Chapters From a Life, Transcripts from an Interview, Part II: Hushing the Voices and the Self-Doubt
Chapters From a Life, Transcripts from an Interview, Part II: Hushing the Voices and the Self-Doubt
You're Too Old to Spend the Rest of Your Life on the Couch: Let's Adventure!
How can we deal with the damnation that’s installed inside us?
Unless we're a feral child, there are internal voices in all of us. They are the buttons our parents or guardians installed, largely handed down from their parents or guardians. Those voices have a sacred purpose.
Self-doubts, which are natural, are the balance to arrogance. Humility, which can and should ideally be steeped in a thoughtful self-assessment (I'm not all that) is the antidote to hubris. We are short on both, so in some cases the inner voices are really necessary.
However the negative critical talk, such as "I'm stupid, fat and ugly," the Three Crimes of our humanity, especially for women, can be crippling.
I grew up believing these three awful things, and as a victim of incest, my self-worth was further damaged by the assault. Once such an incident preys on the young mind, the societal message that even very young girls are sexually precocious underscores the guilt and self-loathing. It most assuredly stunts boys too but I can’t speak for men.
That's a whole other topic, but suffice it to say that when and if I (the universal I) ever reach the point where I understand that the damning Voices inside my head didn't originate from me, but from other damaged people, then I have the beginning of a way out.
I have to develop self-awareness so that I can even identify the voices in the first place. That takes some work to parce out the messages. When a thought arises, such as "you fat ugly pig," when I look in a mirror, do I question where on earth that came from? Or do I take the thought as gospel, at face value, as Absolute Truth?
This is also Deep Work and developing mindfulness. If I am unable to tease out the lies I tell myself, then I can hardly rewrite my script. Organized religion is a huge player in this, having found that shame does a fine job of silencing, manipulating and driving people to do their bidding.
Especially when it comes to giving money, as if money would absolve us, but the pitch works. Witness the richness of religion at the expense of humanity, but I digress.
Sadly, shame doesn't result in healthier behaviors. Rather than experience the kind of useful remorse we rightfully should feel after having done something wrong or unkind- especially to ourselves- we instead drown our sorrows in booze or boxes of chocolate or a great smorgasbord of temptations to distract us from our self-hatred.
Remorse is very different; a healthy response that says “I did it and will not do it again, I can do better and I deserve to do better.”
Shame is “I’m bad. I deserve punishment, and I can’t do better because I was born bad.” See: Calvinism. It works very well when we are made to feel shame from the moment of conception. That’s quite the condemnation.
In 2010 I wrote the book Wordfood: How We Feed or Starve our Relationships, which explores the power of language, beginning with our conversations with ourselves. When we heal that conversation, we heal our lives. It’s a lifelong retraining of the words we use to ourselves, which spill over into every aspect of how we treat others.
So let’s talk about how we talk to ourselves.
Let’s instead start with a much lighter thought.
So when the thought comes that "I'm tired," which is normal, and far more innocent, how do I dance with that? For my part, tiredness can be mental, which is vastly different from the physical tiredness of having done a training hike. That requires a challenge.
Am I willing to walk around inside my body and ask that question?
Am I legitimately tired due to physical labor, or am I mentally tired, which can be reinvigorated by a trip downstairs to my gym, doing a few or more pushups, slapping my dumbbells into my palms and getting the blood going? This goes back to the mindful question.
When I operate solely at the superficial level when it comes to my urges (I'm hungry, tired, thirsty, need a drink) then I am completely at the mercy of them. If, instead, I start to explore the sensation: am I really hungry or thirsty?
Am I feeding my anxiousness or am I genuinely hungry? And if so, for what?
The mind is an anarchist, it wants what it thinks it wants, and it often doesn't wish to be monitored or controlled by a more thoughtful regulator. If I believe, as my father did, than a highball at five o'clock or two or four will soothe the pressures of the day, then my mind, being the dictator that it is, will work overtime to justify that action in order to be right.
Learning to challenge the feeling, the hunger rumbles, the sense of tiredness, is the beginning of the conversation. We are always and forever in conversation with the physical body, but we are largely unaware of the language it speaks. We ignore symptoms to our peril, we feed it crap and expect it to manufacture healthy new cells with particle board instead of cedar.
We feed our fears and anxieties with comfort food instead of asking the far harder questions of what my unique, one-of-a-kind body needs to be at optimal health. Sometimes that means to fast for a bit. For me, I can succumb to laziness and nap when what I really and truly need is a brisk walk around my neighborhood.
All of this speaks to the ability to live in the question. We don't know much, not really, and we don't know that we don't know, and we also resist the idea that we are largely functionally clueless about ourselves, our bodies and our minds.
If you were to ask one hundred people if they are conscious, they would likely argue strenuously that of course they are. Then they would glue their noses back to their devices and not even recall having had the conversation. This is who and where we are right now.
Self-doubt, and I dance with it all the time, can have deeply healthy outcomes. To that: when I first planned to summit Kilimanjaro in 2013, I was beset by doubts that I could do it. That led me to throw my heart into training, which I took on with what some refer to as my “legendary military discipline.” I turned my body into a machine by the end of seven months.
THAT kind of self-doubt, where we don't allow our hubris about our ability to override common sense, is rather valuable.
Compare that to the American man on a recent Kili climb who, when asked by a fellow climber from Austria ( a man I was interviewing later) about his preparation, said "Well I did a little Stairmaster." It boggles the mind. That is mindless, and it is also very widespread, especially in the world of adventure travel which is where I thrive.
