THE GLASS CEILING YOU BUILT.
I recently wrote a blog post about a “rule” we had in our house when I was a kid: Never talk about what goes on in this house.
My father was an alcoholic and it was my “job” to keep it a secret, at least that’s the way my child mind saw it.
I dutifully inherited his shame. Looking back, it was more like a contract of shame and it was heavy. Neither I nor my father had the mental capacity to enter into a contract of any kind nor the awareness that such an agreement had been made.
To compensate for the terms of the contract, I constructed a glass ceiling that ultimately became a self-imposed barrier to my personal advancement.
Stay low.
Remain invisible.
Uphold the secret.
Never talk about what goes on in this house.
Never let them see you sweat.
The invisible glass barrier I had constructed to hide my shame would keep me from living my life for years.
Until the untapped power of my two X-chromosomes kicked in.
If you’re struggling to move forward because your mind is holding you hostage with old beliefs that have been playing in your head for years, it’s probably time to shatter the glass ceiling you built over your head.
The glass, constructed of old rules we inherited from the adults and other influencers in our lives in childhood, used to keep us safe. It served a purpose when we were young and couldn’t figure out another way to feel safe in the world and hiding seemed like the only option.
But it was a false sense of safety. If I just follow the rules I’ll be ok, our subconscious belief would tell us.
It takes a lot of guts to go back and read the contract.
And then rewrite it.
When I realized that, as a card-carrying adult woman, I had the power to rip up the contract and write myself a new one, I remained terrified. Old beliefs die hard and my head kept bumping into the invisible glass that kept me playing small.
No wonder I started to get headaches. They were my body’s way of trying to get my attention.
And then came Le Divorce.
A divorce I managed to hide from the world for six months.
Six months!
I had a career in television news and a two-year-old daughter back then.
Never talk about what goes on in this house.
It was the first major AFGO of my life and it nearly crushed me. If the headaches weren’t enough to get my attention, the divorce was. I was ready for the AFGO.
The thing about those growth opportunities (an AFGO is Another Freakin’ Growth Opportunity) is this: they hurt. We’d rather not deal with them. We’d rather pretend everything is fine fine FINE, dammit.
The glass ceiling was familiar. It kept me safe. But the headaches…
At the suggestion of my doctor, I reluctantly went to see a therapist named Janet.
I credit Janet and Dr. Harriet Lerner, author of Dance of Anger, for helping me muster the guts I needed to start shattering that glass.
It was terrifying.
I thought I would die if I came clean about the hot mess inside my head.
The thing about the hot mess we try to hide? It’s our homework.
It’s the assignment we took on when we accepted the job of being human. Our main task? The purpose we keep searching for? It’s not at all as complicated as we think it is.
Our Number One Purpose as a human being is to evolve.
That. Is. It.
To shatter the old beliefs and come up with new ones. I know it sounds simple, but we all know it’s about as simple as trying to make a peanut butter sandwich with one hand. (Try getting peanut butter out of a jar with one hand – and it can’t be your dominant hand!)
There is not a person on this planet who doesn’t have a mess in their head, I assure you.
You are not alone.
You are not the only one.
There is nothing wrong with you.
But you do have homework to do. We all do. And there is always more work to do.
If you’re wondering where to start? Try this…
