I suppose I did have something to say

I don’t really want to be here tonight, in front of the computer, staking claim to this page. My dog, Minnie, is next to me drying off from the bath I just gave her. And I was about to go back to Netflix, a reward for “getting things done” this afternoon. This morning I woke up not sure how I was going to get through the day. But, like so many apparently unmanageable days before it, here I am and the day is almost done.

In another attempt to be honest about where I’m at (which is at a low point) and to own my imperfection (and in doing so quit trying to be something I’m not) I’m here writing to you, and to myself. Tonight I don’t feel like I have anything useful to say. The last couple days have reawakened in me an extreme discomfort of being in my own skin, my body, and well, a discomfort of just being me in general. I wonder if it has to do with the fact I’m taking action in ways I would have cringed at only months before: such as creating a facebook page, both for me and for my yoga stuff. [I will say I only did the former because it’s required in order to do the latter]. These steps are two of many that I’ve taken this month, devoted to showing up for myself in a way I’ve never done before. So now I feel like I’m drowning in a sea of uncertainty and self-doubt; the aftermath of speaking up for myself, stating what I need, carving boundaries in the sand around what’s acceptable and what’s not, and sharing with others what I love and, I think, what I may be good at (only with people I consider to be safe). These are ALL GOOD THINGS (this is in capitals to remind myself).

So then why do I feel like shit?

Tonight I want to run and hide or maybe I can just take Minnie and go live in my bed under a mound of blankets for the rest of my life. These days I guess I could just hide by staying home. But now that I’ve not only dipped a couple toes but actually walked into the terrifyingly cold water of “making myself visible”, I know I can’t go back. Whenever I want to give up on something I think how far I’ve worked to get there. This sometimes backfires on me, as I expect myself to continually be “moving forward”. But it’s also kept me from throwing in the towel. And even if I do throw in the towel I eventually pick it back up again. That’s how teaching yoga has been for me. I started in 2000 (and was terrified doing it), stopped when I went back to school, did other things; then from 2009-2011 did more training, taught until 2014 and stopped again (this was when I started doing my year of electroshock therapy). The two common threads have always been these: I feel good when I teach. As anxious as I could get before a class, teaching itself felt like I was plugged directly into both the best parts of myself, and into Spirit itself. I’m not saying it was always like this. I am saying that it felt natural to me. The second thread is that I have never felt confident as a yoga teacher. This last piece, I believe, is what tends to get me stuck.

What is it with me about fantasy/nightmare of being seen? One of my yoga teachers called me out the other day about this fear of mine, saying that teaching is not really about us (the teachers) but really about the service we’re offering. I couldn’t agree with her more. In fact, when I got physically sick from anxiety around teaching at this one place, I started created a mantra (I also call this praying): help me replace my fear with love. This essentially, took the “me” component right out of the equation and made it only about the class I was offering students. I struck gold when I found this mantra (I think it found me) as it’s worked for all kinds of things. As I’m writing this, I wonder if I should apply it here…

As much as I agree with my yoga teacher, I also wonder if you can really separate the childhood trauma around trying to be seen in a certain way (because you’re not being seen as you actually are), from the adult fear of being “out there” in a more public realm.

It’s not so much as I needed to stay invisible as a child. It was that my faults, my needs, my messy emotions, needed to live somewhere they couldn’t be recognized. My mother was really only interested, I think, in my appearance and my accomplishments. Even today when it comes to depression, my mom chooses not to acknowledge it in me, even if she knows I’m struggling. After several weeks of very distressing (albeit short) conversations with her, I convinced myself she didn’t know how I was feeling and, if she did, she would show a bit more empathy. So I told her one afternoon, that I didn’t know if she knew this, but I was depressed. She responded with, “Oh yes, I know.” And that was that.

I don’t hate my mother for this. Yes, I have some unresolved emotions around my relationship with her and with how I grew up, but she was a decided improvement upon her own mother. In that way I was lucky and she did the best she could. Yet, I have an almost paralyzing fear of showing up in the world exactly as I am, flaws and messy emotions and ignorance and all. I think as a young adult (I would say mid-twenties) and into my late thirties, I tried very hard to control what my mother knew of me. In my life I’ve worked hard, without truly knowing it, at sharing certain parts of myself with some people, but keeping other parts of me hidden. Today I’ve let several people all the way in. These are the ones who know all of me, and none of these people judge me for it. They love me, beautiful mess and all.

I hope that looking at this “putting myself out there” as serving the purpose of a greater service: my teaching yoga, can help me quell my acute fear of being seen. But I know, deeper work than merely getting over myself (which is how I felt at my teacher’s words, though this may not be what she meant), allowing myself to be seen in this way is truly a courageous act. It’s courageous because it’s overcoming a fear I’ve carried since childhood: that once someone truly sees me, they will be shocked at my neediness and depth of messiness and leave me then and there, right on the spot. Though I can’t control the way others perceive me, I owe it to myself to show up exactly as I am. For those who love and accept me, I will be blessed. And for those who don’t/can’t love me as I am I will also be blessed because they are the ones who will teach me to love myself regardless of how others see me.