Every once in awhile I find myself backtracking to a perspective that did not help me. Self-doubt has never been a useful coping mechanism, but has been a typical response that has dropped me to my knees. I surrounded myself with thoughts of not being good enough. I would get upset that I was born to face a world that could see me with all my failings. My successes or triumphs were viewed by others as either as luck or as a result of something that I should be ashamed of, for I must have done something wrong to enable me to have any success. For example, by doing well in a school course, I must have neglected a necessary chore. I spent a lot of time digging down to my core, challenging my beliefs; I was determined to be as honest to myself, as I could be. Did I have self-serving motives? Were my actions to help myself causing undue harm to anyone? I came to realize, in my case, any self-deprecation that I had was mostly me directing uncaring and questionable thoughts about myself to myself, a negative self-talk. I would have to teach myself to be as kind to me as I would be to another person. My goal should be true, self care: “If you don’t put yourself first on your list of people to care for, then, you are not first on anyone’s list.” I didn’t teach myself this as an act of arrogance, or as an effort to be perceived better than anyone else, for I have been described that way by people who pretended they knew me without putting in the time and effort to truly find out who I was.
I worked hard to be cruelly honest to myself and by doing so I became shocked with the realization that I was developing into a lovingly authentic person, proud of who they were.
“She Lives” is a reminder of that work that I did particularly in those moments, days, or even weeks when I find myself among too-quick-to-judge questioners who feel that one of their jobs is to put me in my place. As a former people-pleaser (one who put everyone else higher up on their list of people to care for), I would slip into being harshly self-abusive and cruel to the one person who really was the person who should get “me”: Me. My relationship to myself is one of the most important relationships that I have; “She Lives” reminds me of that. “Be kinder; be loving; I know you are doing the very best you can. You deserve love and care as much as the next person.”
“She Lives” was presented in Amo, Amas, Amat,
a 2003 collection of writings by Marlene Lacey
about the theme of love and poetry.
She Lives
she lives
she lives in a world of lies
she lives in a world of truth
she lives within the walls of her vision
she sees through windows,
a world distorted by others’ visions
she sees through windows,
a world made clearer by others’ visions
she lives with clarity
she lives with confusion
she cuts a window
and places a glass
chosen by those who believe that she is pure
she cuts a window
and places a glass
chosen by those who think she is impure
she lives, affixing her gaze through her clear window
ignoring the view of windows which beg her
to look through them
she lives a perspective away from destruction
she lives
beyond her world
SHE
LIVES
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I can connect so much with this piece it is scary. It’s as if someone else is thinking my thoughts.
While people may feel alone, they really aren’t.
There is beauty and peace everywhere. I have found that when I keep looking to the light searching for “my” clarity, I am better able to focus on the positives of all of my experiences. Sometimes it is hard; I fatigue and forget, fall back into bad habits of thought. It is worth the work that I call “exercising Grace”.
Perhaps today, I can be your beacon of light for you in the same way that you are that light in the darkness for those you are there for in their difficult times. We can exercise Grace together today and in the days that follow; we can grow a bond that makes our light bigger than we could have imagined merely because we allow ourselves to be authentically vulnerable enough to share our experiences with one another.