By this point in the global pandemic – most of us have spent enough time alone, or at least out of our normal routines to have caught a glimpse of our own shortcomings, imperfections, and things we’d rather hide away.
I know I have.
During our pre-pandemic busy day to day lives –this stuff gets covered up and successfully buried under the other stuff. But now, many of us are seeing stuff and parts of ourselves that we may not have realized were there and that make us uncomfortable. It’s up for viewing and there are not too many places to run and hide right?
Those things that we we’d rather not see in ourselves – we are also seeing in our societies. Some of us are waking up to flaws for the first time. While others of us are saying “I’ve been worried about or dealing with this problem for as long as I can remember.”
Friends keep warning me “you can’t un-see the Tiger King.” But can we unsee ourselves?
Would it even be helpful?
I don’t think so. Here’s why…
Bessel van der Kolk, a trauma researcher writes “As long as you keep secrets and suppress information, you are fundamentally at war with yourself…The critical issue is allowing yourself to know what you know. That takes an enormous amount of courage.” from The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
So what do we do with what we’ve seen? What do we do with what we normally don’t have the chance to see?
And if we do allow ourselves to see ourselves – how can that be a positive experience instead of a soul crushing awakening?
Here’s my story about the parts of myself I wanted to betray and abandon last time I was isolated and unsure, and unable to find my new normal.
I was at home after giving birth for the second time. But before I tell you that part I have to back up…
I went to all-girls school for middle and high school. It was one of the first all-girls schools in the United States founded to support young women in getting an education so they could go on to college, have careers and support themselves.
My early education taught me that you cannot wait for the world to be ready, for equality, you just need to show up and use your voice. And… so I did.
I got to college and watched in total shock as young women were spoken over loudly by male classmates. I wasn’t surprised that they were spoken over – I was just surprised that most of the young women shut up, got quiet and went away. I would think “Wait?! What had just happened?” I read about this in books. I had seen it in movies. But I truly had not witnessed it in person. I was shocked.
I didn’t see the point in blaming the male students or the culture at large. It is not where I wanted to put my energy. After all, what did I have control over? All I could do, the only thing I could control, and have domain over was and is me – and so I proceeded.
I spoke. I was seen. I learned a lot.
I learned that not everyone liked me speaking up like that. And I learned that others loved it. Neither response really mattered so much…all that really mattered was that it felt right to me.
Then after many years of education and work… Motherhood. Cue the scary music.
No – it wasn’t scary because I abandon my baby. It was scary because I nearly abandon myself.
If you want to step into an idealized role, where there are LOTS of ideas about perfection that can NEVER EVER be met…welcome to Motherhood. (I am sure Fatherhood or Parenthood have their own heavy load, but I want to talk about what I know best.)
Now, I know not all of you reading this are parents. That’s good. And not everyone wants to be a parent – that’s good too. I am always an advocate of people acting on behalf of their own self interest. And this does not = selfishness or narcissism. More on that another time…
What I am really talking about here is how we can betray ourselves or how we can choose to belong to ourselves and claim ourselves.
Remember my amazing all girls education that helped me feel confident with my voice, opinions and choices? There was one thing missing. Not once in 6 years did anyone say anything about the value of Motherhood. Then 20 some years later – I am at home with a newborn baby. I have a step child who is 12 yo and another child who is 4 yo and a baby in arms. A baby, I wanted to have. A baby I planned to have.
I also planned to take a year off from work and had the privilege to do it. Truth is – I also could not see any other way to do it. We did not have family nearby to help and we could not afford full time child care. And while I had tried to juggle growing and managing a part time business and 2 kids, it was really nearly impossible to do anything other than tread water. So when the 3rd baby came, I thought, maybe I will just be home with the kids and maybe that will suit me?!
One day, one of my oldest dearest friends called me to see how I was doing. My days – a blur of nursing, diapers, laundry, naps and shuttling kids to activities and school. I had little to no sense that I was “getting anything done.” I had been able to stay somewhat ‘productive’ when balancing work and parenting 2 kids, but now with 3 – “productivity” as I had come to define it, was gone.
Anyway – back to my friend who called – since she was not a Mom yet, I didn’t want to chat about babies. And since she had a career, I was painfully aware of my lack of career at that moment. Plus, my world felt small, I just wanted to be carried away into a bigger world through her stories.
She was working as a writer and editor. “How are you, I asked? Oh what? Just back from Morocco? You interviewed Brad Pitt?! Tell me more…” I listened and we laughed.
But when she asked about me? I didn’t think I had anything to report. I mean first of all Brad Pitt?! But I am not a star struck person usually. So it wasn’t that. Brad Pitt aside – I couldn’t think of anything much to say – I had a baby, “how un-extraordinary” I thought to myself.
