I’m not so sure about the term “brave vulnerability” … for me, it’s more often like plunging into the abyss, determined to resurface, and overcome ALL THE THINGS in the process!!!!
I was invited to take place in a photo shoot the other day. Since I’ve been considering I will need a professional author photo for my book… as well as for my Substack and/or eventual website, this was a great chance to get more comfortable with the idea.
Even the thought of participating in a photo shoot brought up a whole lot of insecurities about having to have my photo taken, but I decided “whatever, I’m not even going to worry about it.” I decided I’d wear my favorite shirt and all would be good. I have hated to have my photo taken since about 5th grade, which is around the time I decided I was homely and NOT photogenic. I received a yearbook for my last year in elementary school. I “accidentally” left it at a neighborhood reunion a few years back and the girl who found it really wanted it and I really did not, since it had been retraumatizing me for years…so I told her I would get it back from her someday, one day, or maybe never.
I hated my individual photo. I had shown up for picture day in way too formal of a dress, long light blue chiffon with white flocked dots, that my mom had sewn for me to wear to my aunt and uncles wedding the summer before. I even wore my grown-up sheer white “pantyhose” and as she usually did for picture day, my mom had set my hair in sponge rollers the night before, so my head was full of bouncy ringlet curls. I didn’t realize the huge mistake I was making until I got to school and the two girls I most envied in my grade (because they looked like Charlie’s Angels in my eyes) seemed to be laughing and whispering about me. Of course, they were wearing jeans and trendy tops, with their long, flowing Farrah Fawcett-like hair, I’d have given anything to have vs. my normally fine, straight, dishwater blonde hair. I went into the bathroom with a barrette I had somehow acquired, and I pinned my bangs back off of my forehead so I wouldn’t look so much like I was a 5-year-old Shirley Temple. I don’t have the forehead of someone who should try to rock a no-bangs look.
I had hoped my mom wouldn’t notice that I’d “fixed my hair” when I brought my picture package home that year. She never said a word. I’d love (sort of) to show you that picture, but I no longer have the yearbook. I may have an original floating around my parent’s house, and I will look for it next time I’m home and perhaps revisit this topic in a future post.
Also in that yearbook is a picture of me with the group of boys and girls who were the safety patrol. I’m in the front row and I’m wearing my old communion dress from a few years prior, that my mom dyed pink so that I could wear it again. I’m standing in the front row with by gangly arms sort twisted around each other in front of me as though they were pretzel braids, thinking I was all cute. But the first time I saw that picture, I thought “are my legs really that skinny and my knees that knobby… and how can my arms even be that long?!”
On the day of the photoshoot, I brought a few props because it’s always better if I have something to distract myself with rather than being hyper aware of the focus being entirely on me. But the thing I am always most self-conscious about is the girth around my neck. Even when I weighed under 100 lbs. in high school, I had a double chin. My weight has fluctuated a lot over the years, and especially since menopause, it’s worse than it has ever been. I’ve tried a lot of different things to tone that skin, to little avail.
But I sort of find it interesting that the more my body ages, the more my heart opens, and my mind wraps itself around realizing I am so much more than my outward appearance. I need my looks less than I ever did. Is that possibly God’s design? That we have more strength, flexibility, balance, and energy, together with the look of youth, until we don’t need to rely on all that so much, because now we have wisdom to fall back on instead? I do know given the chance, I’d rather have the wisdom any day.
Recently, after a new chiropractor took x-rays of my neck and spine (my first in over 25 years) I discovered that my spine/neck is curved unnaturally extended forward (the opposite direction of which it should), most likely due to spending a great deal of time looking down onto a keyboard for close to 40 years, more recently looking down scrolling through my phone, and way prior to that, rolling my shoulders forward and hanging my head down throughout my adolescent years, trying to not be seen at all.
