Skin Deep
If you’re battling chronic stress, chances are there’s a limiting belief or two fueling your burnout. Mine had to do with having dark skin.
I want to share an email with you that I wrote ten years ago:
May 20th, 2011, 3:00 AM
Hey ladies,
Most of you know that I've been having a tough time lately - and
although I don't necessarily need any "help" right now, I felt like I
had to reach out in case I may need some support moving forward.
I also wanted to share something very painful that I realized in
counseling today: the reason why I'm depressed - and why I've never
really been happy - is because I'm dark-skinned. I know I've talked
about this before, but until today I didn't realize that it's made me
self-conscious and insecure to the point where I feel inadequate about
everything: school, boys, even my mom. (In my head I know that she was
proud of me, but in my heart I truly don't believe this. I am dark, so
how could she have ever really been proud of me?) Subconsciously it's
penetrated every aspect of my life and made living a struggle. On the
surface I may get upset about things like losing my mom or dealing
with guys, but underneath it all is this feeling of never being good
enough... and it stems from the physical fact that I am dark - and can
never change that.
It makes me so sad to think that I've debilitated myself like this my
whole life; I know it is self-inflicted, but it's nevertheless
hard-wired in me - no matter what anyone else says, I will never
believe I am good enough until I accept myself.
Anyway, it's getting late and I need to get some rest, but if any of
you have suggestions on acceptance, I am willing to open my heart to
them.
Much love,
Shelly
Thanks to the eerily powerful search function of Gmail, I was able to dredge up this email from the depths of my inbox. All I had to type in the search box was “dark skin”.
I’m sharing it today because I want to talk to you about limiting beliefs.
If you find yourself battling chronic stress, chances are there’s a limiting belief or two that are fueling your burnout.
They push you for so long and so hard that they may cause you to break. That’s what happened to me.
My limiting belief was that I am not enough. The trigger for this belief had to do with the color of my skin.
In South Asian culture, having dark skin is like a death sentence. You are considered inferior in literally every aspect of life, especially if you’re a girl.
So I was born a disappointment: not only was I a girl, I was a dark girl.
Sometimes this message was blatant.
Like the time during middle school when I visited my relatives in Kolkatta and had an elderly neighbor comment, “Tsk tsk...you’re from America. Couldn't you have been born lighter?”
But most of the time, the message was more subliminal. It showed up in my life in different ways. For example:
I never learned how to swim because the local rec center offered lessons in an outdoor pool.
My junior year of college I bought my first pair of shorts, which I wore with tights.
I was told to drink saffron-infused milk every morning so that my unborn child could have a shot at having lighter skin. (You can’t even make this shit up.)
I was hardwired to believe I was worth less. In my mind, this was the fact that became the driving force behind my perfectionism.
I tried to compensate for my shortcoming by being perfect in any other way that I could - academics, extracurricular activities, you name it. But over time, this perfectionism ultimately led to my struggle with emotional and mental health.
You need to dig deep to uncover what’s buried underneath your limiting beliefs. Really fucking deep.
The only way to overcome burnout is by tackling your triggers. You have to unmask the invisible forces that are driving you.
These beliefs you hold true make you feel a certain way, and as a result they influence everything you do. This is the incessant cycle that eventually leads to burnout.
It took me so long - literally a decade from the time I wrote that email - to begin untangling all the faulty wires that were criss-crossed in my brain.
I was finally able to start questioning my beliefs. “Could it be...that I am enough? Could it be...that I have always been enough?”
Digging deep is messy and hard. But until you expose these limiting beliefs, you won’t be able to free yourself from the grasp of burnout.
As you go through your week, shine a light on the potential triggers lurking in your head. Are you too fat or too skinny? Are you too extroverted or too introverted? Are you too ambitious or too complacent?
It’s time to weed out these roots.
