I totally wasn’t trying to eavesdrop. I’m kinda surprised I even heard it, since I tend to get so lost in thought that my family has to say my name a time or two to get my attention!
But on that day I guess I happened to be moving from one room to the next at just the right moment to overhear Ben on speaker phone, talking to a relative.
"How’s that business that Jenna’s working on?"
"Good! She just got a new website up."
"Oh yeah? How much did THAT set you back?!"
To this day, Ben doesn’t know.
He doesn’t know how I stopped short
how it felt like the wind had been knocked out of me
how after a second of pure shock all the blood rushed to my face in a feeling of shame and worthlessness, and
how it took years until I didn’t feel like a wounded animal around that relative.
At the time, I thought the reason it hit me so hard was because he was misjudging me for the very thing I’d spent my entire life proving to myself and the world (until recently)...
...that I’d NEVER be dependent on anyone, especially a man!
Because here’s what I was convinced he was really saying:
She’s costing you way too much money and she’s doing the wrong thing by asking you to pour your hard-earned money down the drain into an imaginary "business" and she’s obviously a selfish person because otherwise she would’ve just gotten a real job by now and totally entitled to think that it’s ok to not pull her weight financially and who does she think she is, anyway, to be too good for the kind of real job that everybody else in the world settles for and obviously she’s a loser because she still hasn’t figured things out even after taking those expensive "online business courses," and arrogant to think that people would even pay her for that and flighty because next time we talk she’ll probably have moved on to some great new business idea and (especially) … a woman who should feel ashamed for playing right into gender stereotypes about a helpless female that needs to rely on her man.
Phew.
It’s amazing how quickly the thoughts can come, right?!
But here’s what I realize now:
Those thoughts came easily because they were SO familiar!
I had already been saying those mean things to myself, in an under-my-breath, I’m-not-really-listening-to-you-but-I’m-listening-to-you, barely conscious way.
And so hearing something that might be aligned with those thoughts was like handing my inner critic a megaphone.
The REAL reason it hit me so hard is because part of me believed it.
So thanks to that moment and the journey of discovery that it set me on, I now know what to do whenever someone says something that stings.
I ask myself two important questions, and then dive into the work of figuring out the answers and then weeding out those unhelpful beliefs.
"What part of me thinks it’s true?"
AND
"Where am I giving my power away to someone else, and letting them pierce the sanctity of my inner mental space?"
Because shifting beliefs and building your self-confidence comes BEFORE the success.
, if there’s a part of you that's feeling a little bad or uncertain about having the tenacity to keep dreaming, I want you to know that you’re not alone.
All around the world, women are waking up to what’s possible.
And with that first sense of possibility also comes doubt, because that’s how human brains work.
But doubt is just a stage.
It’s not truth. It’s just something we all have to work through.
...That woman you see who’s where you want to be? She did it.
...The ones who are doing things you admire but would never dream of doing yourself? They did it.
...And every one of your ancestors who pushed the envelope a little more and a little more so you could have the opportunities you do today? They each did it.
And now it’s your turn.
And you can do it, too.
💛 Jenna