Confidence

I have been thinking a lot lately about confidence. Not only throughout the process of my training, but also within the context of my counseling, teaching, and volunteering work, I've seen so much how self-esteem, self-efficacy, and self-worth are immeasurably linked to our perception of self, others, life, happiness, value, accomplishment, etc.

So often I think most of our day-to-day conflicts and misunderstandings stem from an internal sense of frailty - a personal haziness that leads to interpersonal confusion and disconnect. My goal, lately, has been to be more mindful of my insecurities - which is linked to being mindful of my ego - because they are two halves of the same coin.

And so, I've been embracing my smallness while also acknowledging (or rather, learning to acknowledge) my greatness as well. Sort of a strange balance to strike, really. An odd little dance with lots of critical, self-chatter that has to be either ignored or redirected... whilst trying to give my sense of self-worth an ongoing pep talk like some sort of best friend or protective older sister.

This came up, in large part, due to the death of my cousin (more like an aunt) last fall. She was someone who made no apologies. She was a very genuine, honest, and strong female - her directness in striking contrast to her southern upbringing. I always had such admiration for the way in which she was true to herself - even if it meant bucking tradition or common perception. She was generous in the way she wanted to be. Loving and kind on her own terms. And patient with her own faults.

For whatever reason, poetry often helps me navigate my grief. And so this poem is for her:

Don't Call Me a Lady
For Pru

Girl, stop hunching your shoulders
as if you have to apologize for your existence.
Stand up tall, look them square in the face,
and if you want another cookie
damn well go ahead and take one.
Just remember to say please and
thank you (and smile only if you mean it).

Young lady, don't waste your time on
someone who can't treat you with kindness.
He may not fawn all over you, but he sure as hell
better know what he's got when he looks at you.
Hot shots are like dandelions: vexing yet plentiful.
A good man is more important than a pretty face,
and well worth the wait of a few broken hearts.

Little mama, I can tell you haven't slept.
Sit down and rest; you don't have to hover every second.
Your child won't know when to stop unless
you show her; won't understand limits
if you place none on yourself.
Wipe those tears, quit your whining, and remember:
Life moves at the pace you set.

World, don't call me a lady.
I have no interest in being pretty or refined...
in making nice and staying quiet.
I will kick up a fuss when it serves me to do so;
I will not bow my head to anyone.
Speak my name; throw back your shoulders.
I have no cause for regret.

Silliness

My daughter is a funny girl. Silly and playful - she loves to make others laugh and she's got a pretty sly and witty sense of humor for one so young.

One thing I admire about her and my husband is their willingness to be ridiculous in their play. They don't mind looking crazy or acting dopey - particularly if it's funny and is going to get the desired response of laughter they may be seeking via their antics.

I have always struggled with appearing foolish. I equated silly with stupid, and I feared appearing stupid. Here I am in my late 30s, and life looks very different in this decade. So it is my concept of foolish has begun to change.

It began, I believe, when my daughter was very young. She liked to go to the mall and ride the electronic doodads and geegaws all clumped together in the small, tyke-friendly playland outside the arcade and across from the food court.

One day I watched my husband do a series of clown routines for her as she rode a series of objects. Horse. Ice cream truck. Car with tongue-wagging dog. He threw himself into it completely - without regard for passers-by, mall staff, or other children milling about.

I saw him do this many times. In many malls. And each time, he unflinchingly chose to be as foolish as possible in the most public of places... all so his daughter would giggle in the way that makes his heart giddy.

And here we are in toddlerhood. Moving away from the rides and into new territory filled with preschool, friend-making, and an increased curiosity about the world and its many inhabitants. I see my daughter choosing to be silly and playful at home... reveling in the genuine laughter she can produce from her oft-too-serious parents. And I have seen her shy away from being anything that might get her noticed in any way when at school or meeting new people.

She is caught between two models... two modes of interaction offered by her parents: 1) abandon and 2) hiding. Perhaps it is this observation, above any other, leading me to question my relationship with silliness.

I have begun to notice great strength in the foolishness of others. My envy of others' ability to dive head-long into goofy behavior has morphed into admiration... something to be inspired by. Something to aspire to.

Back in October, I did a run of five weeks in Too Much Light... and challenged myself to be silly. To be laughed at. To be ridiculous or large or clownish. And... in some ways... I was successful in my pursuit. In fact, one ensemble member actually used the word clown (which made my day).

My hope is to become sillier with age... to grow increasingly willing to engage in antics and goofiness for the benefit of others and to care less about what it means or what it looks like or what so-and-so thinks of my behavior.

Silliness is ego-less. It is without attachment and often without expectation. In its best sense, it's the embodiment of compassion and joy - an authentic response to the humor and playful wonder available in so many small moments and details of life. Just as it is.

May you abandon your ego in pursuit of silliness today. May you refuse to self-edit yourself out of goofy, grinny, foolish fun.

Connection

To my surprise and chagrin, I just realized today there were comments left by readers - all of which had gone unanswered due to my forgetting to set up an auto-email type thing to send them my way any time one was left!