Seeing an x-ray of my neck was shocking, because I’ve seen an upper cervical chiropractor for 25 years, but it never occurred to me that while my head may be centered left to right (her specialty), it certainly isn’t centered front to back (not on her radar at all). The good news is my new chiropractor prescribed a simple medical device to use that seems to be starting to reverse the curvature of my neck, which would have otherwise resulted in some spinal stenosis/arthritis within a few short years down the line.
What I’d never considered is that a huge reason for the excess neck/chin has a lot to do with the position of my neck and my inability to comfortably hold my shoulders back, keeping my head more upright, which would also hold the skin of my chin and neck from drooping forward.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…regardless of if the positioning of my neck makes a difference in the number of chins I have, particularly when putting my head down, I really need to embrace this part of me I’ve formerly rejected.
While I’m certain I’m being judged for it at times, whether I actually am or not, it truly is time to stop caring. Also how arrogant am I that I actually think anyone is giving me and my neck all that much thought at all? Even if some do judge me, I’m sure they are on to something or someone else in a matter of a minutes, never giving me another thought.
Also, when it has bothered me most, has been when I’ve been in a relationship with a man. As though I were somehow letting him down, by looking unattractive, or perhaps even more so that I might be putting myself at a higher likelihood of being abandoned because of it.
How often in my youth did I not look much past someone’s looks… and not only what they physically looked like, but the whole of the package they presented as being “them” … what kind of car they drove, what kind of clothes they wore and what kind of house they lived in. I made a lot of conclusions about people based on how much money I thought they might have, as though it symbolized their value, regardless of the myriad number of ways they might have come about that money. I made certain assumptions based on what someone did for a living… the size of the corporation, their title, their degrees, as though their level of importance had much at all to do with who they were at the core of their being. I slowly discovered, on numerous occasions, all the accouchements spoke more to their ability to adapt their identity to someone else’s expectations more than being aligned with what was most important to them. In fact, most people seemed to never contemplate what was truly important to them until they were often trapped in lives that would be hard to shift directions from. There had never been time nor encouragement to look within rather than (with) out. Most certainly, at a time in MY life when I had the most impressive exterior, insecurity was hovering slightly below that surface, and for a long time, I was sure it was MORE of the direction I was going in that was going to make me happy. Not to say that all outward signs of success are naught but a façade, but I do believe there is something to the material altars many humans attempt to build as testaments to our worth or covering for our lack of it.
I recently read a quote that read “Live Simply, So Other’s May Simply Live”. It really spoke to me. Especially having lived in a small town where it was so expensive to live, yet so many houses sat empty a good part of the year, as people’s 2nd or 3rd “vacation” homes, whereas other’s couldn’t afford to rent more than a very expensive bedroom in a house shared by multiple people.
Which also leads me to ponder why some people’s time is worth only $8/hour, whereas others may make several hundred per hour, or much more considering passive investments, trust funds, inheritances, etc. I’ve also often thought about how unlikely it is for people to get therapy at $100-$200/hour when they make so much less per hour. How can they ever really make it a priority? Yet without it (identifying and healing that which keeps them stuck), they may never have the capacity to be able to make more per hour.
This is why I love the concept of a spiritual big bang. I truly cannot think of anything other than a God flash happening across the consciousnesses of humanity that will have people be any other way than they already are. Sure, people currently get there when they get there, but also, are we running out of time? Can the earth amass any more neglect, can people get any more down on their luck, rinse, wash, repeat through the ages? I’m bored with history repeating itself in one version or another. I don’t want to experience it or observe it. I want more to be possible and likely for all of humanity. When do we, as a whole, start to level up rather than continuously spiral down?
Sure, some people have more education or perhaps are just naturally smarter…but it has often made me wonder if people were granted those skills by God to see what they would do with them. Would they amass what they could as a result and hoard it all or would they help other people. Did they opt for those skills and resources, when they met with God and the angels to plan their life purpose, sure they would do the “right” things with them, but then once they got to earth and lived a certain amount of life, the fear of lack, ridicule, etc. had them change their minds and justify why they were better off not to contribute to the bigger picture?
