I Can See Clearly Now

 

 

When in Mexico, I got new glasses.  I knew my eyes had changed a great deal in two years.  I had no idea how much.  When I came out of the office, there was a long mirror at eye level.  I looked, and, truly, I never even recognized myself.  The wrinkles, the specialist had just called “Ozempic Face” was glaringly obvious.  I looked soooo old.  It was as if the new owl-eyed glasses magnified everything, including the wrinkles on my face.  I could definitely see…but it did not all look better.  Be if grief, or be it a 60-pound weight loss, it had wracked havoc on the skin of my body head to toe.  I was so disheartened.  I realized how ‘un-Present’ I had been.  I, also, realized, how vain I am.  It mattered, right to my bones, mattered.

Self-image is an emotional judgement we make on our own self-worth that comes from outside influencers and influences.  It becomes our mantra of self and we might miss some precious things about ourselves when we let it be veiled by self-image.   It can permeate all our relationships with people, places and things.  It influences how we act, how we think, and, because we feel badly about ourselves, we may try to compensate for how much we feel we are ‘not enough’.  There are seven ways that we view ourselves.

We might minimize our good qualities and not accept the positive things others say to us.  We might devalue our positive attributes because we are sop hooked into the negative that we devalue and/or ignore our positive qualities.

We might live under the colored glasses of comparison’s view of self.  Constantly analyzing what is wrong with self, according to someone else.  We can get lost in other’s reality of us.   We can become dissatisfied with ourself, with our life, with our relationships, etc.   We begin to feel like a fringe person, that we do not matter, that we can never be ‘Good’ enough.  This view can cause us anxiety, depression, and a sense of doing nothing but trying to please others and constantly failing at even that. We begin to act ‘as if’ we do not matter. This sad feeling can become comfortable to us, but our soul will never give us up.  It will niggle at us until we change our view.

Our soul, psyche, ego, wants to be comfortable in our own skin.  It runs chatter in the background, both negative and positive.  If we choose to listen to the negative, the negative gladly takes over and criticizes everything we try to do.  If we shift our view to the positive, the positive can win over.  We know our strengths, we know what we do that makes us feel at peace, comfortable in our own skin.  We are supposed to be working on self all the time, like a running craving, our soul urges us, physically, even, to make changes … to live fully, to grow.  Change takes time.. look how long we speak negatively to self.  We need to spend the same amount of time validating ourselves.  Some days it will work.  Some, it won’t, but we have to keep trying because Creator does not make garbage.  It is an insult to Creator not to live to our full potential.  We are here to take care of Mother Earth and to take care of others, and we cannot do it if our mindset is off. 

On International Women’s Day, right smack dab in the middle of my frustration at wrinkles, and with Ego smashing my self-confidence, I ended up going to The Round House (Splatsin Community Center, and was honored to be able to join in on their celebrations.  After some facts, a film presentation, a great activity, we were called to the circle for the ending.  Everyone was given a wooden, shaped, disk.  We were to write our first name in the middle of the disk, then we were to pass it to our left.  Each person was to write a word or two about how they see you.  So many were strangers I had never seen before and they certainly did not know me, for the most part.  When we got our disks back, we were to read them and give a sentence or two in the talking circle.  I was blown away and ashamed that I did not see what they see.  I had tears running down my cheeks.  I have put that wooden flower and have it pegged where I can see it every morning.  I need to change my reactions to life so that I can be what they see… I see what they wrote as potential.   I can be what they see of me.  You can be your most positive as well.  Be that!

©Carol Desjarlais 4.30.24