Yesterday, a friend forwarded a promotion to me from a coach we both knew. The cost of this coach’s program was in the thousands of dollars; a far higher price than I’ve ever considered charging.
But it wasn’t just what this coach was charging. Hearing the coach’s name, I’ll call her “Iris” brought up all kinds of feelings and memories for me. None of the them good ones.
I learned about Iris because several other coaches I hung out with were big fans.
Iris had a blog and it was filled with her quirks and idiosyncrasies. Iris made up words and used metaphors with a kind of confidence that suggested to me that she was entirely certain of her specialness. Kind of saying, “Oh course I have wings and ride a unicorn, why not?”
Even worse, “Of course, I charge thousands of dollars to work with me. I know I’m worth it.”
This triggered a lot of big time envy on my end.
It seemed so unfair. I was special, too! But I was filled with so much doubt that others saw any value in what i had to offer that I wouldn’t dare try what Iris did.
It’s not that I lacked the talent and quirkiness. it’s that I doubted anyone would be interested in what I was offering.
I envied Iris’ belief in herself. Her belief in her fundamental worth. Her chutzpah.
And this is the obstacle of “specialness.” Not only do I find myself needing to be special but to be the most special and to be recognized by others as such. Should another person, like Iris, challenge me for that place my feelings immediately go into a dark place.
Why such a strong negative response? I’m back to abandonment. People will abandon me in favor of the more “special one.”
I’m writing about this because obviously Iris is not the only one who has brought up these feelings. She’s not the last person who will either.
And I don’t want to spend my life either:
- Feeling as though I’ve stepped on a land mind every time life brings another iris my way. It’s similar to having post traumatic stress where overtime you meet one of these persons your emotions yell “Incoming!”
- I don’t want to spend my life avoiding the Irises of the world which is how I’ve been living lately. For a while things have been so painful that I just withdrew and said “the fuck with this.”
The first thought which is an easy thing to do is is to go through the radical forgiveness process with Iris and radical self forgiveness on myself.
The second idea is to remember to do confine this issue to me and not make it about another person which immediately opens up that nest of emotional vipers.