I read something today that said if just Zuckerberg donated his wealth, even only to the millennials, it would double each of their net worths.
I’m not saying I think everyone has to give up any portion of what they have, in whatever means they have acquired it, say in order to trust some sort of socialist society, since it’s foolish to think it wouldn’t be hijacked in some way anyway, since so many want power at any price, at least when men are at the healm, but I am curious what the original idea was. Unless we are the reality TV for some cosmic beings, in which case, I’m sure what we have evolved into is exactly what they were betting on. In that case, the season finale is surely upon us.
At a minimum, no accommodations were made for folks who had trauma getting in the way of their ability to maintain the bare minimum, and yet I also personally know men whose trauma absolutely gave them the ability to take, take and take with no regard to who would have less because of it.
I wonder what the world would be like if resources were distributed equally, and I don’t just mean money. What if even only compassion was distributed equally among us? I think we are born with an innate understanding of right from wrong, but maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it really is survival of the fittest… coming right down to natural selection for the Emmy award winning cosmic TV show.
I became a minimalist out of necessity, but in the end, it turned out I am happiest when I have the least amount of stuff. Occasionally my thoughts will drift to imagining myself in a big house again, and I quickly remember all that came with it, none of which is the least bit appealing to me. I decided to sell the house I bought after my refrigerator started making noises. I started to think about every appliance eventually needing to be replaced and honestly, I didn’t have enough belief in myself, at the very low point of my life, to think I could make it long-term on my own. In hindsight, I would have been fine, but also I believe I was supposed to take the path less taken at that crossroad anyway.
While I spent more than half my life primarily focused on what I looked like (including bells and whistles making up for what I was sure I lacked), slowly but surely the inside of me evolved into someone of more depth. It started slowly with me questioning what it was all for? Who was I trying to impress and furthermore, why?
So, this reminds me of something wise and wonderful my oldest daughter said when she was 18 years old. She was working in a restaurant and a new guy started working there and by the end of his first day, he asked her for her phone number. She told him no. She told me that she wasn’t interested in getting to know someone over texts/snapchats, stemming from the fact that he liked how she looked.
I found that to be so profound at her age.
She said it would be different if they had worked together for a while and he knew he at least liked her personality. Also, she said, if he had so quickly asked for her phone number, he probably asked for every girl’s number whom he liked the looks of.
It really got me thinking about “attraction”. How many times had I been interested in a guy based on how he had looked. Or the flip side of that, how many men have approached me throughout the years because they were attracted to how I looked, and how validated that had made me feel. As though if someone looks good to us or we look good to them, that is the number one most important factor, and we will worry about anything else that comes up later, if necessary. Are we so focused on looks because there isn’t much character prevalent in people anymore? Or ever? Needing to populate the planet, was our genetic hardware initially programmed to procreate, and if that was the case, are we now due for a software upgrade?
In the many times I have entered into a relationship, at least largely due to (surface level) physical attraction, after the novelty wore off and their true self fully revealed itself, the lack of deeper connection became a matter of tolerance, that was at least partially transactional in nature. Fearing life would be somehow worse without them and failing to see the ways in which it could also be so much better. I see so many relationships of “he” tolerates this in “her” and “she” tolerates this in “him”. It could be worse, they assess. I vowed “for better or worse”. Yes, well I think that was by the church’s design, otherwise there would be little compelling women to stay in relationships with most men. There is so much social pressure on women to be married, that it is easy for us to think “well, I’m the one who wanted to get married”. It’s so much more than merely “wanting”, it was the shame and judgement of being other than. Is the best we can hope for is that our partner is tolerable?
