Smokey Mirror

I have struggled with feelings of unworthiness from the age of seven. At the age of 27, I decided I was worthy simply because I’m alive. That was a huge step, but it has taken an additional eight years for my feelings to change accordingly.
Celebrating my 35th birthday, something extraordinary happened. Some of my friends didn’t show up. A few years ago, that would have been catastrophic to my self-image. It would have been proof that I wasn’t worthy. This year, I was surprised they weren’t there, that I had not heard from them. I missed their presence and  hoped they would still come. When they didn’t,  I sincerely hoped they had just forgot, that everything was ok with them and their loved ones.
When I realized what had actually happened, I felt a jolt of pure joy. All these years of hard inner-work had paid off. Of course, I had already noticed enormous shifts in my self-perception, but this felt like coming home. Home at last!

This week, a friend came by my house unexpectedly. It was a mess. He walked through my living room a few times, sighing with relief. He was so happy my house could be a pigsty too. I felt horrible. As my friend was celebrating the mess in my living room, I was doing my utter best to convince him this was not normal. Everything would be normal within an hour, clean and tidy. Although he clearly felt more at ease with me now he knew I was only human, I was trying hard to uphold this image he had had of me. I was under the spell of perfection.

For most of my life, I’ve been under it’s magic charm. I was led to believe that if people got to know the real me, they would not love me. So I desperately tried to live up to this self-created picture perfect image. Up to the point where I could not separate myself from the image I had created. I was all tangled up. I had to learn I could not please every one, had to learn I did not want to live up to everyone’s expectations. The best I could do was doing my best at being me. In doing so, I somehow have broken the spell and slowly have got to be me again. But sometimes I stumble upon a part of me that is still living under that vicious spell called perfection. When I spot it, I look my demon in the eye and murmur my counter spell over and over again: perfection is boring, perfection is boring, perfection is boring, perfection is…

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Derek Walcott - from Collected Poems 1948-1984

On the news, I saw a man who was $14.000 in debt. Due to the  increasing interest, his monthly mortgage costs had increased by $700. Yet, he was very reluctant about selling his house. He didn’t want to go back, he said. Back to what, I wondered. Why was he holding on to a house he so obviously couldn’t afford? It was clear that this was about more than just a house. What was he afraid of losing if he sold that house? It seemed as if his self-esteem was linked to this structure of wood. He was even willing to get more indebted to hold on to this false sense of security. 

How about you? Have you built your self-esteem on fleeting things like success, good looks, health or even a house. How far would you go to keep the picture perfect? How would you feel about yourself if you lost your ‘house’?

I have learned that true self-esteem comes from self-love. Ask yourself: which parts of yourself do you need to accept, before you can love yourself? Why can’t you simply accept these parts and what will it take for you to accept them? Work through the answers. Have patience and most of all: have compassion on yourself. Then one day, when you’ll lose your ‘house’, you’ll be able to stand tall, accept the challenge and move forward.  Then you’ll know that a house is a house is just a house.