"It's just my imagination running away with me."
Many of my fears are myths and I am the myth maker.
My therapist offered this idea to me as I spent one Sunday afternoon session expressing the stress and anxiety I was feeling around finances as I prepare to live on my own. I had fallen down a bit of a spiral by the time we gathered together on our video call. The spiral was sparked as I did some serious number crunching in a very neutral effort to understand how much apartment I could comfortably afford. Unfortunately, my thoughts had gone beyond the mere growing pains of an adjusting budget and dove further into complex ideas about class, self-worth, and perception.
One fear in particular was that I would be judged and (new) people wouldn't want to be friends with me if they knew what side of town I could afford to live on or how much I earned/invested/saved. I feared I would be deemed irresponsible or inadequate because of how much money I made, or rather didn't make. I also feared that somehow through the mighty hand of the oppressive systems we live under, because I wasn’t making exuberant amounts of money, I would negatively impact my life and my future and my children and my children’s children and all the generations to come. I feared that my seed would somehow suffer because I didn’t achieve extreme opulence in my youth and their suffering would be all my fault and they would hate me for it.
Of course, these scenarios I posed, as my therapist pointed out to me, had no real evidence to indicate they would ever come to pass. When she asked for what evidence or experience I personally had to support those fears, specifically around people actively shaming me for my income, I had nothing to offer.
"Then you are stressing yourself out over a myth," she said kindly, but firmly. "And you are the myth maker."
It was I who was the culprit, the author, the mind behind these fictitious circumstances in which I'd be pointed at, laughed at, and jeered at because I couldn't comfortably afford a fancy loft in Old Fourth Ward. It was I who was pointing to these false realities and using them as evidence that I would never earn enough, be enough, or achieve enough to be financially comfortable. My shame was based on an experience I have never had and likely never will. And it is that shame and fear that do nothing more than keep me from my goals, my path, and my purpose. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
If I am the myth-maker, then I can release them too. I can choose to focus on what I know and what I’ve experienced. Instead of clinging to myths, I can cling to faith. Rather than moving based on the fear of ridicule from people who might not even exist, I can be grateful for a community of real, flesh-and-blood humans in my life whose love for me is in no way connected to my financial standing.
I can believe that it doesn't matter what people, friends or not, think of me based on what they think I can afford. I can, in fact, know that I don't want to be in community with people whose judgment of me rests, not on my character, but on my income. I can let go of these imaginary pressures, focus only on my reality, and stop punking out of the life I prayed forbecause of spooky stories born of my own pen!
And as I stand here, having recently and gently been called in from my myth-making ways, I have gained greater empathy for those who participate in the self-sabotaging consequences of myth-making. Thankfully, I didn’t act based on the myths I made, I merely stressed over them for a few days (still not good, stress is bad for the body!) But I’ve been rather critical of and deeply hurt by people who have believed their myths so strongly that they acted on them to the detriment of themselves and others. And because I know what that myth cost them and I know what it cost me, I also know that I don’t want to ever be responsible for something as painful as that.
The only way to protect yourselves and the people in your life from the stress and pain of myth-making turning into self-sabotage is to stop it where it begins. Acknowledge it, fact-check it, and cling only to what’s real and true.
My grip on reality will matter far more to my quality of life and that of my descendants than the amount of money I make.My character and my works, I pray, will have more hand in how I am remembered than the strength of my investment portfolio. I want to believe I am a good, growing person and worthy of love, care, and respect because of who I am, not because of how wealthy I am.
In preparing for my first apartment, I’ve realized I have a lot of unlearning to do and wisdom to gain when it comes to money. I’m actively rewriting my money scripts and using the Word to inform them. But it’s a process and it starts, not in the excel sheet or the budgeting apps, but in what I believe to be true about myself and the way I want to experience the world.
It starts with turning away from the myths, and embracing the truth over and over again. No matter what.
Thalia, 25, is just a girl widening her perspective and navigating reality checks every thirty minutes or so.