So often in my own relationships, by the time the initial attraction wore off, I was emotionally “attached” in other ways. I didn’t know our brains wire for safety, and that even in “feel bad” situations, our neuropathways can compel us to stay. Because of my attachment issues, my own true self was highly unlikely to reveal itself (or ever be developed, for that matter) because I pretended (my adapted self) to be whoever I needed to be in order to not be rejected. I didn’t know that I had a childhood trauma informed attachment disorder. That I couldn’t bear the thought of being abandoned, and this far outweighed if it would have been wiser for me to be planning my own exit strategy.
I wasn’t being manipulative. I wasn’t pretending. I was patterning. I was surviving. I was on autopilot. I couldn’t have chosen otherwise, until the pain was so great that I began to question why I was pursuing and or staying in relationships that made me feel so bad. As I stepped away from being in relationships at all, taking a break to examine what felt like an addiction to toxic men, resources bringing opportunities for enlightenment began to show up on my radar, and from there I could delve deeper into why I had done the things I had, at which times it hadn’t seemed possible to choose otherwise.
Looking good for the sake of relationships was so much more than a matter of how I looked physically, but also trying to be someone others would want to be in relationships with. For some reason, this didn’t happen with the women in my life. I was easily able to ascertain who I wanted to be friends with and who I did not, and it had everything to do with our being able to be real with one another. It only happened with men that I couldn’t/wouldn’t be “real”. I would start off by being authentic, and they would start off by seeming ok with that, but eventually I would realize they were not ok with that, and rather than leave, I would adapt… stay small… silently retract what I initially said was important to me, as though I had never said it at all.
So many times, in relationships, I participated in a lot of things that weren’t really very interesting to me, because it was what I thought my partner wanted to do, so much so that I couldn’t even think of anything I would rather be doing, if it meant having to do it together with them. I remember plenty of times wishing I were somewhere else, ideally home alone. Yet, I wouldn’t leave.
After the photo shoot, I stopped at a park (to look for rocks to paint hearts on) and while there, I decided to take advantage of the fact I was wearing make-up (which I seldomly do these days) and take some selfies with a variety of my less appealing “looks”. No smiling (resting bitch face) which particularly accentuates my jowls and puppet lines. Sigh. I think of how often people have asked me if I’m mad or sad when I’m doing nothing other than just “being” neutral.
Various faces of me with make-up
Similar to the “love-hate rice experiment” I spoke of a few prior posts ago, sometimes I wonder if I look the way I look because of all the obsessing and judging I did of how others looked when I was younger. It wasn’t really about them, but rather me constantly trying to evaluate how I compared and figure out what I needed to do be better. Was I ok? Was I coming up short? I used my judgement of others to quasi-raise my own self-esteem, and probably more often, lower it.
Did I spend so many years thinking negative things about myself and others that my resulting face/body are the result of all that? Apparently so many diseases and ailments are caused in our bodies because of our thoughts. If that is the case, I am grateful that I’m just dealing with occasionally chastising because of how I look. It is at least 100x better than I used to be. I now look in the mirror and think about what I love about me and regardless of how I feel about how I look, I do tell myself how much I love and appreciate me.
If like the rice, first having turned yellow (perhaps via my fathers seemingly repulsion toward me as a 3 year old), then eventually a soupy brown (by 5th grade when I saw my scraggliness through my own eyes, validated by the whispers and laughs of the pretty girls), finally nothing but a brown powdery residue (after decades of versions of the accumulated self-berating of one sort or another) My “hate” label crisp and yellowed? My metal lid corroded and starting to rust? Could changing my thoughts be reflected in how I look? I believe yes, absolutely, it could.
What an interesting phenomenon, the connection between self-loathing and judgement of others seems to be. I think it’s an epidemic at least in our country. Though by saying this, I don’t mean to discount my personal acknowledgement of my own behavior.
I always loved the children’s story, the Velveteen Rabbit. I must have known even as a child that I wasn’t yet real, and while I so craved to be, little did I know it would take until my mid-fifties to be worn enough to know I had gotten there! But just like the Velveteen Rabbit was then finally able to run off with his true peeps, isn’t that what it is like to age? You may no longer (at least inexpensively) be able to pull off the look of youth, but you finally know who you are and what matters over and above it all, as well as having found the people who love that about you and that you love about them.
