Math. Ugh. I despise it.
When I was in high school, I began to really struggle with math. I had never really liked math beyond the basics, but by the time I was in geometry and approaching the higher maths, I was miserable. I got my first “D” as a final term grade in math. I had been a straight “A” student to that point and that “D” devastated me.
During those years, I developed the belief that I was “Math Stupid.” I was brilliant in every other subject, aced them with rarely breaking a sweat, and got excellent grades, but I couldn’t do it in math. All of that and that “D” was proof to me that Math was my nemesis.
What is a nemesis, anyway? I feel that word in my gut; know what it means, but couldn’t put it into words. So I looked it up. This is what I discovered on dictionary.com:
Yup. That totally describes my relationship with math… something I could not conquer, best, or overcome, and it really did feel like a punishment.
Fast forward to me re-entering college in 2010, after losing my job along with tens of millions of other people in the economic crash of 2009. I had to take the math placement test to figure out what math classes I would have to take to graduate.
That test was timed, which would have been awesome for nearly everyone. Except me. I was unable to complete it in time and the part that I had been able to complete resulted in an agonizing headache. The end result was I had to start in math 950! Which was actually two levels below where you’re supposed to enter college. The news was painful to receive.
But, over the next couple years, I completed 950, 990, and 1010, which was where you’re supposed to be when you enter college. However, for me to get my Associates – instead of Applied Associates – I would also have to complete 1050.
Braving the torture, I enrolled and on the first day of online Math 1050, it took me eight. hours. to complete my assignment. EIGHT! I was carrying a 15-credit workload and had all upper classes in my degree – Graphic Design – which meant I was in homework-heavy courses. I knew I was not going to have eight hours a week, let alone eight hours several times a week, to dedicate to battling my nemesis – and failing in the process.
I approached my advisor to see what I could do. She ran a battery of tests for me and we discovered I have dyscalculia – numerical dyslexia. My brain flips number pairs: 1-2, 3-4, 5-6. It also drops negative signs. Super! She gave me my options: hire a tutor (which, come on… the tutor was not going to be able to help my brain figure out that a 1 was a 1, not a 2) and complete the course to graduate with my Associates, not hire a tutor and complete the course to graduate with my Associates, or drop the course and receive only an Applied Associates, which was not transferable to most universities.
I gratefully opted for option number three without hesitation. The other options were just different forms of ongoing torture leading to exhaustion, self-beatup, and poor grades in all of my classes because I’d have no time or energy to do good on my homework for any of them.
It was the most victorious surrender – and possibly the only time I have surrendered (a different story for another day) – that I’ve ever experienced. The relief I felt when I dropped that class was instantaneous and stuck with me through the whole semester.
That semester, my nemesis was defeated by not showing up to fight it – a part of that lesson I forgot until just this week.
I’ve been in therapy since June, attempting to develop balance within myself while humanity is creating a huge ruckus on this planet. As an Empath, I found myself really struggling with anxiety – something I had never had – which resulted in full-on panic attacks – also something I’ve never had before and I swear to God, I thought I was dying every time. I don’t know how so many of my Sensitives live in that energy daily. Whew.
My focus in therapy has been to get really clear as to how *I* want to experience this life, what is true *for me*, and how can I be powerfully healthy in all of my relationships. Because I am in therapy, I am in what feels like a constant state of “workshop energy.” Over the last 2.5 decades, I’ve been through my fair share of retreats, workshops, and seminars focused on healing and transformation, so I’m very familiar with “workshop energy.” For me, when I am in a program or retreat, I take it seriously and milk it for all it’s worth.
I’m doing the same with therapy.
This means I am in a constant state of watching for the learning. It also means I am listening closely to what I say in conversations and paying attention to when that “thing” inside me goes, “DING! DING! DING! There’s something in that one,” so I can dig deeper and discover whatever it is that needs to rise to the surface.
This week, I had that experience in relation to math. I know. Weird. I believe, though, that our nemeses can be our most powerful teachers, so it’s appropriate that math has shown up right now.
I was sharing with my daughter something about math and I said, “It doesn’t matter how well I understand the concept, I will never get to the right answer if I have the wrong numbers in the equations.”
She agreed and went on talking, but I felt that “thing” starting to vibrate to let me know I was onto something. I had said that sentence before, but something about this moment was different. So, I listened closely to the words that were about to come out of my mouth because I knew they were words I had never said before.
“I spent eight hours that first day because I kept getting the wrong answer and had to redo every problem. After my advisor found out about my dyscalculia, I did one more assignment. I spent so much time checking and rechecking the original equation to verify that I had the correct info in the problem and then checking and rechecking every. single. step along the way, that I was exhausted. I had to drop the class. I wasn’t going to survive if I didn’t.”
The paragraph stuck with me, swirling around in my head. Later that night, I was telling my sweetheart about it and I said, “Before I can solve the problem, I must figure out if I have the right info for the equation.”
The statement reverberated in my body, my “thing” went ABSOLUTE DING!, and I dashed into my office to write it down so I could ruminate further and share it with my therapist. As I was writing it down, the old cliche from the healing community I was “raised” in came to me: How you do one thing is how you do everything.
Oh damn.
There, right before me, in writing for the first time, was one of my archaic programs that has been parading around in my system without me knowing: Before I can solve the problem, I have to verify that I have the problem right.
Ugh.
I have spent so much of my time and energy trying to figure out what the problem is and if I understand the problem correctly, that I haven’t had a lot of time and energy left over to actually solve the problem. This has created a space of feeling like I’m always wrong (or this is one of the nifty tools of my “Always Wrong” program to confirm that I am always wrong) and that I cannot figure out anything. Which is interesting, because another program I recently uncovered is the belief that if I make myself the problem, I can fix it.
Seriously. The last 2.5 decades have been about me fixing myself, changing myself, transforming myself. I was doing it consciously, of my own free will then. But the 2.5 decades prior to that, I kept fixing myself, changing myself, and transforming myself according to the words, feelings, and energy of those around me. So, in essence, it has never been okay to just BE. ME. without needing to fix, change, or transform.
As I am practicing new ways – which is, in all honesty, incredibly uncomfortable and scary – and letting go of these old programs that were developed at tender ages to “keep me safe,” I am in this weird space of not being where I once was but not yet where I want to be. It’s a prickly space that keeps me alert and wary, because I am dropping my old Guard.
And I find myself wondering, who will I be without these programs? How do I want life to look? What do I want to experience?
Long, long ago, I made myself my own nemesis and I have spent my entire life in fight with her and all those around me, in an attempt to be safe. It is the most illogical path to safety, but there you have it.
And, as math reminded me this week, the battle with a nemesis can only be won for both parties by not showing up to fight.
I am grateful for that reminder.
With love,
