I had a 10 AM workshop on Zoom this morning, a group thing with seven other women led by a therapist who quotes Eckhart Tolle. It’s slated to run for four weeks of Saturdays and this was week three. We’re supposed to be working on not letting the past steal our power in the present, but really it’s just a bunch of women in video boxes inviting each other to share in a judgment free zone. The women, to a one, are kind.
After I got off the Zoom session, which I did sitting at the dining table, I looked around my house and noticed the sunlight dappling its corners and I thought about the woman in the group who said she had decided that week to try pouring love onto the body she had spent her life hating, the body that had carried her this far despite such ingratitude—to use a soft word for the abuse and self-loathing so many of us women regularly heap on ourselves. And so she was practicing loving herself, and it had felt to her like an epiphany, she said, like light breaking through.
I heard her words in the context of having gazed at my own face in the mirror just an hour before, literally reviling my reflection, and I thought how sad that I only see myself as I imagine others must see me and what would it be like to just love myself regardless? I stood in my house with golden light pouring in at the windows and thought how fortunate I truly am in so many ways and why don’t I just try to appreciate myself more. Love myself exactly as I am in this moment, every inch and wobble and ache and groove. After all, this is the body in which I breathe and move. This is the face I will continue to wear and it will continue to grow more creased and folded with age, and this still robust if achy body will eventually grow frail and that’s just life and what’s the use of resisting the grand cycle of things or wishing it to be any different? How much more power might there be in embracing each moment that I am instead?
I really want to say that I will try. To be more gentle with myself. To pour love and sunlight onto this imperfect but earnestly striving human that is me. I whisper that I will try. But then I hear Yoda saying, “Do. Or do not. There is no try.” I guess that means I must do.
Yes, there is no "try"-unless it is putting IKEA furniture together...
ReplyDeleteLinda Sue, well there's the exception to what is likely not even a rule. Oh Ikea. It's always a scavenger hunt for the tools and parts with them.
DeleteI think this is why I’ve felt like a ghost lately. I have no one to reflect my face, my body, back to me. This made me think kindly about myself it felt like light getting in. XORebecca
ReplyDeleteDarling Rebecca, I too have been too much inside lately, and though I try to not look in the mirrors, it has indeed felt like a ghost looking back at me. You are not alone, beautiful cherished woman. How nice to see you here!
DeleteThis is the post I needed to read today. The sunlight photos are perfect for the sunlit moment of recognizing your beauty. I love the Yoda, "There is no try." I will hold that on this day, a day I really needed to read those words. You are beautiful in every way.
ReplyDeleteRobin, why are we so hard on ourselves. We don't think or say to anyone else the things we say to ourselves. You, too, are beautiful in every way (and see how I accepted your kindness there?). Hugs.
DeleteI disagree with Yoda. We try because we must. We don't succeed right away. So we try again.
ReplyDeleteWe don't succeed. We try harder but we have to rest first. Still we try some more. We try even harder than we imagined we could.
Sometimes we weep a little in the in-between but we do get back up. We take stock--try to figure out what happened. We might take notes. We might even ask others why we didn't succeed. But, we go for it again and again and. . . And then it happens. We break through. We break free.
Truth is? We cannot succeed unless we try enough. So tell Yoda to hush. He's not even human. He isn't even real.
Besides, you keep trying. We know because you're still here, sister.
Oooooooeeeeeeeeeeee! Okay then! Well you make a very cogent argument indeed, one that is absolutely empowering in its recognition of trying and trying again as important pit stops on the road to success. Thank you for this perspective oh wise one! What is your name? I hope you stop by again.
DeleteOh my love! I struggle with this every second of my life. Even in my dream world where I sometimes allow myself to be a tiny bit satisfied with how I look. Last night I had a dream where a woman said to me, "You look good for your age," and I said, "You don't even know how old I am."
ReplyDeleteThere is some profound information there, I think.
But yes- this is it. This is how we are, how we look. I don't even look in mirrors unless I can help it anymore. Not at my face, or my body. And that is incredibly insulting to myself and shows just how very vain I am. Which is also a judgement. Let us DO better.
