The Thing You Don’t Like About Yourself… Might Be Your Superpower.
It was for me.
As I sit here at my computer, these words pour out of me. My fingers can’t quite keep up with the places my mind is taking me right now.
And this has always been the case for me. Moments of extreme emotion, where the depths of what lies below the feeling is so vast, that it can seem scary - or enlightening. I guess it depends on what story I’m telling myself.
The first 30+ years of my life I told myself the story that made this feel scary. The story that I was “too much”, “too dramatic”, “too emotional”. I might not have broadcast this story to the world, but it sat tucked in my top pocket like a personal blueprint for how I felt about myself.
This blog is an insight into how that thing I disliked and resisted about myself, became my superpower. I want to show you what happens when we change our story to focus on the things we’ve actually been pushing deep down inside us, because it’s my belief that we all have a unique thread that runs through us. A thread that gives us the capability to do things that the world needs.
Things you were put here to do, but too many of us are hiding from that power.
If you don’t know what your superpower is, my hope is that by the end of this article you’ll have started to wake up to what it might be.
I used to think I was “too much” for other people, until I focused instead on being “just right” for me.
we are programmed to fit in - not stand out.
Your subconscious mind - since birth - has been developing patterns that serve to keep you safe, loved, and connected, because if you are all those things, than you are likely alive. And that’s the whole point.
But how does this look in real life?
It can look like a little girl who is showing up in ways that are different to everyone else, and then feeling uncomfortable about these things because they are getting pointed out. Whether in a negative way or not, these ‘quirks’ are noticed and spoken about.
Let me explain how this looked for me.
As a little girl I felt a lot, and I didn’t know how to wade my way through those big feelings alone. In my family of five, my emotional state fluctuated WAY more than anyone else’s. It was one of the things that made me different.
I had big feelings, but I also didn’t know how to process them, so they turned into physical ailments. My siblings would often tell me “you are such a hypochondriac”. Emotional meltdowns and outbursts were greeted with confusion and an attempt to appease me and take the “drama” out of the moment.
And I get it. I have a very spirited little man who also feels a lot - it can be hard to hold space for those feelings, even for someone like me, who is very familiar with the reality of a rich emotional landscape.
What happens though, is little children’s minds try to make sense of their world, and create the patterns that they think they need in order to remain loved, connected and safe. As children we make assumptions about who we need to be, or how we need to act in order to tick all those boxes. It’s no surprise then, that my little brain made the assumption that BIG emotions = people pulling away, judging me, and telling me I am different.
Our brains are not programmed to help us stand out, but rather fit in, so naturally I began to see my emotions as “too much”, and they quickly became something I tried to manage and minimise in order to fit in.
You too, will likely have this part of yourself you’ve tried to keep under wraps, so that other people don’t feel uncomfortable. So that you don’t feel different.
when we resist ourselves, we suffer.
These parts we resist create suffering within us, but people often struggle to take responsibility for this. Rather, they make their suffering someone else’s fault.
The suffering becomes a product of the words that were said to us, the things that happened to us, the situations that unfolded around us - we play the victim in our own story.
I know I did.
I let that story I formed at childhood, become my story, and that story influenced who I thought I was. It directly shaped my sense of self, and time and time again that inability to embrace what made me unique, saw me abandon myself.
I had an eating disorder, because when I was hungry I couldn’t feel much else.
I put other people’s emotions before my own, because when I focused on their feelings I could hide from my own.
I welcomed people into my life who echoed the belief that “I was too much”, because I thought that was fact.
Then I hit my rock bottom and all this changed.
I found myself in a situation where I couldn’t keep my emotions under wraps anymore, and I realised that this part I had been pushing down and resisting most of my life, was the very part of me I needed to climb out of that hole.
Ten years ago I walked away from an alcoholic husband, who had used my dislike for myself to gaslight me. To make me feel that perhaps I was the problem.
I am so grateful for that time, because it unleashed the lion in me that had been lying dormant for so many decades. The superpower that had always been there waiting to serve me, waiting for me to embrace it with open arms.
That was when I began to change my story - because it always starts with us.
the power that rises when we let it.
The decade that followed was a delicate process of taking three steps towards my superpower, and one step back. It wasn’t a linear road to where I am now. It curled, looped, retreated, doubted, then rose again.
But this loopy path saw me fall in love with myself in a way that I can’t even put into words. It saw me reclaim the superpower that had sat in the shadows most of my life. The very superpower that has since allowed me to help hundreds of women heal, grow, and fall in love with themselves too.
You have a unique thread like this in you.
There’s something that you believe needs to be hidden. Something that you don’t quite understand or know how to handle…yet. Something that you’re keeping from the world that’s supposed to shine bright.
And it starts to wake up when you give it permission to.
My daily emotional landscape can look like four seasons in a day - I used to judge myself for that that, but now I love it. I can put on a song and feel so grateful for my life that tears roll down my face. I can hug one of my children and feel love so deeply my bones ache. I can feel wronged by a person, and then allow myself to go deep into the meaning that I am making about that moment.
In learning to honour this BIG part of myself, I have given other women permission to do the same.
To face their feelings head on, to explore what’s beneath them, to listen to their whispers before they become full body screams, and to trust that it’s all happening for them, not to them.
The psychology of our emotions fascinates me endlessly, because it’s a huge part of who I am. Leaning into this unique part of me has allowed me to spend days, weeks, months, even years immersing myself in the science, the skills, and the stories that have allowed me to become a Master NLP Practitioner.
It has allowed me to become a coach that I am proud of. To hold space for my clients on a very deep level, because I live this, I breathe this.
I am this.
You have this shadow part too.
I want you to ask yourself, what part of who you are have you tucked into the shadows. Parts that you believe should be hidden because they’re too much, not enough, or just different.
You are supposed to be different. We all are.
In a world of over eight billion people, no two humans have the same fingerprints or the same irises (seriously, no two people have the same colour, texture or pattern in their eyes). Think about all the other things that are unique about you, things that you are not embracing. Things that you are trying to change in order to stop you standing out.
give yourself permission.
Stepping into all that you are and all that you were intended to be, starts with YOU giving yourself permission to be that. To be uniquely you. Just a simple decision to allow yourself to wake up to what that superpower within you is.
If I hadn’t done that, Unearth Her would not exist. You wouldn’t be here reading this blog. The hundreds of women I’ve been able to help create real life-changing shifts, that wouldn’t have happened.
And the big one… I wouldn’t be able to look in the mirror and deeply love the woman who is looking back at me.
Will you make the decision today to invite your shadow parts into the light? The decision to honour who you are, and fall in love with all that she is?
I truly hope so.
A Gentle Next Step
If this blog woke up an awareness in you. A sense that perhaps you are more powerful than you realise.
Don’t ignore that.
My 5-week experience coaching experience is a product of the steps I took to come back to me, and it’s specifically for women who find themselves in that “I don’t know who I am anymore” stage.
If you’re curious about what help on this path could look like, check out the program here, and if you’re ready to take a step towards exploring it for yourself, click here to book a 15 minute call with me and we can see if it’s a good fit.
No pressure.
Just a doorway, if and when you’re ready to step through.
Because I promise, you are so much stronger than you realise.
Much love, Tess x