My second-grade self has some advice

Stop pooping on your parade

A closer look at my self-saboteur

“It’s not a light.” I interrupted Diane’s weird metaphor, flipping through a memory book my mother had made for me until I found a wallet-sized photo of a plain little girl in a cherry red sweater.

I described my second-grade school picture to Diane over the phone—her set jaw, tightly drawn mouth, and frown lines (foreshadowing the Botox to come). And that haircut!

“Think mullet meets the Rachel,” I joked to buy time. The photo made me sad. It was something about the deep, dark eyes that looked at the ground instead of the camera.

“Put yourself in this little girl’s shoes,“ said Diane. “For your homework, I want you to ask her what it feels like to be her.”

“Do we have to do the childhood thing?” I asked.

“She is the tiny light,” Diane said, with (what I thought I heard) a light pound of a fist on a table. “What’s more, she threatens the saboteur’s forge-forward, goal-driven agenda. What if that little girl wants something else, like quiet or creativity or time—or simply to be understood?”

“What if she just wants the last whoopie pie, and her brother got home from school first and ate it?” I said, still skeptical about confronting the past.

“By ignoring the tiny light inside of you, you purposely exclude an important part of yourself from the conversation about your future.”

Diane was insistent. “Do the homework.”

It was after nine p.m. My office in the unheated upstairs of our old farmhouse was cold. After finishing our call, I pushed my feet into furry slippers and glanced at the photo again.

“Shit,” said the little girl in the red sweater.

“When we stay in a relationship or a job or a place that no longer suits us, it means we are at the threshold of change. It’s about who we might become—a tension point between our current and future selves. Change, of course, is hard – that’s why our self-sabotage behaviors appear in the first place.”

Wise words from

Lucy Hutner, MD

writing in

Therapy Takeaway

Let the inner child speak

I was reluctant to read too much into the photograph of a shy, introverted child or to search her pinched expression for clues about my past or future. But one childhood moment replayed like a blinking GIF on the internet, though I couldn’t say if it came from memory or imagination.

It’s a warm winter day. The snow is still deep in the woods and packed full of moisture. I’m wearing plastic bread bags inside my snow boots and a red corduroy jacket with matted polyester fur around the hood—my mittens connect by a string through the sleeves.

Two huge steamy horses—all steaming snorts and jangling copper bells—pull a wooden sleigh filled with giggling girls through a path in the woods. I run after it—all tears and bubbling snot—my legs wobbling as I punch holes in the path with every step and cold snow collects in my boots. I am sodden with shame—wanting and fearful at the same time.

I couldn’t quite see the pattern between real-life events and the recurrence of this scene, so I showed the little girl’s photo to Felix. “I know that face,” he said. It’s the one you make when you feel insecure.”

I disliked the characterization, so I searched for an alternate meaning

In-se-cure:

1. deficient in assurance (anxious)

2. not confident or sure (uncertain)

3. not adequately guarded (unsafe)

4. not firmly fastened (shaky)

At fifty-five, I was about to leave a financially fruitful marketing career—the only professional qualification I had. Of course, I was all these things, but how long had this been so?

How long have I silenced my tiny light?

Source: sarahprout.substack.com

Read

SARAH PROUT

for advice on outsmarting self-sabotage!

Damn my saboteur! Not because I didn’t make a move sooner, but for making me believe I couldn’t. “You’re not brave enough, smart enough, good enough,” she whispered.

How many times have I chased that sleigh? I thought about this while walking through the snowy woods near my house. Church—is how I described the halo of evergreens on the hillside. The quiet felt safe, unlike the jangling noise of career and ambition. I was tired of pursuing something I no longer desired.

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” said Diane later that same day.

I told Diane the little girl in the red sweater was exhausted and fed up. “The tiny light is burned out,” I said. “She wants to tell the saboteur to move the fuck out of the way.”

“Yes!” yipped Diane. “I never said the girl in the corner wanted protection. Now, what would happen if you set her free? What would that mean for the controlled corporate persona you’ve cultivated so carefully—the one you still cling to?”

I jumped up from my reading chair in the corner, my leg muscles vibrating from my time in the woods, and grabbed the school photo from my desk. I saw her differently. No longer a small and frightened victim in need of rescue, she was a bright and creative girl who liked to read, explore the outdoors, and have quiet time to think.

Why had I forgotten about her?

“Shit.”It was the saboteur’s turn to curse.

Until next week, when I send another postcard from the road…

Work hard. Be brave. Believe.

Catherine

My church.

Try the Substack Notes App

If you’re not using the Substack app yet, please give it a try. More access to other great writers AND less clutter in your email inbox. Learn more.