“I have nothing (smart) to say.”

It took me a while to write this post. Not because I wasn’t able to download all my thoughts onto the screen, but because I have so many fake stories running through my head.

Basically, the bottom line was: Why should I share anything? No one wants to hear from me. I’m not a super intellectual person, though I can pretend to be one. (How many of you have pretended to know about a topic when you were frantically waiting for a moment alone to Google it?)

Being seen as an intelligent person provides you with a lot of respect in society and your family. It’s that level of achievement you can lord over everyone else at family gatherings or in your friend group. (No one else wants to do that?) There were so many times when I sat there, an answer or question burning inside my mind yet I never uttered a word. When I went digging for the answer, I realized something happened in my childhood that laid the path to these fake stories.

It Finally Dawned on Me…This Year

As a child, and even throughout my adulthood, I was called stupid.

Now, I’m sure you can trace a whole bunch of childhood traumas that are much worse than this but it doesn’t make this simple message any less hurtful.

Growing up in my family, I constantly heard:

• Why are you being so stupid?
• That is so stupid. I can’t believe you just said that.
• You’re really dumb for asking that.

And that’s from my immediate family.

Even now as I write this, I can feel my skin flushing with embarrassment. The word ‘stupid’ became so embedded in my psyche that I started living from that space. And as a result, I dimmed my light. I became reliant on others to have the answer so I wouldn’t need to feel stupid. (All I would have to do is listen to their reasoning, and if it sounded good, I’d agree and take on their stance.) In my head, there was no need to shine because if I had a spotlight on me, it would showcase how ‘stupid’ I was.

It took a lot of work but I’m getting better at rejecting this old story, to stand up and take on the position of occasionally appearing unintelligent. I still stumble at times and curse myself for saying, doing, or asking things that I deem as idiotic, but in the end, we’re all human. We are capable of doing things that may not make sense to others (that would be deemed stupid) but that’s okay.

A New Start

I’m starting this blog as a way to counteract all the old stories and beliefs I have in my head about myself and society in general. I feel it would be good to really pull back this mask I’ve created to show that underneath it all, we’re the same no matter what culture, religion, gender or country we come from.

It’ll be hard.
It’ll get ugly.
There will definitely be some ugly crying.
But in the end, I know it’ll help.

I’ll be covering different topics that align with different aspects of life (i.e. money, sex/relationships, love, family, career, health, reality) on Mondays and Thursdays, and really digging deep into the reasons why these fake stories still exist and how to break through them.

If you’d like to join me on this journey, feel free to sign up here. I hope to see you in there and help you dispel some of the stories you may have going on in your head.

Because it’s time to shed our old selves that have kept us stuck for too long and allow the new, evolved version to come through.