Are you scared and intimidated around people you perceive as strong, powerful, smarter, or more accomplished than you?

Are you scared and intimidated around people you perceive as strong, powerful, smarter, or more accomplished than you?

I have felt this way sooooo many times

In fact it’s an area that I am CONSTANTLY working on within myself.

The little traumatized child in me wants to quiver and shake and fawn because that’s what I did as a little one to survive in my home around a mom who couldn’t handle the threat of someone’s light shining in her presence.

Thankfully after stumbling around in the beginning, I’ve managed to find some footing here.

What most of us do is feel weak and small and contemptuous - and then jealous - and then angry at ourselves and then feel like we shouldn’t feel that way and try and puff our chests to seem like we’re really not that vulnerable. I’ve done that a lot in my life.

And then? We think it’s so disgusting that we could allow ourselves to feel that way AGAIN after a childhood of making ourselves smaller - we think - “shouldn’t I be stronger by now”

First - you’ve gotta understand that everyone feels this way sometimes at different levels because we are all humans and we are all vulnerable. And no matter how far we get along life’s journey there will always be someone we perceive as better at us in some way - and who, maybe actually is better at certain attributes of life. Which is just reality and important to accept.

Sometimes, I think we feel that niggling sense of inferiority not because we ARE inferior. But because, when we see someone else embodying their power it’s like… “hey, that’s a thing?” “Could I actually show up like that?” And all our own inner struggles with our own power are brought to the surface. Family stories, triggers around taking up space, self-loathing, fear, and shame all come up from the shadows we’ve been pushing them down into. And, of course, the more we’ve pushed them down the more they will flare up in ways that seem out of our control for us to take a peek at and do something about.

Which is a good thing, because we can ALWAYS be expanding into owning our true selves and gifts more and more each day. Healing is our life’s work after all.

Feeling triggered or jealous, or in awe even of someone who we perceive to better than us is nothing to be ashamed of.

AND… that feeling doesn’t have to be your daily life feeling (which, if you’ve grown up in an abusive family environment, we often think EVERYONE is better than us, or the complete mirror opposite of thinking WE are better than everyone else until someone who is so unequivocally better than us at something enters the frame to give our ego a nice elbow to the ribs).

But that quiver in your system - that feeling of inferiority that churns within your doesn’t have to rot your tummy from the inside.

So how do we move through this feeling?
Do we yell at the ones we secretly admire and tell them to be less powerful and stop triggering us?
Do we hide from people we fear will expose our smallness?
Do we fawn and acquiesce and create relationship dynamics that make us feel small and inadequate?
Do we avoid what our shadows and intuition are trying to tell us?
My M. O. was leeching off the power of others and somehow hoping no one would see that I was weak and small on my own as a result of my broken and bruised self-concept (cue the codependency, lack of responsibility, and drama cycles)

Do we make a show of false bravado that with just a brush of a finger wisps away like dust in the shadow?

Or....
Do we call on the deeper parts of us - the parts we fear.. and face them.
Do we allow ourselves to be vulnerable and embarrassed and triggered and shaky and say to that pare of ourselves - "hey let me take your hand through this. Let me show you the reasons you deserve to be loved, even if you're ashamed."
Do we get curious and ask: “Woah, what’s going on down there? Looks like I’ve got stuff to explore.”
Do we rise up through the quivering, to love ourselves, and allow ourselves to belong in the presence of our heroes - recognizing that they are human too?
Do we allow our jealousy and spitefulness to be noticed, and instead of shaming ourselves for it just BE with it and explore it instead of hiding from it and pretending it isn’t there?
The mark of true power, is when it can be in the presence of its own likeness without needing to stomp it down.

This seems like a little thing - healing our petty parts. Which are really just inferiority wounds. But it has a way of insidiously eating at our goals, our self-concept, our relationships, and our ability to live out our purpose. The judgement and spite we project out doesn’t come from nowhere - it comes from our own relationships with ourselves.

When we can make space for everything within us, we can feel more at home in world, and even be inspired by the power and presence of others, and allow ourselves to inspire also.

It all comes back to being seen doesn’t it?

We can't control who triggers us - we can't ask other people to shrink because we feel small... so what's the answer? Seems simple doesn't it... we just have to find it within ourselves to rise up to meet our lives.. even if being seen makes us feel small and scared sometimes.

To work with me in my 6 month 1-1 Pain to Power coaching program, click here: https://www.shylacash.com/workwithme
I can teach you how to find the strength within yourself to face within you what makes you so terrified and small-feeling in the presence of others (even if its something you've never admitted to anyone or even yourself).