After 37 years – for the most part – I am at home with who I am. It has been a long and windy road, and the twists and turns are no less abundant today. Being comfortable with who I am serves me in the world. If I didn’t discern between me and ‘what I should be’, I would still be a teenage girl in mind, unable to recognize myself.
I see who I used to be everywhere. Reflected in the eyes of other girls, I hear myself in their words, and I relive memories in their projections. These memories often bring me to the place I lived as a young woman: A place deep inside where I could hide from the drowning confusion of a world that I could not grasp, because it seemed slippery and way too fast.
As an adult, I know that in large part, my confusion stemmed from my awareness of ubiquitous inconsistencies in the world. In school, for instance, we learned that when faced with a problem, we should ‘just be ourselves’, but everything around me preached that who I was needed adornment or to be better somehow.
Cover girl still tells me ‘I’m worth it’, which is true, but what are they saying I’m worth? Make up? Covering up my ‘flaws’? The irony of being ‘worth it’ only if I feel insecure enough to ‘cover up’ is not lost on me, and it’s disturbing. Why are young women encouraged to focus on external beauty, as if it’s the key to the vault of happiness? At times, the world seems an unreliable place which places more value on judgement than on tolerance.
Going deeper, I started to wonder if we are encouraged to cover up more than just our facial flaws.
I bought into it all. But covering up with layers of artificial stuff made me dependent on covering up, almost like an addict; I needed to have nice clothes, nice makeup, nice shoes, nice hair. I couldn’t leave the house unless I felt like I looked good enough; that I was worthy of approval. We like it when people like us. We like approval. Maybe that’s why face book has not created a ‘thumbs down’ app yet.
The problem is, the more I hid, covered up and pretended, the more artificial I became. The walls of bullshit I built up – the bricks for which I bought from the millions of stores, magazines and advertisements which constantly feed on our insecurities – became harder and harder to dismantle. I hated not loving myself as I was, and realized the only way to break the bullshit pattern was to climb the wall and take a look at the other side.
What’s on the other side? The real me. The real us. The truth of who we are; without all the baggage and junk on top. The part that loves slow songs, crisp fall days after rain, laughing till you pee, the anticipation of seeing a new love, the feeling you get when your child makes you proud, or when you see someone being kind for no reason. Look down from your own high, thick walls and see your patterned self, begging for entertainment, distractions, immediate gratification, whispering like a little devil on our shoulder that ‘life is short, everyone does it, and who are you to think you’re ‘better’ than what we think is better?’ It’s a scary place to be: up on your own walls, looking down on the myriad artificial bricks we laid, which will one day fall down around us.
Whatever walls we build, blankets we choose to cover ourselves with, or secrets that linger in our vaults, our walls, blankets, secrets, make up, expensive crap and bad habits are all symptoms of the same illness. We feel empty because we were taught to be so; to grow up to be good consumers. It’s sad but true. I’m lucky, I suppose, because instead of expensive crap, my parents rewarded me with stories, homemade clothes, quilts and meals. I used to think my parents were ‘uncool’ and didn’t get what it took to be engrained in society. But I think they knew; they just chose to be engrained in something bigger instead.
How do we undo a lifetime of learned judgement? How do we switch to self love and tolerance for others? Well, one way is to see it when it happens. When something pisses you off or you meet someone who doesn’t resonate with you, watch it and understand that whatever triggered you lives inside of you and is asking to be seen and let go. When you let go of the things inside you that aren’t you – the things you feel don’t serve you, that trigger inconsistent or icky feelings – you are on the wall, climbing upward and forward….towards who you really are.
If we all did this, we would alter human consciousness because our perspective would change. Even the ‘ugly’ reflections we saw in the world would radiate beauty, not because they changed but because we did. We would feel ‘worth it’ no matter what our appearance, economic status or how many ‘friends’ we have on face book.
I invite everyone reading this not to do daily positive affirmations, but to see beauty in things you didn’t before.
Photo Credit
Mirror Mirror On The Wall @ Flickr
I love this article. And I accept your invitation
blessings Donna 🙂