I’m sure you remember dissecting worms, fish and frogs in Biology Class back in the day but have you ever taken the time to dissect your mind?  I have and even though I’ve participated in a few online questionnaires that will allegedly help to pin a “type” on me, I know I have an incredibly analytical mind.  I can’t say it’s easy nor would it be a quality I would choose.  It’s just a fact.  It has most likely contributed to my feelings of inadequacy and low self esteem as my analytical mind tends to dissect every negative comment ever delivered and allows the result to define me.  It’s overwhelmingly sad at times, that positive, pleasant and uplifting comments go to a place where they’re disposed of before they’re even given the chance to erase even the tiniest bit of inadequacy.

an·a·lyt·i·cal

As an adult you begin to wonder what could possibly contribute to this rather powerful personality function and I’ve decided it’s a learned behavior but it wasn’t until I was well into my adult life that I realized just where it came from.

My mother was blessed with a tiny little petite body, gorgeous locks of shiny brown hair and beautiful blue eyes that could melt anyone’s heart but rather than focus on her amazing strengths, she allowed herself to believe her less than perfect smile and a rather large birthmark on her arm were the things that defined her.   It led to a childhood filled with feelings of inadequacy and low self esteem.  Keeping her less than perfect smile covered came easy as she doesn’t remember a lot of reasons during her childhood when she actually needed it.  Her family was poor and her parents were, perhaps, a bit too young when they married.  There were a lot of days that offered little or no sunshine and when the opportunity arrived for her to marry, she did and she never looked back.  She devoted 49 years of her adult life to a rather strong willed man that loved her but not in a way that fostered a confidence building environment where she would flourish.  Instead she slipped into yet another place where she was made to feel like a shadow around her confident new sister-in-law and a few other in-laws that were quite sure they were superior to her.  Over the years they made sure she stayed in their shadow by continuing to put her husband on a pedestal and making it clear there was no room for her on that same pedestal.  The list of her strengths was not lengthy but one thing on that list was the conscious decision she made to give her kids a better life than the one she faced as a child.  What’s unfortunate is there were remnants of her childhood, when she was made to feel inadequate, that still remained and some of them took the liberty of attaching themselves to the children she tried so hard to protect.  They were tucked deep inside this rather friendly woman that loved to visit and share the highlights of her brighter moments.  Unfortunately however, a portion of each day she would set aside time to make attempts to analyze things that had happened in the past and she would get a bit frustrated when the ability to let it all go just wouldn’t happen and she was forced into folding up each of those painful memories and packing them back into that hypothetical suitcase she had carried with her for far too long.  One would think those buckles would have worn out but they remained intact and they latched and opened on a regular basis.

I’m so like this woman.  I so totally understand where she was, where she had been and where she was headed.  I also know, I couldn’t be more like her.  My circumstances differ and unlike her in her younger years, I’m steadily encouraged to “let it go” but it just isn’t that easy.  Holding onto and believing the things that make us “inferior” have a tighter grip than some are willing to believe.  I’m pretty sure it would be hard for people that don’t know me all that well to believe how miserably I struggle with self esteem.  On the outside, I have a very outgoing demeanor but inside I’m analyzing every single thing I can possibly think of to analyze.  I dissect my inner self as well as my outer self.  I analyze situations at work and continually make attempts to understand why things happen the way they do.  I analyze co-workers, managers, family, friends, behaviors, habits and mannerisms.  Don has asked me numerous times to just “let it go.”  I told him the only way I most likely could is if he could find a way to change the date of my birth.  We cancers are like that.  We’re sensitive, caring “targets” that see the arrow coming due to the time spent analyzing it’s origin. We acknowledge the descent but we’re incredibly inadequate when dodging that arrow is what needs to happen.  As a result we end up adding yet another wound to that place where all the others wait patiently for the day when letting it go actually happens.

I’ll probably never understand the concept of “letting it go” completely but I have figured out how to let go of that idea as I’m pretty sure, after a rather careful analysis, that it would have happened by now if it was ever going to but in all reality my life is good…..very, very good.