To those of you who have written... I am so sorry! Normally I try to be very good about responding quickly and thoughtfully to whatever is shared; it is, in fact, one of the great joys of writing a blog - seeing what clicks for certain people, being able to gain greater insight and understanding from the thoughts of others. Such a gift.

And it relates to something I have been thinking about a lot in the last few days: connection. Or perhaps interconnectedness. There are so many words, all of them just-quite-almost-there in describing that sense of one-ness we can sometimes achieve. The sense that we are actually all linked together in some way along a web of intricate and often shocking interlacing... so that we end up closer than anticipated. See the overlapping in striking, beautiful bold brushstrokes that have the power to encircle us in a way that reminds us we are protected, loved, and known.

One of the darkest feelings states I have known (continue to know and struggle against) is alone-ness. Not just solitude, or singlehood, or even being solo. No... I mean alone-ness. Cold and bleak and seemingly infinite - like snaky icicle fingers wrapped around your chest, squeezing and wringing until all your breath is replaced by an insidious yet undefined panic.

This is a place of lost-ness. Of inertia. Self-doubt and self-loathing and self-defeat. This is a place of paranoid questions and insecure inner monologues... of misplaced exhaustion and displaced fear. This is the place you can be in a roomful of people, in the middle of family dinner, in the arms of your lover... because it has nothing to do with anyone but you. A lone you.

Maybe you know this place. Maybe yours has a slightly different color scheme or internal temperature. But chances are, you have been here too. Second-guessing yourself and pushing everyone away in an effort to circumvent the inevitable rejection you are convinced awaits your next utterance.

For me, this place is dark and ugly. It brings out a side of myself (an aspect of my dual nature) I sometimes have difficulty embracing and accepting. It brings out my deepest fear, I think, which is being unloved, unaccepted, and un-valued.

Which is ego, yes? At least connected to ego and to my little "i" self, because the ego-less aspect of me... the self who thinks of others first... that side knows we are already connected. You and I. We are always connected. My movements move your web, yours move mine. And although that interconnectedness can be quite scary sometimes (mostly when we don't want our stuff to "move" in any way, shape, or form), it can also be immensely comforting.

One of the greatest lessons I am learning is to love myself. Not in a Hallmark-y cheesy kind of way or a Lifetime movie-of-the-week way. I mean in the way that stops the unending litany of internal insults. The way that removes the blocks I impose upon myself (paralyzing and creating doubt and confusion to such a degree I cannot make a decision as to what to do). The way that quiets the voice who uses words like ugly, fat, untalented, and fake.

Remembering I am connected to you helps me in establishing a sense of love for myself. When I notice there is no other, find a place of compassion, listen with my whole being, find a state of peace because I believe it is as much for you as it is for me... literally, figuratively, together, alone, yesterday, today, tomorrow.

Connection is a source of strength. Interconnectedness is an aspect of our wholeness. Somewhere you and I are not distinct or separate from one another... and when I remember that, I remember that to love you I have to love me - and vice versa.

May you love and celebrate you today. May you feel at one with everything around you - if only for a shining, happy moment!

Ego

I don't know about you, but I have been thinking - really thinking - about ego a lot as of late. I mean, A LOT. Maybe because mine thwarts me so. Maybe because it's at the crux of a very important lesson I need to learn. Maybe because it's a term of popular parlance in modern culture and seems to pop up all the time in the most banal places.

Whatever the reason, it's been haunting me lately. Showing up in my readings, my television shows, my morning news.

You see, I had always understood ego as the prideful side of me. The haughty, snooty, all-too-important, give-me-a-pony side rooted in childhood yearnings and unfulfilled wishes. But it has only been recently that I have also begun to recognize ego as the insecure and cowed side of me as well. The broken, dark, hopeless side convinced of failure and eager to point out moments of stupidity or ugliness in order to reinforce an imagined need for anonymity.

I guess ego can go both ways. It can make us feel larger than everyone around us, or smaller than dirt. And both are distorted visions of who we are and where we stand in relation to others - one increasing us to gargantuan size and the other working diligently to remain invisible because we are convinced of our smallness.

Ego is the voice that whispers to you and tells you convincing lies. It plays upon your fears and fishes through the caverns of your heart to find the perfect nugget that will unnerve you or jangle in just the right way so you speak in jumbles and don't say what you mean.

And here is the most important part, I feel, of this ego conundrum. Ego, which is the opposite of our larger self - the one that is connected to all people and all life and everything around us - ego, the little "i" of our seeing and being and living, is what ends up separating us from other people. Either because we feel we cannot reach up high enough to merit their attention or because we feel we are too far above to possibly be able to understand or even tolerate their presence.

This can be communicated and experienced in a myriad of ways. The most simple of which might be never seeing (really seeing) the people around you on the train as you head to work. Ignoring the man standing at the entrance of Starbucks, cup in hand. Forgetting to hold the door for the woman with a stroller wrangling two kids and a shopping bag. Talking yourself out of asking her out. Heading home early from a party because you were convinced everyone was ignoring you. Never sending out the manuscript you finished three years ago.

