You Are Dyslexic and Illiterate and Will Never Amount to Anything
Growing up, my wife Jules wouldn’t have been the most confident, especially when it came to her being more visible … you know, things like reading out loud in front of her class at school. She wasn’t great at ‘English’ or at least that was what she thought and really dreaded things like having to read out loud. When the request or more likely demand came from a teacher she would freeze and really, really struggle to get the words out.
Not all her teachers were supportive or encouraging. Somewhere around second year at secondary school, at the end of one of these excruciating experiences, Jules’s teacher announced to her in front of all her classmates, ‘You are dyslexic and illiterate and will never amount to anything.’
I’m not sure what the teacher had in mind. Perhaps some sort of reverse psychology, or perhaps it was just to humiliate. I still can’t think of any good reason, but whatever the reason, their words stuck. As I have mentioned in these newsletters before, our language is powerful, so much more powerful than we realise. Our words are filled with creative power that can build people up, including ourselves, and tear people down.
Jules took these words to heart. She absorbed them. She believed them. Perhaps the ‘diagnosis’ made some sort of sense of her struggle in school. Her confidence was badly knocked and her belief in herself fell to an even lower level.
Through sheer determination and years of working late every night, Jules went on to complete her O-levels and A-levels and get into university to study physiotherapy and with similar determination she graduated and fulfilled her dream of becoming a physiotherapist.
Even with all these achievements, her confidence in herself, particularly in the area of language and words and writing was low.
From time to time, I would hear Jules story from school. Even decades later her teacher’s words still echoed through the corridors of her mind. Everything she achieved was achieved through sheer determination of her pushing through and past the belief that had taken hold in her mind.
2020 was the year that all started to change. During the pandemic lockdowns Jules developed the daily habit of starting to write a journal. Every morning, she started to disappear off to the sanctuary of our garden shed with her journal and a pot of herbal tea, where she would write for about an hour. This went on for about nine months. Somewhere towards the end of the year I remember her telling me that she thought there was a book in all her writing. She started to pull her writing together into chapters. She hired a coach. Next thing I knew she was working with an editor and someone to design the cover and then a formatter so that the book could be uploaded to Amazon.
By the end of July 2021 ‘Finding Mystery Within’ was up on Amazon, and she was hosting a beautiful book launch event at our home which she invited some close friends and family to.
It’s not a best seller, but Finding Mystery Within , is powerful story about Jules healing journey that has impacted people all around the world.
This whole experience unlocked something in her. She saw something about herself that she hadn’t seen before. She started to see that she was a writer. What a shift!
In her work as a physiotherapist and MFR therapist she had seen a big link between how her patients experienced their pain and their anxious and fearful thinking about their pain. She started to read and study the latest neuroscience research about pain.
She started to incorporate what she was learning into her work with her patients. Then she ran some small group programs, both online and in person to help people with long term pain to understand the impact their thinking was having in maintaining their pain. The results were way beyond her expectations.
Another book was emerging about the mind body connection and how that impacts our experience of pain.
She studied and wrote for over a year. She road tested a chapter of her book in the form of a booklet, Re-Thinking Pain: A Guide To Recovery
Here’s a beautiful message she received recently from an MFR therapist based in Arizona, USA who gave Jules’s booklet to one of her patients …
‘I am so excited for your next book!
And I have to say how my client just totally got it when she read Re-Thinking Pain!
There’s something about the visual aspect that landed it for her. I’ve been working with her a bit and it’s been so back and forth because of the self beat up and thinking she’s getting it wrong.
She just totally shifted and reads your book a couple times a day- her treatments have gotten deeper and she’s so much more positive as she’s feeling her body’s wisdom.
It’s so important to have the mind on board and this book just tipped the scales for her!’
Jules’ second book, Q uiet Mind, Quiet Body: Unlock The Mystery Of The Mind, Find Freedom From Chronic Pain is about to be released. It comes out on 8th August, and you can pre-order it in both paper back and Kindle format.
Jules still thinks if she was properly tested, she might get some sort of dyslexic diagnosis. Truth is, it doesn’t matter now. Dyslexic or not, Jules IS a writer and an author. She has already written a book that is impacting people all over the world. I think that pretty well rules out the part about her being illiterate. As for whether she has amounted to anything or not … I could write for hours about why she is an amazing wife, mother, daughter and physiotherapist. But for her writing alone it would be an understatement to say that I am thrilled for her and beyond proud to watch her flourish as the writer she has always been but just didn’t know. For me that all amounts to an awful lot!
I have a feeling Jules is just getting started and that there will be more books.
Her teacher’s comments don’t have a hold over her anymore. I wonder how many books she might have written by now if she hadn’t bought into what her teacher said.
What about you?
What beliefs are you holding onto about yourself that are holding you back from stepping into more of who you really are? What judgments do you hold onto that are in the way of you stepping into the life, the dream that you have always believed was beyond you or impossible?
Whatever those beliefs or judgements are … I can pretty much guarantee you, much like Jules were, they are not true. If it’s time to get rid of them and step into more of the greatness that is in you and to follow the dream, you’d given up on … call me. I may be able to help.
Much love
Peter