[SELF-HELP] Do You Fear Asking Questions?

“He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.”-  Chinese proverb

Problem

When someone asks me to do something and it’s something I’m not clear about or understand, I will refrain from asking about and sort the point out due to not wanting to appear foolish / stupid / unintelligent.

Consequences

One consequence of this pattern is that the tasks I’m going to perform are often performed in an unsatisfactory / poor manner. Another consequence is that I sabotage myself in that I jeopardize my own learning of something new, and that when I perform the task poorly come through as all the more stupid / unintelligent than what I would if I had asked questions – because I gave the impression that I understood the task and yet performed it incorrectly – which in turn has the consequence that the same person abstains from asking me to perform tasks again.

Memories

The main memories that pop up in relation to this point are memories of how I get ridiculed and met with laughter from the other students at school when I ask questions to teachers. I then took these events personally and integrated them in myself as a part of myself and created this whole character that refrains from asking questions in order to protect myself from experiencing the same feelings of becoming ridiculed.

Solution

To establish an effective communication and support myself by breathing through the anxiety and the images of the memories until they aren’t affecting me and I’m back and grounded within and as the physical reality, and to push myself through the fear of appearing stupid / dumb / unintelligent and ask questions to the person who happens to possess more knowledge than me within the specific task at hand, and not perform it until I am perfectly clear on how the task should be performed in the most efficient manner possible. And also to change the starting-point of performing tasks from the polarity of desire of gratification / appreciation from others and the fear of getting ridiculed by others, into a starting-point of simply practicality.

Reward

I will by pushing through the fear of asking questions allow myself to learn from others and thus give myself the ability and opportunity to grow and develop into a more practically efficient being.

Self-forgiveness

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think, believe or perceive that I am less than those who are able to help me

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to experience fear when I ask or see that I need to ask questions if someone is asking me to do a task and I’m not clear on what it is I should do, because I am afraid of being perceived as stupid / foolish / unintelligent

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to experience fear when I ask a question, because it reminds me of when I was sitting in school being afraid to ask questions

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to take the teachers deep sighs and head shakes and the class mates laughter when I gave the incorrect answer or asking questions personally and judge myself as stupid and to exist within and as these memories within which I compromise myself by fearing to ask or answer questions regarding points I don’t understand in fear of coming through as stupid and within that I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to limit and suppress myself based on past experiences and limit and suppress myself according to how I “come through” as an image

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to fear asking questions in school due to fearing that I would be judged as stupid / unintelligent / stupid by teachers and students

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to refrain from asking questions because of this fear

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to fear asking questions in school due to fear of being ridiculed and met by the laughter of the other students

I forgive myself for not allowing myself to see that regardless of what anyone defines/brands/labels/diagnose me as, I am here, able to direct myself within self-honesty, practicality and common sense

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear asking a question to someone who asks me to do a task because I think that this person will perceive and judge me as unintelligent for asking such a question… thus I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and assume that everyone else would stand in front of the same task would understand it immediately without having to ask questions

I forgive myself that I have NOT accepted and allowed myself to consider that those who are in a position to offer me help and support and answering my questions once were in the exact same situation as me before they had accumulated the knowledge on how to perform the task

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create and integrate into myself a belief that it is “weak” to ask for help

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to equate “strength” with doing everything by myself and use it as an excuse not to have to deal with the inferiority I go into when I have to ask for help. In other words, I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to avoid dealing with my accepted and allowed patterns of inferiority by creating the belief that it is “weak” to ask for help and “strong” to do it by myself without asking for help / assistance / clarification

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to experience myself as “vulnerable” when I have to ask for help because it gives someone else the opportunity to deny / reject me

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to focus on how others will perceive me within understanding and performing a task, instead of focus on the task itself

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to participate in thoughts like “I must be stupid” when I do not understand a task as explained to me

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that it is reasonable to get a clear understanding of something I haven’t performed or dealt with before without asking questions, and that I should be able to perform a task before I have acquired the skills needed to perform this task

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to avoid asking questions because I’m afraid to experience the negative experience of feeling stupid / foolish / unintelligent and want to avoid this feeling at all costs

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that another person’s judgment of me represents an accurate picture of reality / who I am

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself as inferior for not knowing and having to ask for help / assistance / clarification… thus I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to experience shame of who I in my judgmental view of myself am, and fear asking questions because I fear experiencing shame in my own judgmental view of myself

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear to ask questions because it would give me knowledge about the task and therefore also RESPONSIBILITY… thus I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to attempt to avoid / evade my own responsibility by not asking questions

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame another person for “not telling me”, when it in fact is so that I have been making sure that I can’t be blamed for the task not being carried out correctly and that the responsibility thus would be theirs

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a personality / character that refrains from asking questions, in order to protect myself from my own judgments of myself and protect myself from my own awareness of my responsibility for myself

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define it as more stupid / unintelligent / foolish to ask questions to provide practical understanding of a task, than to perform a task without having a full understanding of how it will be conducted (gained by for example asking questions), in favor of protecting an image and experience of myself

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to neglect and compromise myself, and to prevent myself from learning things effectively because I want to preserve the image of myself as “strong”, “proficient” and “intelligent” and thus avoiding shame

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to refrain from asking questions because I want to be seen as someone who knows everything, because this image of myself that I try to “push” and “sell” gives me a positive experience of “value” and even superiority

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give a picture / appearance of myself a higher value than the physical reality

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to neglected the physical reality in favor of pictures / appearance / mental experiences

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a fear asking questions based on memories from school days when I was daydreaming and did not dare to ask questions because I was afraid that it would then be revealed that I was daydreaming / not present

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to participate in fear of ridicule and scorn from others if I would ask questions to the teacher… thus I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear being ostracized by the group / other students and thus experience the fear of losing validation and energetic reward from the group that I assume “know” what I do not know

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to fear to asking questions to the teacher because I feared it would be revealed that I had not understood a previous lesson, or that I had not read a text / book

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed to form a character / personality who is afraid of asking questions, based on these memories where I tried to hide my lack of knowledge / understanding

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to experience fear I within learning don’t understand new information immediately

I see and understand that I have trained myself from a young age not to ask for help or ask questions due to fear that I will be reprimanded by the teacher or be ridiculed and experience myself as less worthy than the other students. I realize that by continuing this pattern I actually create and manifest the point I’m afraid of – I will not be able to learn new skills / tasks / information just because I fear to ask for help / ask questions when I am unsure

Therefore I commit myself to when and as I do not understand a task and experience a fear of asking questions about the task – I stop – I breathe until stable / grounded and back in the physical reality and push myself through the fear of appearing stupid / foolish / unintelligent, by asking the person who has more knowledge than me within the specific task at hand until I am perfectly clear on how the task should be performed in the most efficient manner possible, because I see, realize and understand this particular fear hasn’t in any way got any physical basis in reality, but that my participation in it both sabotage for myself and others