In its more insidious form, it becomes road rage, cruelty, racism, violence. The news stories all start to chant the tale of little "i": racially motivated hazing in South Africa, violence against women in the media, increased violence in Pakistan.

I realized this morning that if we all believed, knew and understood and embraced, that we were all connected - all part of humanity, or life, or spirit, or god or whatever you wish to call it - if we saw ourselves more in the context of the big "I" and not the little, then we would be much less likely to hurt one another. We would be more compassionate, more forgiving, more patient with each other.

There is an excellent TED talk by Jill Boltle Taylor about her stroke and how it changed her way of viewing and experiencing the world. As a neuro-scientist, she made meaning via left and right brain... but she also talks about how it connects to the different lenses we use to view the world. The ego vs. the larger self (little "i" vs. big "I"). The way in which she describes how she experienced a connection to everything during her stroke when her ego (her left brain) shut down was particularly significant. Something that has stuck with me.

Of course, contemplation is often so much easier than action. And so it was I had started down this path of thought, listening to stories of disconnection and sadness on the radio, when I encountered a garbage truck in the alley.

I could not get through. I was worried I would be late to pick up Ari at school. It was raining out. And so I sat, patiently at first, waiting for the man to finish loading in the large bins outside each building on our block. One. Two. Three. Four. Surely he must be done now. He looks at me. He gets into his truck, moves forward. And stops about 2 feet from his original position... gets out and begins to load in more garbage. He could have moved just a few more feet to let me pass. But he does not. He doesn't even look at me. Just loads up more garbage, truck smack-dab in the center of the alley.

It is at this moment I snap, start spewing forth expletives, and quickly turn around to go the other way and loop the entire block so I may go in my intended direction down Ridge. I am cursing him, feeling angry and mean, wishing to pour forth my ire in some tangible, unavoidable way so that he may understand the ignorance of his actions.

I consider stopping near the alley so I can roll down the window and scream some choice words at the man. Or maybe hop out and read him the riot act for being so blind to someone else's needs. But then I think: he's doing his job. He's got his own needs, his own morning, his own time clock to contend with. And even if he didn't move out of spite or uncaring or whatever... the bottom line is, my anger does nothing for either of us.

So I drive on, get to Ari with plenty of time to spare, and think some more about ego and "other" and the ways we imagine ourselves separate from one another. Mostly to justify our ego-driven decisions.

May you notice others around you today with a sense of compassion and connection. May you feel embraced by the world around you.

Impatience

One of the realizations that set me toward creating this particular blog in this particular month was connected to an aspect of my personality I have long struggled with: anger.

I think most people who know me would be surprised to hear I consider myself an angry person. Or would be unused to thinking of me in that way. In fact, I have shared that info with friends and gotten disbelieving and confused responses.

But... truth be told, anger is something I have struggled with for a long time, and my ability to redirect it and/or express it in the most diplomatic way possible (usually) is the result of many years of concerted effort.

The sad part, for me, is knowing that the public face and persona I share is much more evolved than the private one. I fear my family and closest friends receive the brunt of my anger and often are at the difficult end of my least compassionate and diplomatic moments. I'm not sure why that is; perhaps I believe I can slack off around them... or I have a fundamental trust they will love me no matter what I may say or do... that, ultimately, all is forgiven.

This is, of course, unfair and not too kind on my part. Maybe even presumptuous and arrogant.

So... I had come face to face, again, with my anger recently - most notably in the form of impatience. Impatience with my husband, with my daughter, with my parents. And I began to really think about it. Where does it come from? How is that connected to my sense of self? Why do I feel able/allowed/at liberty to express such a lack of compassion or kindness for those most intimate to me?

The big ah ha I had (which may seem small to you) was recognizing that impatience is a form of ego. The little "i" believing itself to be a big "I" and therefore more important than everyone else in the room.

My impatience arises out of a belief that I am right and others are wrong... that I am trying and others are failing somehow... that my efforts hold merit and others somehow fall flat or short or become inconsequential or not enough in comparison.

All of which is quite lacking in humility, kindness, or empathy.

Sometimes it's hard to look at my own ugliness. Particularly because I am, at heart, a rather insecure person. And so, it's already a struggle to separate the authentic dark spots from the imagined ones. But they are there - the real ones... the ones that warrant scrutiny and sharp, unflinching honesty.

My impatience is a very dark spot on my heart at present. I have become more aware of it, more mindful of it in my day-to-day living, and so it has taken on the presence and steady knocking of a dripping faucet or ticking clock.

I'm not sure I've figured out yet how to change it. The impatience that is rooted in anger that is - I suspect - ultimately rooted in a deep sense of unhappiness... a lack of belief in myself separate from the sought-for or imagined validation of others.

Which is ego. All the way.

If and when you look into your own darknesses, may your courage see you through to a new light, a new perspective, and a new way of being.