Dear Mary, it is easy to say it stems from vanity, but I think it might actually stem from something that is quite the opposite, from some deep place where we internalized the sense that we were not enough, that we were somehow wrong in our very being, and our vulnerable inner selves have struggled with this invalidating misunderstanding ever since. I keep thinking how I never see other people the way I assume people see me, and so why can't I kinder to me. Let's hold hands, as we do, and walk toward the DOING together, shall we? I love you so.
DeleteI think it stems from religion which has for thousands of years told women they are lesser than men as well as our youth culture particularly as it pertains to women's looks and beauty but also how it invalidates the aged.
DeleteI've had people tell me I don't look that old when I tell them I'm 72. Makes me wonder what they think a 72 year old woman is supposed to look like.
"I thought how sad that I only see myself as I imagine others must see me and what would it be like to just love myself regardless?"
ReplyDeleteWhat I see is a beautiful, kind, smart, hard working woman, mother and wife. You have only to look at your children to see how much love you have given. Snap out of it! to quote Cher in Moonstruck:)
Be kind to yourself sweetie. Be as kind to yourself as you would be to a friend. You are perfect as you are.
And then there's this
"How cool is it that the same God that created mountains and oceans and galaxies looked at you and thought the world needed one of you, too?"
When I went with my sister and niece to my great niece's wedding and we stopped at the market I wrote about, one of the stalls was handmade lotions and skin care items and she had a basket of smudge sticks that she had made, each one had a crystal tied to it and I picked one out because I thought it was pretty, dried lavender and rose buds with a pink crystal (and this is weird because pink is not a color I usually am drawn to and I don't go crazy over lavender like so many people do). I had no idea that they had meanings or purposes until my sister asked what the one she picked out was for/meant. So I asked about the one I held. Self love, she said. My first thought was well, that's kind of narcissistic. But upon further reflection, like you, I don't see the beauty in my aged face that I see in others. I am inherently selfish, I can be jealous and snarky, blunt, in fact I used to warn people that I can be hard to take, and my acts of generosity of word or deed is a purposeful (though I think I've grown to more spontaneous giving and sharing). People don't generally see that in me but I know nonetheless. Case in point. My daughter gave me a tub of dates. My first thought was not to share them immediately because I knew there was more then we would eat but only when I felt they had to be shared or they would go bad. My neighbor doesn't know that, she only knows I shared them with her. So maybe the universe was telling me something is my attraction to the self-love smudge. Maybe to stop being so judgemental towards myself.
ReplyDeleteI love that Yoda phrase, and have quoted it myself, but to be honest it's too easy and the world just doesn't work that way. (Apologies to George Lucas.) I think trying is valiant and worthwhile, as well as perhaps opening yourself to seeing victories in less absolute terms. In other words, you may not perfectly re-engineer your perceptions or silence that self-critical voice, but what ARE you learning? What HAVE you gained? At least a sense that you're being hard on yourself and that you already have much to appreciate.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this. I recognize and find relevant every single word.
ReplyDeleteI often say that I don't fuss over my looks anymore because no one is looking at me. But that does not sound very positive. When I was young, I cared so much about trying to be cool and having people like me. Now I can just relax and don't worry about others and am comfy with myself.
ReplyDeleteHow will you do this?? Have you any ideas on approaching this for yourself?? You do it as second nature for others...I am happy to see this!
ReplyDeleteI don't know if it is a cultural thing in just America, or if this female self-loathing exists in other places in the world. I, too, feel ugly most of the time, especially With my clothes off. But, an a-ha moment, I recently came across a lovely photo of me at sixteen and I was stunned by how beautiful I was! Then I remembered that I sure didn't feel beautiful even back then. Do you know when I feel most beautiful and loving to my body? When I get a massage. It puts me into myself quite wonderfully. Try it!
ReplyDeleteOops. I failed to identify myself on the comment: Tara
ReplyDelete