covers of magazines and on giant screens when I grace stages around the world to share my story? The answer is simple; I was finally in mid- life able to process the truth that my perfection is found within my imperfections.
You see, for decades I allowed my mindset to be controlled by what I today am aware was more of a dictator/commentator than that voice I now adhere to, “The Narrator of my story”. That dictator, commonly referred to as “Stinkin’
Thinkin’ was allowed to broadcast one tragedy after another for as long as I allowed him to, thereby conditioning me to see myself as less than, not good enough, ugly, inadequate, and many times…cursed and not worthy of even living.
As a product of the Foster System, having endured being shuttled between 22 different foster homes over a five-year period, is it no surprise that I lost most of the confidence and self-awareness of my own worth over that period?
Today I am acutely aware that much of the pain and suffering I experienced well into my fifties, was a direct result of my feeling shamed and damaged from many of the experiences within my youthful journey, none of which were of my own choosing.
So back to why it is that we as a people are so dead set on not feeling comfortable accepting praise and encouragement from others. It’s fairly simple when we truly look at it…, we love recognition, but we suck at accepting it! As the Harvard Business Review reported, 88% of people associate recognition with a feeling of being valued, yet 70% also associate it with embarrassment.
In my personal situation, for nearly all my adult life I had carried undue shame and embarrassment over having had 22 mothers, slept over the years in more temporary bedrooms than some people experience in an entire lifetime. I had carried with me a scarlet letter of shame for having been seen time and time again by neighboring children who resided on those streets that housed the foster homes I moved between, simply because many of them had witnessed me arriving with my state issued trash bag containing everything I was allowed to call “my life”.
This mindset which was being cultivated for my by outside sources was to haunt me, control me, and discourage me for decades…all