You didn’t stand a chance.

Your self talk sits on a throne of LIES. 

Our minds are constantly churning out thoughts. Those thoughts impact the way we feel and the way we show up in the world, which in turn help to create our lived experience. 

We tend to take them at face value. What our brain says, must be true. 

But not every thought that arises deserves our unquestioning belief. Especially all of those negative thoughts that are constantly racing through your head.

Because your brain isn’t generating them out of nowhere. And your brain isn’t a great arbiter of what’s fact and what’s fiction when it comes to how it views you.   

For example, you logically know perfection doesn’t exist, but you still constantly think you should somehow be better than you are, be doing something better than you are, and be doing more than you are. Probably in a myriad of ways. 

And of course you think that. 

You didn’t stand a chance.

People who are socialized as women are taught to believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with them.

We deal with rigid gender roles and gendered expectations that reinforce traditional notions of femininity that were never meant to serve us. 

We are taught to suppress or downplay our emotions because our emotional expression, no matter how rational or warranted, is often stigmatized or dismissed as irrational or overly sensitive. 

We’re bombarded with unrealistic beauty standards that perpetuate the idea that our natural appearance is not good enough. 

We have to reckon with the Gender Pay Gap. The Mommy Track/Maternal Wall. The Authority Gap. The Glass Ceiling. The Glass Wall. The Affinity Bias. The Tightrope Bias. The Tug-of-War Bias. The fact that the percentage of women coming out of law schools and into law firms is far higher than the number of women equity partners.

We regularly receive messaging that we are never enough, and yet somehow still too much. 

And the more marginalized identities you live in, the more you have to deal with in the way of biases, obstacles, and unhelpful messaging about how you aren’t good enough. 

Under this same messaging system, people socialized as men get a crappy deal too. They are also told they have to show up a certain way to be acceptable. They have to be traditionally masculine. They can’t have any feelings, except anger. They have to be the breadwinner, stoic, hard workers. They can’t ask for help. They can’t be soft or lazy or weak in any way. Ever. 

Yes, it can be exhausting. But a large part of that exhaustion is because you keep buying into the messaging.

So question everything in your head that says there is something wrong with you. That you are incapable. Or inferior. 

Where did that thought or story come from? Do you want to buy in?  

Because you don’t actually have to.

TELL ME: What is a thought you're ready to stop believing about yourself? 

A ❤️ note to you: If you want to start deciding how to show up the way you want and to have a life that feels the way you want, you’ve got to start unlearning all that social conditioning. I can help with that. We will work together to uncover where your social conditioning is holding you back and to have you showing up the way you want despite that conditioning and despite your external circumstances. Hop on the phone with me, and I’ll tell you how. Sign up at jenndealcoaching.as.me/consult.