black sharpie.
I spent my most formative years trying to mimic the way the prettier girls in middle school dressed and did their hair and adopting a larger-than-life personality because if I didn’t have beauty, at least I could make others laugh.
I spent my most formative years watching and observing how some of my peers were treated, the amount of crushes they received, and reluctantly noticed a pattern.
I spent my most formative years watching my peers confess their “like” to crushes and being well received, and being told it will eventually happen to me in high school.
I watched it not happen to me in high school.
In high school, that was the first time I heard my skin complexion was beautiful, thanks to my amazing great aunt. And then hearing a second time that I was beautiful…for a darkskin girl by male peers.
I watched it not happen to me in college, too.
Freshman and sophomore year I received some attention but it didn’t lead to anything.
Junior year of college I left the country and for the first time ever, I felt beautiful. It was enough to give me hope that maybe I was good enough. I had so much hope I tried my hand at actively dating and was again desired but not chosen.
And throughout it all, I slowly leaned more into my giving-nature, hoping that if I could prove I was beneficial, that would be enough for someone to choose me.
And then one day, when I thought I’d left that all behind. I watched my best friend leave her not-so-great relationship, heal, date, and fall into another relationship just 3 months later with a man who was patient, understanding, and continuously poured into her.
Yes, I was happy for her and…it all felt like a gut punch.
Because just a year before that, I too had left a not-so-great romantic situation , healed, and decided to date again only to be faced with the same, disappointing situations.
What was wrong with me?
For 12 years, my lack of self worth led me towards finding solace in love that then subsequently shut me down time and time again. Only proving my initial belief: That I was so undeserving and not enough.
How was I ever going to release myself from such harmful, limiting beliefs? How would I ever be able to look outside my experiences and believe that I was worthy of being wanted when I was repeatedly shown I wasn’t?
When I journaled those questions, I paused and literally waited for a response. I waited snarkingly, but nonetheless I half-heartedly expected some Divine Response to my questions.
And not only 5 seconds later I heard:
“You’re being closed-minded.”
The first thing I’m going to ask you to do is believe that we live in a world of limitless possibilities. I don’t care if you have a lifetime of proof that you can’t stop shoving food in your face or that people are intrinsically evil or that you couldn’t keep a man if you were handcuffed to his ankles-believe that anything is possible anyways.
Jen Sincero; You Are A Badass
If there’s one word that truly insults me, it’s being called small or closed-minded.
I’ve lived in and visited various countries, on my own will deconstructed oppressive, political beliefs that were taught to me, and made it my mission to understand and take into the consideration the experiences of others.
I fumed at the sight of others using their own experiences, solely to form opinions and worse, hold onto those shortsighted conclusions when new information was presented to them.
I was the least, narrow-minded person I knew and yet, here I was, restricting my mindset when it came to what was possible for me.
I had almost deliberately twisted the multitude of experiences I had seen or heard from others to affirm my beliefs instead of using them to challenge my beliefs.. I “understood” that life is full of a billion possibilities but somehow refused to know those possibilities apply to me too.
I was so wrapped up inside my small bubble, so zoned in on my small sample size of experiences (when compared to the experiences of 7 billion people in the world), that I had truly closed my mind off to a broader and realistic frame of thinking.
In order to free myself of such limiting beliefs, I didn’t need to believe the opposite was true. I needed to be open to the opposite.
“You don’t have to believe. Just be open to the possibility that you’re wrong.”
Being open means being willing to acknowledge other experiences, ideas, ideologies, beliefs, opinions, possibilities, outcomes, perspectives, and more.
You don’t have to take them on as your own beliefs, yet, just be open to accepting their existence.
I didn’t have to force myself into believing I was worthy. I had to be open to the possibility that I was.
That I could be worthy, enough, deserving, etc.
That would get me to actually believing, then knowing. But that first step, that baby step as I call it, was simply accepting that the opposites of my fears could exist.
In that very moment of being asked, in a way: “And what if you’re wrong? Be open to being wrong.” I smiled. Now it was like a challenge and that challenge was accepted. Fine, prove me wrong.
And I was wrong.
No, I am not in a relationship, and I also no longer have a strong yearning to be in one but I do believe I’m worthy, deserving, enough, amazing, sublime, and every other wonderful word in the dictionary. All because I opened my heart and mind to these possibilities
And on the days where it is difficult for me to remain optimistic, or when I get sucked back into my limiting beliefs, I don’t force myself to “think on the bright side”. I just make myself open.
When doubts seep in, when fear takes over, when anxiety floods the mind with lies. Take a moment of silence. Breathe in. And affirm:
I am open.