I was watching the Apple TV original “The Morning Show” and one of the characters said, “It’s interesting what happens when women get older, we carry all this wisdom, but no one cares.” That’s true too, but what I love about this is I also don’t care to determine my worth by trying to assert my wisdom where it isn’t warranted, and no one cares what I think. I no longer jump through the hoops to find ways they might care or so that will need me, regardless of not wanting me.
I’ve heard many women complain about feeling as though they became invisible after the age of 40ish/50 whereas I find it a huge relief. I don’t care, perhaps even appreciate, that men don’t do a double take the way they once had, because I also no longer need that food for my ego. And what did it ever mean anyway?
Another book I used to love as a child was Corduroy. The stuffed toy bear sat on shelf long past what other toys had, and he was never sure why he didn’t get picked. Then one day a little girl wanted to buy him, but her mother said she didn’t have enough money, and besides “he’s missing a button”. So, feeling rejected, he went on an adventure that night in the store to try to find his missing button. After thinking he could get a button one off of a mattress, he makes too much noise pulling on it and the night security guard finds him and takes him back to the toy shelf. The little girl comes back to the store with her own money, buys him, takes him home and sews a replacement button on him, and they live happily ever after.
I’m not even sure why I thought it was a good idea to talk about these two beloved childhood books, except for that I think they gave me hope that despite seeming rejection or a sense of not belonging…they still found their way.
Various faces of me sans make-up
I stopped wearing make up shortly after I got divorced. There was a time in my life where I would have never left the house without at least some sort of concealer, eyeliner and mascara. I also stopped dying my hair shortly thereafter. I got it cut super short and started to let my roots grow out and I would have my hairstylist just bleach my hair from the roots to the end so there wouldn’t be a dramatic difference, keeping it short the entire time. Once all the old dye was eventually cut off and only my true color remained, I never dyed it again. It’s been about 11 years. I then started to let my hair grow long, never getting more than a trim a few times a year. I always preferred long hair, yet I’d never let my hair grow past shoulder length. For some reason I hadn’t thought my own hair would grow longer than that, or that even if it did, it would not look good on me. I absolutely love the color of my hair, more than any amount of highlights I’d spent thousands of dollars on over the years and I love it being long. To think my hair started to go gray when I was in my twenties, and I could have just let it and saved all that money! I also stopped polishing my nails for a good 5 years or so (though I later started to do so now and then for my own enjoyment. I went through a Fuck-IT phase of feeling like I had to do all that to be “more palpable” to others.
Before making all of those decisions to get comfortable with natural me, I had first gone to a plastic surgeon. I had considered doing a total makeover including breast implants/lift, a tummy tuck and neck lift sort of thing that would have also involved moving some fat from my chin into my cheeks. I’m pretty sure I’d inquired about liposuction on my hips, as well. The quote had been for $27,000 for the whole kit and kaboodle. I’m so grateful that I didn’t go ahead with that plan, but also it made me think about the amount of money that would be required to keep up with that new and improved look. It wouldn’t have ended there. Surely once I had corrected the most obvious things I’d have gone on to find other concerns.
Another time I went to go see a consultant about Botox and fillers. After she pointed out all the places I “needed” it and that I’d require about a gallon at a time (ok, that’s an exaggeration), I thought if this is what it takes to keep myself together enough to be attractive to others then I really need to stop trying to “keep up with” with the masses of people that I never enjoyed in the first place. Or rather more than it having been about other people, what was truly exhausting had been the act of trying to be some particular way that at some level was even more unappealing to me than what I looked like.
