Better with Time

I’ve spent most of my life feeling homely and insecure. As my feelings of self-worth slowly grew, my body and face aged, and by the time I finally liked myself as a person, I was embarrassed by my body.

A local art school needed an unclothed model for a 6-week sculpture course. They wanted realism, code for “not a centerfold.” Elderly was good.

I was ready for a new experience.

I entered the studio wearing only earrings, a head scarf, and a robe, carrying a small hand drum. I took my seat on the platform and dropped the robe. I didn’t look down at myself, because that would have made me want to cover up and bolt. 

I sat motionless for hours, with short scheduled breaks. “Realism,” I reminded myself. “This is what a woman of my age looks like.” I watched the students study me while their hands worked the clay. At every table, I saw little images of me develop and take on form. Like me, the little figures bulged and drooped, looking like little old ladies. Nude little old ladies, holding drums.

As my eye traveled from figure to figure, I saw that they all looked very much alike, and - they were beautiful. Beautiful little old ladies, sitting with their shoulders back and their heads up, looking proud of who they were.

I fell in love with all of them, and at the end of the course I bought one of the figures, who now sits on a sideboard in my living room - head up and tilted to the side, eyes closed, hands on her drum. She is a mature, giving woman, with a strong back and graceful hands, and a body that bespeaks decades of living.

The poet Robert Burns wrote, “O wud the gods the gif tie gie us, to see oursils as others see us.” A gift, to see ourselves through the eyes of others.

I feel beautiful.

The Things That People Say and Do

I hadn't received a response to my application to graduate school and was desperate to learn whether I was in or out. I went to an orientation and looked for clues. After the question-and-answer period I approached one of the deans and introduced myself. Upon hearing my name, she turned away to speak to someone else, and I was left looking at her back.

"Uh-oh," I thought. "I didn't make the cut."

When the meeting broke up a little later, I had just introduced myself to a faculty member. As I gathered my purse, books, handouts, etc.,he said, "Here, let me help you will that."

He walked me all the way out of the building and to my car, asking me questions about myself and my desire to become a social worker, and told me he hoped to see me again.

I was puzzled. The dean had made me feel rejected, but the professor seemed to indicate I was accepted. Which was true?

As it turned out, neither of those actions was really about me. The dean was rude (she lost her job shortly afterward), and the professor was kind (as I got to know later, as a student, when he became my faculty advisor). I have since learned that other people's behavior is almost always an indication of who they are, not about you. People who complain about you are complainers, people who smile when they see you are smilers, those who yell at you are yellers, and those who hug you are huggers.

Watch the behavior of people around you, and see what it tells you about them! The things that people say and do are all about them, and not about you. (I'm sorry that it rhymes, but it does make it easier to remember!)

What’s your least favorite emotion?

In an unpopularity contest among emotions, Grief would probably win hands down. No one wants to feel it, and few want to be around anyone else who is going through it. When someone is dying, most friends and family stop calling or dropping by, not wanting to be where people dwell in the enormous grief of the end of a life.

In case you hate to even read about it, I’ll keep it short:

Grief comes to us all, in different forms, at different points in our lives, and sometimes we feel as though grief itself could kill us. But in life, everything changes. We adapt. We are altered by it, and can choose whether we emerge stronger or permanently damaged  –although that choice may not be apparent to us at first.

The important thing to know is that we eventually come out of it, albeit not unscathed. The scars we bear can ultimately become our greatest strength. I know this because it happened to me.

Confused Emotions

I saw a  mother rush to her young son, who had fallen from a small tree he had climbed. She hauled him up by the arm and spanked him, all the while yelling at him. She was conveying anger, but was actually discharging the fear she had just felt when she had seen him fall. Shouting and hitting felt normal to her, and was how she responded most readily whenever she was upset. The message her child received was probably distorted and humiliating.

When I was younger I feared anger and felt safer with tears, so I wept helplessly when anyone around me was angry. But when I was angry, I drew inward and appeared depressed. I’m sure my behavior baffled people. It’s no wonder I was misunderstood – I was sending contradictory messages!

We confuse each other by substituting more comfortable emotions for real ones which are painful to feel. When confronted by someone’s emotional reaction, including your own, consider that it might be a self-protective cover-up for what is really happening inside.

How is a "recipe" different from a "formula?"

As a chemist long ago, I worked with formulas, using calibrated containers to create compounds, and instruments to assay, desiccate, and weigh them precisely. Predictably, everyone using the formulas correctly achieved the same results.

 But when cooking, I start with a concept, a recipe - which may be merely an idea or a list of ingredients to start with - and then I make it my own. In rice pudding, for example, I substitute fruit for the sugar and add my favorite spices. It comes out different every time, but I always enjoy it.

 Recipes are adaptable, a creation of the cook. In any good recipe for healing, you are the "cook." Starting with an idea, you can omit or replace "ingredients," and add new ones, to make it yours.

There's no formula for healing, because everyone's pain and needs and dreams and hopes are unique. Life coaching needs to be about you, because it’s your life, to live and enjoy your way.

What does "support" mean for you?

How many definitions of “support” do you know?

One is “to provide for,” the way the main wage earner supports a family.

Another means “to subsidize,” as in making contributions of time or money to public broadcasting, community theater, local charities  etc.

Office staff, who answer the phones and sort the mail, support the work of the company.

There are many more synonyms and definitions, but the support ingredient in A Recipe for Healing is the kind that friends and family give just by showing up; the kind that comes from the community in the form of get well cards and casseroles; someone who listens to your troubles; a club, church, group or program you belong to that fills a hole in your life; or the neighbor and the nurse, who deliver your groceries and tend to your wounds.

We were never intended to struggle through life alone. 

Whom do you support, and who supports you?

A Recipe for Healing #2: Healing-vs-Curing

Do you know the difference between healing and curing?

To cure is to banish the symptoms of a disease or medical condition. Healing is something else. It means mending, or becoming whole. Applied to the spirit or the soul, it means overcoming suffering. 

Defined this way, healing is the rising above any kind of misery - whether fear, confusion, grief, poverty, boredom, indecisiveness, stress, abuse or mistreatment - whatever may be causing someone unhappiness or dissatisfaction, or holding them back from realizing their dreams.

Today's Recipe for Healing is: Take good care of your body but don't stop there! Tend to your happiness as well. Decide that you are going to stretch yourself, extending your reach, aiming for what will make your life richer in peace, purpose, and joy. This is called setting an intention, and it's easy. Just decide you're going to do it, and you will have taken the first step.