Where to begin? And by “begin” I mean, where do I start again (and again and again and again). I have a habit of starting, but not finishing. I have a deeply embedded fear of coming to the end of something, of creating something imperfectly, of…rejection.
There was a time in my youth when I was pretty damn sure I wanted to be an actress. I wanted to be on stage, on tv, on the big screen, I wanted to be seen by the world. I imagined interviews and I imagined dramatic scenes I’d perform. I pictured myself beautiful, desirable, adored, and admired. I wanted to be a triple threat - a dancer, a singer, an actress - and, why not, a model to boot. That dream to some extent faded, but it was also bludgeoned to death. It came face-to-face with how I actually saw myself and how I felt the world was seeing me. It was NOT pretty.
The key words there were the desires beneath the desire. I wanted to be loved. Why was I not feeling loved already? I was taught that to love oneself was “haughty,” conceded, made you a selfish jerk, cocky, and usually made one a selfish brat, high-maintenance prima donna, who no one else could stand to be around. Here lies my mother wound. I was tediously shown what it was to attack oneself with negative talk day-after-day. I was told over and over again that people who fit the above description were insufferable and thought they were “better” than every one else.
Now, this toxic feminine energy, this mother-wound, and universal sister-wound in the collective, was paired with a cultural and wider-familial belief that to be physically beautiful was what gave a woman the highest level of value. You knew you had that high level of value by either being famous for being beautiful, being generally desired by most men, or by being chosen by a highly successful, sought-after, or desirable man. (Hello, deeply confused and traumatizing years of dating and/or desperately trying to manage the opposite sex’s attention and desires. Hello, feeling extremely unsafe in my body, out in the world, being seen.)
Praise and attention was doled out in a constant stream to those who met these attributes. I wanted that praise and attention so badly. I had been painfully rejected over-and-over again by boys in my life, particularly my older brother and his friends. I have big, looming memories of tearfully screaming at his bedroom door after being kicked out, on weekends throughout toddlerhood and into grade school.
My worth, my value as a person, as a girl, was wrapped up in wanting to be seen and no longer shunted to the side, rejected. It felt important that I be seen as beautiful, desirable, the center of attention, known for my beauty and desirability, but to carefully cultivate it in that ineffable way that didn’t look like I was TRYING to get attention or that I relied hopelessly on the validation of others in order to feel ok, in order to feel loved, in order to feel my own inherent value.
This all meant- ah-ha! - I must become a celebrity so that I can prove to everyone just how lovable and wonderful I am without having to tell them or make them see all of that one person at a time. It was a career I wanted to pursue out of the depths of my deepest wounding as a child and my most toxic conditioning. It was an impossible set-up for myself; no one can thread that kind of needle, not without enduring a great deal MORE suffering in the form of rejection and fully releasing from the outcome. All I had was a tight grip on what I wanted the outcome to be, which was celebrity actress and not a deep abiding love for the craft. It was a recipe for disaster - or - brass tax - a recipe for freezing in place, unable to move, unable to bear being viewed as anything other than perfect. Anger swept in - short-temperedness. Self-loathing hit me like a tidal wave. I was crippled with negative self-talk. I assumed everyone talked to themselves that way, the same way my mom openly talked about herself.
This career track, destined to fail, met some success and then met the inevitable wave of rejection. I could not handle the rejection. I tried to play it off, not tell too many people what I wanted to do, what my hopes and dreams were, and inside I was crushed and drowning in self-doubt. I punished my body, I beat myself up in mentally, emotionally, and physically. I was regularly cruel to myself. It was all I knew from myself for a very long time - a kind of violence. I was ashamed of speaking my dream into existence because I couldn’t bear anything less than complete and utter support. I needed to be propped up by external validation constantly for me to be sure I was ok.
I abandoned the dream, ran screaming from the rejections that made me feel lower than low, which lead to more self-abuse, which lead to my body physically breaking down, which lead to more self-loathing and even more hiding my true desires. I pushed them down deep, where I was sure no one could detect them in me. I pretended I had other dreams and desires. On more than one occasion I picked up the dreams and desires of the people I dated - craving deeper intimacy and wanting to ensure approval. “Just tell me you love me, that you think I’m beautiful, and that you can’t live without me and I’ll do whatever it is that ensures those things!” HA! I genuinely thought that by molding myself to the people I was with would ensure they wouldn’t leave me or reject me, when really the most attractive thing about a person is a passion or practice they pursue on their own. I was so lost.
I tried to seek what it was I really wanted in life. What did I want to do with my life!? And the harder I thought about it, the further away it felt. I had no idea who I was. I had no idea what it was I wanted. It is something many people have had to reconcile within themselves as they wake up to the lack inherent in the flashiness of the consumerist way of life - the lie that happiness lies outside of yourself. After 20-35 years of genuinely not understanding what it is I want in this life, the tedious work of self-reflection, inner work, shadow work, what have you, has finally begun to bear fruit. I know who I am now. I think I know what I want. At least, I know big picture what I want, and letting it condense into this 3D existence is beginning to coalesce into real-world, human-ing terms (meaning when someone asks what is I do or want to do as a career I don’t just answer “I AM!” and go frolicking off into the sunset.)
There is no substitute for inner work. Believe me, I wish there was. I tried aaaalll the short cuts. I often still try them when I’m feeling a little overwhelmed or depleted. “Mini work” in the form of all the wellness and relaxation techniques. They’re important to have in one’s life, they are, but they need to be paired with looking at one’s own life - the major work. That is done by noticing what shows up in your life now - what triggers you? what habits or patterns do you do that don’t feel great? What drains you of energy? What gets you energized? What do you wish you had more of? What do you wish you had less of? What frustrates you in your relationships? What frustrates you in your social interactions? What is your stress response in various situations? What helps you feel grounded, centered, and alive? Where did these aspects begin? What early memory comes up when you think about certain uncomfortable emotions? What are you avoiding feeling?
I’m tempted to say “the work is never done” or that it’s never-ending, which there may be some truth to that, but even a few rounds of this looking-into-oneself will lead to a feeling of spaciousness in one’s experiences. Things won’t get under the skin in quite the same way. That doesn’t mean once we process, for example, how the fear of rejection shows up in our lives, and has been running the show on the DL for decades, that we’re over it forever. Nah. What it really means is that when it comes up again in our lives, we experience it differently, with a little more grace, space, and love. We learn to love ourselves and all our flaws - we accept. When we accept ourselves and our most difficult-to-love parts, they loosen, and we begin to outshine the flaws.
Times up for today! This has been a round of live-journalling and processing. Thank you for tuning in. Tune in to your own experience now. How does it feel to be rejected? How do you respond to it? Where does it show up in your life? What, if anything, do you do to avoid it?
Much love!
xoxo,
Melissa