So that brings me to fawning. According to the Oxford dictionary, fawning is displaying exaggerated flattery or affection; obsequious. Then I had to look up obsequious. It is defined as obedient or attentive to an excessive or servile degree. Then I had to look up servile. It is defined as having or showing an excessive willingness to serve or please others. It is also defined as “of or characteristic of a slave or slaves”.
For years I was a slave to beauty “standards” as determined by society. There was so much more I could’ve done that I didn’t either because of lack of money or drive, but to the extent that I didn’t, I also judged myself harshly. I was a slave to the approval of others. But it wasn’t just in how I looked, it was how I acted. Trying to be pleasing to others. To not disagree. To not be rejected. I think fawning goes hand in hand with the freeze response. Something happens and rather than fight/flight, one becomes frozen from not knowing how to act in a way that is appropriate for the situation because it would likely involve being other than “nice”. Because the fighting or flighting would result in rejection/rejecting and those seemed like a type of death sentence, by freezing one becomes detached from their emotions/body/mind… and allows for the more acceptable, robotic response of “nice” (i.e. turn that frown upside down…insert eyeroll). It's like being just a shell of a person. Being what someone else wants…or what we think they want…results in the least outward negativity…and the inward negativity is just ignored…until it can no longer be.
Fawning is still a thing I am working on. Its patterns run deep. I gobble up books about healing childhood trauma, which I talk a lot about in prior posts. It doesn’t have to be capital “T” trauma (as defined by Dr. Gabor Mate), it’s important to know even little “t” traumas still have major effects on the emotional development of children. I watch TikTok’s (from a variety of women empowering women) and absorb profound Instagram posts (especially from the.holistic.psychologist). I also registered in an upcoming free masterclass that I think will have some helpful insights.
This FREE masterclass is taught by Dr. Aimie Apigan, CEO of Trauma Healing Accelerated and founder of the Biology of Trauma. There is a link for it below if you also might be interested. It is on Wednesday, April 24, 2:00 pm EST.
The course looks at childhood trauma through the lens of our biology, nervous system, and neurodevelopment. According to Dr. Aimie, it is because of our biology of attachment that we: get anxiety, can’t break out of our relationship patterns, and develop chronic health conditions in adulthood.
Understanding the effects of childhood trauma on our nervous systems and ability to attach in our relationships is a relatively new exploration. Our parents never had access to truly processing their own pain (carried forward from their childhoods) and though surely they would have not wanted this to happen, it did pass onto us …and we passed it on to our children. Hopefully, this is the generation where all that stops.
Children absorb the unspoken pain of their parents and add to that the pain of their own experiences. Children often have no outlet to be able to speak about that pain and how they have been and are affected. Almost never will they do anything to appear to “cross” their parents as not only do they crave their love, nurturing, protection and guidance, but also their survival is dependent on not fitting into whatever environment they are subject to. Apparently, 1 in 6 children are officially diagnosed with mental disorders and 30% could be diagnosed with anxiety disorder. Dr. Aimee also says that the biology of attachment and neurodevelopment is the #1 reason why autoimmunity affects 23.5 million Americans.
What you will learn in this free Dr. Aimie Attachment Masterclass (April 24)
The three hidden childhood survival styles that lead to anxiety in adult relationships.
The six different attachment pains.
The specific health issues associated with each attachment pain.
The 6 steps to repairing Attachment Pains.
The role of neurodevelopment and neurotransmitters in an insecure attachment.
How to repair a biology of an insecure attachment to an earned secure attachment.
A guided somatic parts exercise: “Hold Me Close”.
Faces of me from last week’s professional photoshoot
IA few years ago, I was involved with a guy for a short time (he was a psychopath love bomber and I so loved being “that” dramatically adored, I totally fell for it). Early on he told me that he looked through my Facebook pictures/posts (red flag if any dude is ever that interested in your Facebook) and he said he had never seen a person who looked so different from one photo to the next. It made me think about the fact that I had sometimes felt like a shapeshifter in that, in short spurts, I could be whoever I thought I needed to be in order to “fit into” one situation or another. I think this developed as a result of not knowing who I was without someone or something defining me. I can recall how I was feeling at the time of a past photo by the look on my face. So often I look disconcerted. So often I felt like an imposter, uncomfortable about having to have my photo taken.
