How Long Do You Hold On To Embarrassing Things? Decades?

I have to admit that I have held onto embarrassing things I have done for way too long - and it's such a waste of my time, my mind palace, and my energies. Do you do the same? How long do you hold on to things?

Photo by Favour Otunji on Unsplash

Transcript

Hello everyone!

I hope that you're doing amazing wherever you are in the world.

My name is Boomshakha and I welcome you to my channel.

As you can see it's snow behind me.

Yes it is.

Yes it's November but it's snow.

I guess this is how it used to be before global warming maybe.

I don't know.

I really don't know.

In any case,

In today's video I wanted to speak to you about embarrassing situations.

And INFJs.

And how if an embarrassing thing happens to us,

An embarrassing situation,

Or if we are clumsy and we fall in front of a thousand people,

Or whatever it is,

We will stick with that.

We will stick to that or with that embarrassing situation forever and ever and ever.

And carry it in our hearts as if it is an emblem that we carry with us and it's like the torch of our hearts.

And we'll never let it go.

And you know,

Oh my god,

I remember that thing that happened 30 years ago.

And I was so embarrassed and I'm never going to do that again.

So I wanted to share one of these kind of stories with you and then to make you realize how ridiculous it is to hold on to something that happened 30,

40,

50,

60 years ago because you're a completely different person now.

And that thing happened when you were a baby or a child or a teenager or in your 20s.

And now you're older and you've grown and you know better.

So you're never going to do that again,

Of course,

Because you know better.

So there's no need for you to hold on to it except as a lesson.

And so my story is kind of ridiculous as well.

And so I think I was six years old,

Seven years old,

Maybe seven or eight,

Six or seven,

Something like that.

Very young,

Innocent little child.

And I was in middle school,

Obviously,

But we were in Qatar.

So Doha,

Qatar.

So we lived in the Middle East when I was younger.

And so at that point,

I think we were in Qatar.

I'm not sure.

Actually,

I think so.

So I must have been eight or nine and we were in Qatar.

And there was this tradition in the school that was in that every Friday or something or once a week,

Someone from the school,

Some student had to recite the national anthem,

The Indian national anthem.

So it was an Indian based school,

Like an Indian curriculum,

And it was filled with Indian people because the Middle East is filled with Indian people.

And so,

You know,

I was chosen to sing the Indian national anthem.

And at that point,

I was still very young and naive.

So I was like,

Yeah,

Good,

Awesome.

I'm excited.

Yeah,

I'm going to sing it in front of everyone.

It's going to be fun.

And so the day came and I hadn't practiced that much because I was overconfident as well.

I don't know why I do that.

I still do that,

Actually.

And so I didn't practice that much.

I was like,

It'll be fine.

I don't know how I imagined that.

And so I'm standing in front of the entire school.

So there's about 500 people.

Not it wasn't a big school.

Five,

600 people.

It's still pretty.

A lot of people.

And so I'm on the stage.

I'm tiny,

Obviously.

I'm minuscule.

And that adjusts the mics so that it come to me because I was very small.

I kind of had a growth spurt at 14.

But before that,

I was a tiny,

Tiny midget.

And so I'm standing there.

If that's offensive.

Sorry,

I did actually mean it offensively.

So I was standing there and the mic is like over here and I'm like,

You know,

I'm trying to sing.

And so I start singing.

I say the first sentence,

The first sentence of the of the of the national anthem,

Which I don't remember what is now.

Anyways.

And so I sing the first sentence and then I am blocked.

I have a block.

I can't remember the second sentence.

I have no idea what it is.

I like.

Oh,

My God,

I can't remember what it is.

I just sang it yesterday.

I just sang it a couple of days ago.

What the hell?

And I'm standing there completely frozen in front of the entire school.

No idea what I'm going to say next.

And I'm like,

Oh,

Should I just walk away?

I was actually thinking I'm going to run out of there off the stage and then just like hide in the corner somewhere.

But people were so nice.

You know,

They started kind of prompting me.

So there was this girl in the front of the front row and she's like,

Second line is this and,

You know,

And the third line is this.

And so they kind of start prompting me.

And so I kind of fumbled or mumbled my way to the rest of it.

But it was embarrassing.

Oh,

My gosh.

I must have been read as read as possible,

Even though I'm dark.

I'm sure I was read as a beetroot or something like that.

And so eventually,

Obviously,

I decided that on that day when I finally was able to think straight again,

That never again am I ever going to go on stage and ever going to do that again.

There's no way I'm never going to do it again.

I can't believe I even tried.

How could I even imagine that I'd be able to do this kind of thing?

That's where my fear of communication in general started and fear of public speaking and fear of being in the crowds and fear of being in front of people.

A thousand fears,

Right?

In any case,

So I had that fear and I ran with it and I kind of applied to everything in my life.

So I never spoke up again in class.

I never spoke in front of my friends again.

I was very quiet all the time.

I was afraid all the time.

And of course,

It kind of haunted me until I finally decided my 20s like enough is enough.

I'm not going to hold on to it anymore.

It's been 20 years,

30 years.

Come on,

Let's move on from that.

And so I started doing these videos and eventually I started doing more public speaking and eventually I got over it.

But it's kind of funny because now it's not as painful as I remember it.

I think of it as a pretty funny story.

But I do remember even in my teenage years,

Even in my early 20s,

I remember that story and I would literally blush right in that moment in time.

Like,

Oh my gosh,

I was such an idiot.

I can't believe I did something like that.

I'm never doing that again.

I'm never going on stage.

And so it kind of stuck with me for a decade or two after that.

I mean,

I'm pretty sure two decades.

