I Felt Like a Loser for MONTHS
and how I stopped feeling like one
So for a good chunk of time, perhaps the last 6 months + I’ve felt like such a loser. I lost count of how many times I said it to my friends. I kept telling myself that story and it felt real.
Outside looking in
Objectively, this is how my life looks like on paper:
- still young
- doesn’t work 9–5
- has a Psych degree
- looks fit and healthy
- seems like a smart cookie
- spends her time as she wishes
- lives between Bali and Europe
- doesn’t have a family to take care of
This among other stuff was what I heard from friends and family whenever I began my self-pity party. They were kind of right — my life was pretty good what else did I want?!
But just like with everything, there’s a facade and there’s a real story. Remember the 3 Lives concept from the CIA series?
Meanwhile in my mind…
The voice was saying this 👇
- you’re turning 30 soon, the last decade flew by and what do you have to show for it?
- you’ve always been self-employed and can’t integrate into the typical job market because you’ve no skills for pretending and saying the right thing to get hired + you’ve no experience, who would even hire you?
- that degree was a waste of money and time, one of those things ‘I’ll be happy when’ moments that gave you joy for about 10mins and then it felt empty. You can’t even be a real psychologist with a bachelor’s anyway, way to have wasted your time. You should have started your own business instead
- although mostly healed, your disordered eating patterns still show up once in a while. Do you think eating an entire box of cookies means you’re going back to the old ways? Let’s obsess over your weight irrational amount of time for the next 3 days and make you fear food
- you might be emotionally intelligent and intuitive but what do you really know anyway? You read something, apply it to your life and then can’t even explain why you’re doing this because you forgot what the scientific reason was. You might appear intelligent but you’re not *really* intelligent, nobody would hire you, you don’t have a business and why didn’t you study computer science or engineering so at least you could do something with your life?
- you’re just floating around in space not knowing what to do with yourself for a good portion of the day. You’re a writer now are you? Find something useful to do. Going for a walk? You’re not being a productive member of society
- where the f**k do you even live, you can’t even pick a place? What’s wrong with you are you commitment-phobic? Why can’t you just pick a base and stay there like all normal people? For the love of God, you’re almost 30 and you don’t even have your own property and it’s not looking like you ever will — loooooooseeeeeeeer
- you’re single and most guys you meet don’t fit your standard? Do you think you’re so special? Maybe all of your childhood traumas haven’t been solved. You want too much, girls like you don’t get the guys you dream about. What’s wrong with you anyway? Do you think you repel men? Good luck being alone forever because at this rate you will be.
FUN, huh?
How I stopped living in the story
I wish I could say something profound like oh, I just applied this 3 step technique that you can too and my problem was solved in under 5 minutes!
It was a bit more messy and non-linear than that.
As I said, I spoke about this multiple times with friends and family to talk this through. I continued meditating. I continued writing. I continued showing up even when I didn’t feel like it (and sometimes I didn’t). I thought about this topic for an abnormal amount of time. Mostly I just kept going. Wouldn’t say I had a lot of hope or thought I would magically figure it out even though I wished for that to happen.
And something just clicked a few days ago where my soon-turning-30 crisis switch flipped and I accepted things for what they are. Also, at the same time, I started doing Joe Dispenza meditations on Youtube so that might be related. Also, future-oriented meditations. Maybe I just needed to start creating the vision of the future. It’s still very much blurry and I don’t have full clarity around it yet but I freed up enough energy to keep going.