I can also tell when I was feeling good. About where I was, and who I was with. When I was comfortable, accepted, loved, and secure. When I didn’t care about anything else.
Even at my wedding I had one photographer that took formal photographs and another photographer that was simultaneously taking candid photos, and I wasn’t surprised to find I liked the latter ones so much more. Photos taken when I was just “being” myself rather than “posing” trying to be attractive (when I knew I was not). It wasn’t rational, it was psychological (similar to body dysmorphia… unconscious, emotionally abusive thoughts of self). I can go back through pictures over my lifetime and sometimes I was very attractive and other times I was not…but it had so much more to with my thoughts about myself in the present moment more than what was actually true or not. It’s crazy for me to realize how much of a theme this has been throughout my life, though I had never given it much analytical thought before, rather just survived it.
It’s a dangerous thing to be trying to be someone that will fit in when no matter what, you just know that you don’t. I am now convinced that the discomfort I so often felt was absolutely a sign of me trying to fit in with places that weren’t a match for me… yet I incorrectly thought I had to fit into those places in order to be happy. It couldn’t have been further from the truth. Now that I know what it feels like to be free… happy… independent of the opinions of others… there is no way I would have ever fit into those situations. However, I now believe I was supposed to experience that to also be able to speak about it at this point in my life. I see this every day, especially with young people trying to fit into various images they think they are necessary in order to be liked or chosen.
I was disassociated from myself because from such an early age I was sure that I was not enough, and I let the form I filled be defined by what I thought other people’s expectations were. I thought I had to do this to truly thrive. I thought this is the way life is, and maybe early on it sort of is. What society says is necessary. The opinions our relatives may push us towards because it is what they think is possible, probable, or preferred. What our spouses or partners expect, often based on their own life experiences, as influenced by their relatives. What our friends, teachers, neighbors and coworkers are doing… that at least appear to be making them happy (or not).
I had no internal compass, but only a compass outside of me… the direction I was going. What I wanted to achieve and acquire, but not qualities I wanted to exude. As a result of my experiences, I did eventually become someone I truly love. I had developed qualities. Tried on different things and eventually got better at discarding what didn’t work for me and retaining what did. I don’t like charmers, but early on had been fooled by many. I am bored by small talk. I don’t like people who use other people to get where they are going or acquire what they want.
There are definitely “cultures” in an industry, a company, a board meeting, a neighborhood, and a family that you are most apt to excel in if look for the cues and adopt “their” way of being. But when you at least have your very own space to return to, you can take that off like you take your bra off when you close the doors behind you. I think this rebound time is imperative. If you have adequate time alone to reflect, you will start to distinguish between what feels good and what does not. As you discover your own culture, you start to eliminate your exposure to other cultures that are not alignment with your comfort zone.
I appreciate anyone who ever helped me make it through a situation or a day or any season of my life. I love to help people where they are stuck. To find a way. To get it done. To have the security they crave.
I’m still fine tuning who I truly am, but I’m aware of who I am not, and increasingly more unwilling to be in situations that would require me to be any version of that to be included there.
As always, I apologize for any typos or grammatical errors I may have missed. I hate that I know I always miss several, and especially this week I’ve no doubt missed more than usual because I am particularly short on time since I am visiting my oldest daughter who has been studying abroad in Spain since the beginning of the year. As I get ready to press send, we just spent the afternoon/evening having arrived in Malta, and I’m absolutely enamored with this island!
Thank you so much for being here to read my thoughts, follow my journey to my soul, and hopefully find some inspiration along the way.
Sending you so much love!!
You’re such a beautiful, courageous, creative, compassionate, and multitalented powerful woman. Thank you for your vulnerable, authentic voice.