What is the story behind everything you do?
A little while ago I was coaching someone who was trying to overcome a deep sense of fear. This person was afraid God wasn’t going to like who she was if she was honest with herself about her own failures. So instead of being honest about them, she would overcompensate for them by trying to be everything she thought her world wanted her to be. She was successful, talented, bright, and funny. Yet, a deep sense of fear kept creeping into her world, and especially her sleep. She would have terrifying nightmares about showing up to work and six deadlines would have been missed.
As we began to explore her story, it became obvious that much of her fear resided in failure. She had learned a long time ago that failure was not an option in her household, and it was just better to overcompensate than face the failure. In running from her failure, it was beginning to overtake her. The more she tried to pretend it didn’t exist, the more she would become captivated by it’s presence.
I asked her when she first remembered hearing that failure was not an option. Her first memory was the day her dad had lost his job. He came home angry and visibly upset. When she had forgotten to wash the dishes and do her homework, he tore into her. A searing thought ran through her mind. “What if my dad would only love me if I’m perfect?” She remembered running up to her room and crying all night, terrified by the idea that he wouldn’t love her.
As strange as it may sound, the idea had stuck with her for most of her life. And to make matters worse, she had never taken the time to really re-appraise the moment as an adult. She had learned to avoid it at all costs, afraid that if she looked at it again, it just might be true. But now the fear had created enough disturbances in her life that she was finally tired of avoiding it.
I asked her to imagine herself back in the kitchen, and for the first time look around the room to find Jesus. To her surprise, Jesus was standing next to her dad.
“Ask Jesus if it’s true,” I said. “Ask him if you have to be perfect for your dad to love you.”
She listened for a second and then said, “No, he always loved me.” The news came as a surprise to her. It was as unsettling as it was good. “Then why was he so mad,” she demanded.
“Ask Jesus,” I said.
She sat silently for quite a while as she closed her eyes and imagined the moment again. And then she started to weep. “I never saw that she said,” burying her face in her hands. She sat for about five minutes and just process her experience again for the first time. Finally, she looked up and said, “Jesus said my dad was afraid that we wouldn’t love him if he failed.”
In avoiding the moment, she had missed out on seeing the truth for most of her life. She had picked up the very same lie her dad was wrestling with. But once she was ready to face it, she could uncover it and remove it from her life. And once it was removed, it no longer had the power to captivate her.
We live in stories. And a big part of those stories are the judgments we make about ourselves in the stories. What lie are you believing that is shutting you down?
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