So on one hand, when self-doubt causes us to be careful about what we claim, to take life's challenges seriously and to prepare if not over-prepare, that's healthy. Where it's crippling is at the other end.
To that: there is a Facebook thread of over-fifty women who are traveling solo.
Hell, I started traveling solo at sixteen. It was survival: to escape an alcoholic family and a brother who committed incest. The unknown was far more attractive and besides, I am peripatetic by nature.
For some of those women who comment on the site, they reveal that they only armchair travel. Their self-doubt is so crippling that they can't even imagine taking a solo drive to a quaint nearby town, much less toss on a backpack and go gorilla viewing in Uganda.
Again, when such thoughts arise, the challenge is to beg the question of the thought. Where on earth did I EVER get the idea that I wasn't competent? Who told me that? And how on earth is that any kind of messaging? As with all evil, and I consider such thoughts evil for they suck the life out of us, we have to follow the money.
Who benefits if I live a life of fear?
Who profits when I live small?
Who stands on the naked bones of my life's potential when I give up all my joy and happiness and live out my life in a recliner, watching other folks live? Someone does.
What would it take for me to locate my socks and starting walking around the living room? What would it take for me to locate a friend to go walking with?
And at each juncture, what would it take for me to challenge the thought: But I couldn't possibly do that!
Living in the question, in the not-knowing, is all about being willing to question foolish beliefs about ourselves, about aging, all the -isms we lay at the feet of our fellow humans.
Honestly, if I followed the advice of all those folks who told me not to try Kilimanjaro at sixty, I wouldn't have hundreds of badass, hilarious and life-affirming stories from all over the world, doing what others dream about but never do.
The question, the wiser one, should we install what I call a "relevancy challenge" to a limiting idea or belief, is where on earth did THAT come from? And who said I can't do this? Maybe not right now. But I probably can if I am willing to train myself.
"Who benefits when I play small?” is an immensely powerful question. Every high achiever is beset by ankle biters and folks who can't wait to tear them down.
The moment you and I begin to achieve, target practice begins.
That's why my personal muse is Beryl Markham, who paid a stupendous price for being first in so many things. However, if I am willing to take the risk of censure, not only do I rewrite the internal dialogue (and I am a multiple sexual assault survivor and a survivor of four different senior officers/ rapists in the military) about my value, my competence and my capability.
But I have to take the first step, which is often to challenge where on earth that thought originated. I cannot be so constantly distracted I don't possess the wherewithal to ask the hard questions of who benefits when I play small.
That is why it serves society in so many ways to keep us mindlessly distracted. We stop asking hard questions, and we don't develop critical thinking, most particularly about ourselves.
Let’s not be so distracted that we don’t achieve; let’s not be so sensitive that internal or external criticism ends us; let’s be so full of life that when Mother Nature invites us out, we respond with an enthusiastic…
Let’s play.
(For those sensitive Substackers who are so offended by mindless attacks on their work, think of it this way: the more powerful your message, the more important the truth, the bigger the nerve you hit with your story, the more frantic, frenetic and angry the response. That’s the power of being authentic. It’s actually a compliment.)
Note to all: Substacker
writes about a critical aspect of dysfunctional family systems and has a book out about scapegoating. Many of us who have been the target of a family or family member’s need to target us specifically for their issues will find a great deal of sanity in her work as well as ways forward. There are plenty of other talented writers on this platform who also address family dysfunction. Many of us who were subjected to such behaviors end up high-achievers, yet we are never enough. We are enough, as we are.
Thanks again for joining me as I share these transcripts from my interview. I hope it gives you food for thought, and most especially gives you reason to risk something new today. Eleanor Roosevelt said to do something every day that scares you I am all in. If you liked this work please consider
If someone you know needs a push in the direction of fun please also consider
Thank you.
Julia, this is outstanding, like all of your posts. First of all, I'm sorry there had been so much abuse in your history. I admire your honesty and your telling it like it is. I also had a dysfunctional family dynamic and have had the words programmed into me that I'm bad and ugly. Luckily, I have been in therapy, which has helped quell these voices, but it will always be a struggle.
I admire that you've dared to do so many things that so many people are afraid to venture out and do. I think it's wonderful. You're right: to prepare for a scale of such a high mountain, one has to be prepared and shouldn't think that a Stairmaster is sufficient training.
My grand adventure is a medical one. As you know, I'm a breast cancer survivor. My big training came with my final surgery, a 10-hour double mastectomy with reconstruction that involved three surgeons, two of them microsurgeons. It took 11 months of self-advocacy to fire the wrong doctors and hire the right ones for this life-saving surgery to take place. During these 11 months, I trained for the surgery like it was the Olympics: swam, ran, lifted weights, walked, etc. While still a brutal surgery, I endured this adventure as well as possible because I was well-trained for it. And, as it turns out, I saved my life, as my supposedly "normal" breast was loaded with precancerous cells, threatening having cancer a second time.
On another note, I love Beryl Markham. She simply is amazing. She's done so many incredible things in her life.
Julia, you always hit it out of the park. Working on quelling the flames of negative self-talk has been lifelong work for me. When I read an essay like yours, two things happen: first of all I don't feel so along and secondly, I feel inspired to keep rising upward to meet my very best self. Sending love, hugs and goodwill. ~Stephanie