Erin Grey's Blog - Posts Tagged "self-sabotage"
Wow-oh, I'm an Alien
Yup, I've got that Sting song in my head. It always resonated with me although I wasn't quite sure why - I live in the country where I was born.
At times, I'd think of myself as 'displaced', like I was born in the wrong time period, among the wrong people, in the wrong nation. I couldn't pin down what was so wrong with me, why I didn't seem to fit in any of the holes available to me.
When I discovered the Myer-Briggs personality test and found out I'm an INFJ, the mists began to clear. INFJs are unusual, they said, rare. They wear many masks; they adjust themselves to match the expectations of others. They fit everywhere, so they never click in anywhere.
Currently, I'm reading a book by Lauren Sapala: The INFJ Writer. This passage felt like the explanation for life, the universe, and everything:
"Sensitive Intuitive writers have felt so different from other people, so alien, for all of their lives that they can't shake the feeling that they're weird. That something is wrong with them."
This is me. I feel alien. I feel weird. I feel wrong.
I used to chastise myself when I thought about how different I was. 'You think you're special?' I'd ask myself. 'You think you're different from everyone else, that you're the only one like you? Conceited much?'
I told myself I wasn't different or special. I was just broken somehow.
Which brings me to the very next part of that passage Lauren wrote:
"This feeling eats away at the self-esteem and causes insidious damage to the creative spirit. That's when we get into problems like chronic and crippling procrastination, self-sabotage, and paralyzing writer's block."
And there it is. The reason I get stuck. It's the endless worry about what's 'wrong' with me. That what I'm writing is different and alien and weird and therefore WRONG. So I try to be 'normal'; I try to write the 'right' thing.
And lose my voice, because what I'm writing is not coming from me - it's coming from who I think I'm supposed to be.
I want to believe that realising this is the key to forever overcoming procrastination and self-sabotage, but my sad little rational brain knows it's not.
Which is why I'll be making myself a personalized motivational poster I can look at whenever the paralysis hits:
You are different
You are alien
You are weird
But you are not wrong
At times, I'd think of myself as 'displaced', like I was born in the wrong time period, among the wrong people, in the wrong nation. I couldn't pin down what was so wrong with me, why I didn't seem to fit in any of the holes available to me.
When I discovered the Myer-Briggs personality test and found out I'm an INFJ, the mists began to clear. INFJs are unusual, they said, rare. They wear many masks; they adjust themselves to match the expectations of others. They fit everywhere, so they never click in anywhere.
Currently, I'm reading a book by Lauren Sapala: The INFJ Writer. This passage felt like the explanation for life, the universe, and everything:
"Sensitive Intuitive writers have felt so different from other people, so alien, for all of their lives that they can't shake the feeling that they're weird. That something is wrong with them."
This is me. I feel alien. I feel weird. I feel wrong.
I used to chastise myself when I thought about how different I was. 'You think you're special?' I'd ask myself. 'You think you're different from everyone else, that you're the only one like you? Conceited much?'
I told myself I wasn't different or special. I was just broken somehow.
Which brings me to the very next part of that passage Lauren wrote:
"This feeling eats away at the self-esteem and causes insidious damage to the creative spirit. That's when we get into problems like chronic and crippling procrastination, self-sabotage, and paralyzing writer's block."
And there it is. The reason I get stuck. It's the endless worry about what's 'wrong' with me. That what I'm writing is different and alien and weird and therefore WRONG. So I try to be 'normal'; I try to write the 'right' thing.
And lose my voice, because what I'm writing is not coming from me - it's coming from who I think I'm supposed to be.
I want to believe that realising this is the key to forever overcoming procrastination and self-sabotage, but my sad little rational brain knows it's not.
Which is why I'll be making myself a personalized motivational poster I can look at whenever the paralysis hits:
You are different
You are alien
You are weird
But you are not wrong
