Shadow Sunday: Integrating Unintelligence

ONE of my deepest shadows has been that of the belief of inadequacy when it came to my intelligence, skill, and learning capacity. For most of my life I went around with the fear of others calling me out for being stupid, an idiot, or ignorant.

During my early life I essentially didn’t go to school grade 1-4, a gap due to a mother trying to homeschool while holding down a job, and caring for a dying father. My only memory from these years was looking at answers in the back of the teachers books while my mom was at work, and playing in the dirt, climbing trees, and being fascinated by a world of imagination. When it was time to go back I felt… well… held back. On top of all this I would see a vision therapist for my dyslexia, and terrified that my non-school friends who thought I was in there grade, would meet my school friends who were peers in my actually class.

Shame, guilt, fear, fraud. Overwhelmed by the need to split myself in two. Embarrassment of reading out loud… eventually over compensation, unquenched thirst for wisdom, and knowledge from sources outside myself. So How did I integrate this fear? How did I learn to love the idiot within? Give a listen.