The Lies we Choose to Believe- Naliaka Brenda
.
My name is Naliaka Brenda and I’d like to thank Dorsila for sharing her space with me so I could share with you my sentiments. It’s such an honour.
Have you ever told yourself a lie that it felt like the truth? The lies we tell ourselves are often more damaging and persistent ones. We don’t set out to lie to ourselves and yet almost everyone engages in negative self-talk and disempowering thought patterns. Our inner conversations no matter how small we think it is has a big role to play in who we become and what we achieve. What we unconsciously tell ourselves is more damaging to us than what someone else would ever say to us. Worse still a lot of us have no idea we are even feeding ourselves destructive lies.
We often make the mistake of comparing ourselves with others and therefore end up deciding that we do not have what it takes to succeed. The truth no longer feels singular there are multiple versions of it. I feel that the line between truth and lies seems more blurred than ever. If you tell yourself something long enough you start to believe it. Whether it’s good or whether it’s bad it will become your truth and it’ll project on all your ambitions. If it’s good, it’ll make them grow. If it’s bad it’ll hinder them, stifle them even snuff them out if you let it.
.
There are some lies I believed for so long that they became damaging.
1. Am not good enough
This is the chief lie that I fell for, for a long time. It hurt my self-esteem because I was comparing myself with the rest of the world. I felt not beautiful enough, worthy enough and intelligent enough to achieve anything.
2) Taking care of myself is selfish
I’ve always felt guilty any time I wanted to take a day off and just take care of my mental health and physical health. I’ve struggled a lot with depression but sacrificing my mental health contributed to me feeling a lot worse than I thought I would. But I learnt the importance of taking care of me first before anything else. I’d skip a class or two or fail to attend a social gathering just to ensure I’m mentally okay before I go back to my daily shenanigans.
3) I need to fit in
For so long I felt the need to fit in, I wanted to be seen with “cool kids” in order to feel I belonged there. Most of my generation struggle with this because we want to identify ourselves with something. But to be honest that shouldn’t be the case. Ironically, we want to be unique and different and at the same time fit in everywhere we go. Truthfully you can’t have it both ways. We need to celebrate who we are and not force ourselves to fit in anywhere.
4)I can’t do this or that…
I’ve stopped myself from being the best version of me just because I found myself thinking I couldn’t do something even before I tried it. I know I’m shaking tables now. This lie will make you miss so many opportunities in your life and regret it later on. Before I started blogging, I felt I wasn’t a good writer so for almost a year I brushed my blogging under the rug because I felt it wouldn’t succeed. Frankly speaking, we have the ability to achieve whatever we want if we put our minds to it.
5)I don’t need help
This is my weakness. Asking for help has never been my cup of tea unless I’m in a crisis after trying everything out and it failed. When I suffered from depression I felt the need to push everyone away because my anxiety told me that I didn’t need anyone. I didn’t need to ask my friends for help and yet I was suffering in silence and this was ludicrous. We all need help because we can’t do everything ourselves. Ask for help before you start feeling overwhelmed. I’m still trying to work on this one and ask for help when I truly need it before a crisis hits.
6) I’ll do it when I have time
The art of procrastination is something that I’ve mastered for a long period of time. Fooling myself into believing that I don’t have time to do A, B and C. But the truth is I have a lot of time apart from spending my entire day moving back and forth Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp when I’m free. Shaking tables again lol. Currently, I’ve been thinking of learning photography and I’ve always convinced myself that I don’t have time for it so I let my camera remain unused for almost a year now. I needed to prioritize my life and start going after everything I said I was going to do.
“One day you’ll wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the things you’ve wanted. Do it now”-Paulo Coelho.
“One day you’ll wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the things you’ve wanted. Do it now”-Paulo Coelho.'' Click To Tweet
- I don’t know where to start
This beautiful lie we often tell ourselves. Truthfully speaking nobody knows where to start. I personally didn’t know how to start blogging, what I needed to blog and etc. If I didn’t have the courage to take the first step I wouldn’t have started blogging. But we now live in a google era where everything you want to learn is just a click away so we shouldn’t have excuses to see our dreams come true. The thing is, just start and learn along the way. Success is a slow process.
In one of my articles ‘Why am I afraid to tell you who I am?’ I spoke about how I struggle with honesty and the need for being honest with ourselves so we can be the best versions of ourselves. We need to stop telling ourselves lies and start practising honesty. We can’t achieve this in one day so practice speaking truthfully to yourself daily to get rid of the lies we’ve been telling ourselves.
Self-awareness is the first step you have to take towards making great change.
Get to know more about me here.
.
.
Thank you Naliaka for this beautiful contribution! Keep SHINING! Always in your corner!
Love
ThatGirlRelatable,
