On Not Being Where You’d Hoped…
A story of dropping criticism and replacing fear with future optimism …
Words by Hannah Franklin. Illustration Gisela Navarro.
“It’s almost crushing at times to take that long, uncomfortable look at yourself and admit the deeper truth that you had hoped you’d be more by now. Oftentimes it’s those moments when my mind is at rest that these thoughts end up coming to me, unbridled by the day’s distractions and demands, and it seems like unfair timing to be ambushed like that but afterwards when those thoughts have settled, comes the time to reassess them with a little more clarity and calm than the late-night panic that came before
Assessing yourself is hard and looking, really looking, at who you feel you are can be even harder. It’s often that over scrutinising that leads me into my worst spiralling pitfalls of self-critique, to the point that I often try to avoid self-assessment but if I tread carefully then I can stumble upon a second path that I didn’t let myself see before. Sometimes the first steps to overcoming insecurities around your career, your self-image, your relationships, can mean letting yourself mourn the loss of the person you thought you might be at this age. It’s hard and it’s uncomfortable but, like any kind of grief, it’s necessary.
Grief might seem like too strong a word and perhaps there’s some better or more precise analogy out there, but for now, I think it’s time to admit that there’s no shame in admitting you’re not quite where you thought you would be. And that’s not about berating yourself for not being promoted yet, or getting your own place yet, or being single when most of your Facebook feed seems to be getting engaged. It’s about recognising that self-doubt can arise from disappointment and that feeling can twist itself into many forms; being overly critical, constant comparison, feeling low, feeling angry. But letting myself really see and accept that however unconsciously I saw things going another way, takes me a step closer to letting go of all those preconceptions. Letting go of that past expectation and looking instead at where I am starts the release of opening up all those frustrations or regrets and shaking them out into the wind. And when they’ve been swept away I’m able to reach deeper, fingers brushing the spaces I’ve long ignored, to find those hidden parts of me that had been crushed down and pushed away by the louder, stronger fears.
Those parts are the ones I want to build on. Those parts are the things I have let myself ignore and thrust aside because I’ve been so focused on the things I am not, have not yet found, am yet to achieve. Those parts are the things I can do, the skills I do have and what’s more, they are the also the things I might be able to have, the building blocks of the person that I could become once I have cast off all the layers that lay above them.
If it feels like starting from rock bottom again, it isn’t. I used to think of rock bottom as the lowest point, the worst that things can get, but that’s not what this moment has to be. Instead, it can be the moment of shedding away everything that isn’t helping and then standing on firm ground with what is left. That might be less than I thought it would be but it also has the potential to be a lot more. I know that my doubts won’t ever go completely but once I start the process of accepting what I’m not then I might finally allow myself to have the space to stretch out and imagine what could come next.”
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You can read more from Hannah on her blog siftingfortreasures.blogspot.co.uk or find her on Instagram at @hannahlouise.franklin.