I know that’s sad. It makes me sad to reflect on it. But if I am being honest about what happened at that moment in time – the truth is I was embarrassed and ready to abandon a part of myself in her company. I was ready to devalue my choice to have another baby and stay home because I was not willing to see myself. I was trying to see myself through what I thought were her eyes.
In the context of talking to an old friend – one who I had been brought up with to value work and a career, but not Motherhood by our school culture and context – I gave up owning that part of myself while I was speaking to her. I wanted to abandon it. And let me tell you not owning that part of myself felt AWFUL. It hurt. It hurts me now. Watching myself trying to discount and disown a REALLY important decision I had made was horrible.
I had made the decision to have another baby with heart and excitement and now…I am going to just throw that under the bus?!
So…back to the question of what can we do when we see and encounter parts of ourselves that we didn’t know were there? That we didn’t know existed. How can it be positive instead of soul crushing?
Get curious. Look. Listen. Make it visible.
I got curious about that feeling, that dread. Why did I feel so undervalued?
I sat with it. And it was not comfortable! But I knew from experience and from my work – that if I ignored this experience – this glimpse of myself I had just had – things would not get better. They may go underground and out of conscious awareness, but they would not get better until I sat with them and was willing to see myself more clearly.
I knew that I was , as Bessel van der Kolk said above, going to be at war with myself if I didn’t take a look at this.
You know what I became aware of by listening to myself and paying attention and letting it be made visible? That there was another war being waged that was internal – part of me that felt ashamed for putting my career on hold. That part of me had a lot to say. I listened. And part of me felt like I needed to be home with my baby in order to be the best Mom I could be. I listened to that too.
Those two parts of me were at war. The way I had internalized the messages of how to be valued and good and do my best in the world were in a tug of war. And it became very clear that I could never win. So I sat with the two parts. They were in a way like two children arguing to be right. And neither was ‘right.’ And they both had to be seen and heard.
I learned how to hold space by being the awareness for both of those parts of me that had taken those external messages in. I learned to rise above both tugs of war and to see them both.
A few weeks later I talked to my friend again. I asked her “do you recall our school and all of those women who educated us to be our best selves ever telling us that it was valuable to be a parent? To be a Mom?“
“Nope.” She said. And then she offered me a gift…
“Why do you think I am nearly 40 and it is just occurring to me that if I want to have a baby, it may be too late?”
Ah… at that moment, I realized she was suffering too. Just in a different way.
There was clearly no ‘right’ way to do any of this. No right way, no formula for a satisfying fulfilling life. I mean I knew this, but still I had fallen in to the trap and allure of thinking that maybe there was some answer outside me.
If I was going to find a way forward – I would have to see myself. And decide for myself what I needed and wanted to live my life. When I was looking to others to tell me I was valuable and good enough, I would never be satisfied.
I wanted someone to see me – haggered, tired, overweight and nursing and tell me I was valuable. I would have to learn to give that to myself.
I recently watched the documentary “Becoming.” During the film, when Michelle Obama was asked by a young black teenage girl “How did you, as a black woman, persevere through invisibility?” She answered, “For me as a Black Woman I never felt invisible. And thinking through my story about why now, I don’t feel invisible, I think it is because my parents made me always feel visible. It came not from what was going on in the world, but from what was going on at my dinner table. My Mother, she let us ask anything…you had to be polite… but that invisibility, it starts here (pointing to herself). We cannot wait for the world to be equal to start feeling seen. We are far from it. Time will not allow it… You’ve got to find the tools within yourself to be visible and to be heard and to use your voice.”
This call to action is for all of us. No matter your gender, racial identity, class identity, role in your community – every single one of us has the tools within to be visible and to be heard.
And in doing that – you being willing to see yourself, then o one else can lay claim.
You may not have been as fortunate as Michelle Obama to have a Mother who saw you and believed in you. Or maybe you did, but you dealt with so many other adversities and traumas that it was not enough and you’ve lost your way.
Fear not – it is never too late. You have the tools to see yourself and to hold the space for all of you. You have a Body + Your ability to direct your Attention. That is all you need.
These two tools that you have – you can learn to use them to see and heal yourself – all of you, especially the less than perfect parts. When you use your Body and your kinesthetic sensation as a way to develop your self awareness you will progress by leaps and bounds. Biology is on your side here! Use it to end the war.
Eventually, I did. I decided not to wish away any part of me but to radically practice accepting all of me – I started owning the fact that I liked to work and that I like to parent. I really prefer to do both and I am better at each one because of the other. I started owning that I wanted to be a Mom – even to my friends who didn’t want to be a Mom. I started owning my choices, owning my story.
So here’s to us. To knowing ourselves. And to embracing and loving on every imperfect last square inch of it. Because in the end, it is all we have got. We have ourselves. And once we are willing to see ourselves in all of our shortcomings and imperfections…there in lies the liberation.
Lots of love, Astra
