It came to me…not all of a sudden but with a gradual understanding; like a sheer veil slowly being lifted. A veil that had been covering my eyes for so long I didn’t even know it was there.

Early on in our marriage my husband was considering a real estate investment that would, naturally, affect both of us. Not wanting to make all the financial decisions by himself, he really wanted my input. I, on the other hand, had complete faith in him, his understanding of finance, and his ability to make the right decisions but he felt the weight of the burden. My feeling was that, finances, let alone real estate, was his domain. He was the man after all! He was the one who possessed the faculties to weigh the pros and cons of such decisions, certainly not little ‘ole me!

I couldn’t help but wonder, though, why I felt incapable so I decided to journal about it. As I wrote, my feelings began to materialize into conscious thought. I  pondered and searched for either the evidence of my ineptitude or the root cause of this belief. I was quite good at Math and Algebra in school, and earned a high grade in my college Accounting course. I graduated High School as well as College with high honors. So… what evidence did I have to support this belief that I was not capable? Like peeling the layers of an onion, new questions revealed themselves. Could it be that I didn’t comprehend matters of finance and real estate simply because I believed I couldn’t? My gosh! Could this belief alone have been powerful enough to make me feel incapable, keeping me from even trying? If so, where would that have come from? Why in the world would I believe that?!

As I continued to journal, answers started to unfold! I recalled that, as a child, whenever I went to my mother for help with anything, be it Math or Science, filling out a form or even writing out a check, she always responded in the same way. She would look at it and unless she could understand it at first glance, she would take a deep breath and say in an exasperated tone, “Oh! Go ask your father. That’s just too complicated for my little brain!”

It may be she didn’t want to take the time necessary to figure it out, but this scenario repeated itself so many times that my father became my “go-to” person for anything that required any amount of thinking. From this pattern, my childish mind deduced and stored as fact, something my adult mind was completely unaware of; an internalized belief that held women intellectually inferior to men.

After my initial astonishment, I became extremely hopeful about having discovered this limiting belief in myself. I had a gut feeling I was onto something big. I was compelled to test my theory, so I enrolled in a real estate class.

I threw my heart and soul into this endeavor. I was always so prepared that I could answer, with ease, any question the instructor asked. So much so, that during break one day, a fellow student, a man several years my senior, came to me with a twinkle in his eyes and said, “You know, if we were in high school right now, a bunch of us would take you behind the building and beat you up. You’re making the rest of us look bad!”

I chuckled to myself because what they didn’t realize was that there was a huge difference between what they wanted and what I was after. They wanted a license that said they could legally sell real estate. I, on the other hand, was after a key that would unlock my future; belief in myself and my own abilities to think.

After passing the state boards first try with a 94, I was off and running! Not in real estate, however, but on my journey of self-discovery and conscious personal growth. This is how my ‘awakening’ began.

~Zanne

InSearchOfAuthenticity.com

© 2017 Zanne