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“Our work is to get to the place where we like ourselves and are concerned when we judge ourselves too harshly or allow others to silence us.” ~ Dr. Brene Brown
When I look in the mirror, the face of a 60- year- old woman gazes back at me, although, yesterday, at the Thanksgiving dinner table at the home of my bestie (who I have known since we were 14), her five-year-old great nephew told me he thought I was 48, bless his heart. I have laugh lines and sometimes sleep-deprived circles around and below my green/blue eyes. My hair is salt and pepper except when it is dyed vivid purple. Everyone in life my life likes it, except for my 31-year-old son who rolls his eyes and tells me it isn’t professional. I respond that I am a creative soul and it gives me street cred with my teen clients. I am outspoken and willing to be visible in all aspects of my life. I am colorful and playful and mostly unafraid of disparaging looks or wagging fingers.
There was a time when that was nowhere near the truth. In my childhood, I felt an overwhelming need to prove myself, since I contended with asthma that had me straining to keep up at times. I wanted to be seen as strong and vibrant, not sickly and weak as I felt at times. Since I needed medication and regular doctor visits, my desire was to be independent and not a burden on anyone. Even today, my biggest fear is incapacitation. I also learned from my parents how to take care of others and subsume my own needs in the service of that goal. They made it all look easy. I thought of myself as “little Shirley Temple, everybody’s sweetheart, tap-dancing for approval.” It was a mask I wore and an insurance policy against abandonment, since I queried, “Who wouldn’t love a caregiver?” That was the façade I willingly took on. Sometimes it served me and at others it called people into my life with chronic needs that I felt at a loss to fill and who sucked the energy from me. I have learned to monitor those interactions and check to see if my meter is a quart low. It is then that I erect boundaries between me and those energy vampires.
My husband used to tell me that I was an emotional contortionist who would bend over backward to please people and a deer caught in the headlights when it came to making decisions. I am neither now, nearly 20 years after his death. It has taken multiple attempts at reconciling the desire to be loved no matter what the cost with the desire to be authentically me. Since I will be living with myself 24/7 for the rest of this incarnation, the latter is more important than the former. If I imagine myself as a chameleon/shapeshifter, I may experience what passes for love, but it will never be the real deal if I’m not.
In the interceding years, I have questioned if I was ‘too much’ or ‘not enough’. I have wondered if it was acceptable to be vulnerable, since it meant that I was at the mercy of someone else’s whims. I have doubted my own ability to succeed without the support of others. I have been uncomfortable with receiving and far more at ease with giving. That role felt safer, since I was the one doling out the love and support and bore the illusion of control.
As a journalist, speaker and therapist, I have put my opinions out there for the world to see, primarily on social media. Sometimes people give it two thumbs out and sometimes two thumbs down. I have become more adept at shrugging off disapproval, having had plenty of practice in this contentious political climate. I am learning not to take certain feedback personally, particularly that which calls my professionalism into question. I laugh at the terms ‘libtard’ and ‘snowflake,’ since they are designed to get a rise out of me. I have also become more reticent about replying. I ask myself if it is likely to have a positive outcome and if what I say may change the person’s mind. If not, I refrain.
Brene’ Brown has become an inspiration as she speaks on authenticity. The social researcher, speaker and author is a pioneer in the arena of self- compassion who guides readers and viewers into discovering ways of embracing their true nature, facing fears, and shrugging off shame. As a sister social worker, she has more credibility for me as she too, despite her professional veneer has come face to face with her vocal inner critic who reminds her as mine does for me, that she is not enough of what people might expect of her.
If I were to be entirely true to myself, my needs, and my values, I would still be acceptable. I would still be loved. I would still be vocal. I do enough. I have enough. I am enough.
“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”-Dr. Seuss
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