So 20 years,

I held on to it and I let it,

That one moment of mistake,

One little tiny baby mistake that I did when I was seven or eight years old.

I held on to it until my 20s,

Mid 20s,

Even later.

I just kept on dealing with that emotion,

Kept on dealing with that embarrassment,

Kept on using it as a thing against doing things or trying new things out or being in front of people or being public speaker or whatever it might be.

I kept on using it as an excuse,

Be like,

Well,

You know,

Remember when you did that when you were seven?

Yeah,

I did that when I was seven,

Maybe eight.

But now I'm not that anymore.

I'm 37 now.

And I mean,

Even when I was 27,

I could have said I'm 27 now.

It's been 20 years.

Let's move on,

People.

Let's move on,

Boom.

It's enough.

You've held on to it enough.

You've learned from it enough,

Hopefully.

It was a lesson that the universe was trying to give you of not being overconfident,

Of practicing,

Of actually knowing what you're doing when you're going up on stage in front of people.

But you didn't.

That was a lesson the universe was trying to teach you.

And that's it.

It was a lesson.

You don't have to hold on to it until you die.

You don't have to think about it on your deathbed.

Right.

Imagine if I'm lying in bed,

I'm sorry,

Lying on my deathbed and be like,

Remember that time when I was seven years old?

But I can imagine that there's a lot of people like that,

Not only INFJs,

But people in general who might have done something embarrassing 50 years ago and they still think about it and blush with shame or still think about it and go red because they're like,

Oh,

My God,

I can't believe I did that 50 years ago.

I can't believe it.

I'm never going to do that again.

And this kind of stuff kind of is not only with public speaking,

Which is perhaps not a very important thing,

But with little things like,

You know,

You might ask someone out on a date and they might laugh at you.

And you're like,

All right,

I'm never doing that again.

I'm never going to ask someone out again.

I'm never going to go on a date again.

I don't like people.

I'm going to stay single for the rest of my life.

Or,

You know,

You might,

I don't know,

Like apply for a job.

And the person in Massachusetts says,

You know,

You're a little bit underqualified for this.

How could you even think about applying for this job?

Maybe you should think about the way qualifications are first before you apply.

I don't know if people do that,

But if this is an example,

If they did that,

You think to yourself,

Oh,

My God,

I'm a terrible person.

I can't believe I thought I would be able to apply for this job.

I'm never applying to any place again.

I'm going to stick with my job forever and I'm going to live a small life.

Things like that.

Right.

And so some things,

You know,

You're like,

Well,

That was embarrassing.

I'm never going to do that again.

It's OK.

It doesn't really matter that much.

Public speaking is not such a big deal.

But other things you decide,

Oh,

I'm never going to do that again.

And it affects your life.

It actually denigrates it and actually makes you a smaller human being.

It makes your life much smaller.

It makes you smaller.

It puts you into that box.

And I've done the video on a box before where your soul is kind of like congested and kind of fit it into this little box.

And because you are holding onto things that happened in the past and you can't move past them,

You're holding onto that box.

Just the box is the doors open in the box.

You can step out of it if you want.

But you're like,

No,

I'm going to stay in this box because it's safe here and I don't want to go outside because if I do,

I have to try new things out and I don't want to.

Right.

As you stay in the box,

Even though the door of the freaking box is completely freaking open.

But you're like,

No,

I'm going to stay in this box because it's easier because I made that one mistake two thousand years ago.

And if you know,

I can imagine an INFJ,

If we remembered our past lives,

I can imagine an INFJ being like,

You know,

When I was two thousand two thousand years ago,

When I had that life in Barbados or something and I did that one little thing,

I'm never doing that again.

You know,

I learned my lesson.

I'm never trying that thing again.

I can imagine our souls holding onto it for like decades and generations and lifetimes for like thousands of years.

Because that's how we do it.

That's what we do.

Doesn't mean that we have to keep on doing it that way,

Of course.

So I really want to do this with you because,

You know,

It's not about the fact that,

Yeah,

You're doing embarrassing things.

Many people do.

Everyone does embarrassing things.

But the point is,

You know,

How long are you going to let it hold you back?

How long are you going to be like,

Well,

I did that embarrassing thing 70 years ago,

But I'm never going to do that again.

At some point,

You have to be like,

All right,

You did it.

It was 20 years ago.

I think I need to get over it and I need to try new things because what's the point?

How can I hold on to something that I did 20 years ago?

I mean,

It's blasphemous.

It's ridiculous.

It's ridonkulous,

Whatever you want to call it.

It shouldn't be done.

So I really want to do this video,

Not because I'm like,

Oh,

Well,

Look at me.

I can get over things.

No,

I'm actually really on the same process as you.

I'm trying to learn as well how to let go of things.

But really,

I know that I don't want to be stuck in that box anymore.

I've been stuck in the box forever and ever.

It's actually a very small box that I was stuck in for the longest time.

I'm sick of that box.

The door is open.

I'm walking out the door.

I don't want to be in this box anymore.

And so I hope that hopefully you can kind of start thinking about your life as well and start thinking about all the embarrassing things you did that you're still holding on to.

Perhaps you should actually let go and start moving out of that box that you're in right now.

If you're in a box,

Perhaps you're not.

And then that's great for you.

But if you are in a box and you know that you're in a box,

Please try to get out of it.

It's not that hard.

You can do it.

I believe in you.

All right.

That was my cheering mood on.

If you have any questions about this,

Please let me know.

If you have some embarrassing stories to share with us,

Please let us know as well.

I'd love to hear your stories.

And again,

Thank you so much for watching,

For being on my channel.

I really appreciate your support.

Bye for now.

Reviews

It was so inspiring!!!!!!! Thanks I am Indian too