My mother was a gorgeous woman. The sad thing about that is that she always said that for her, beauty was a curse. “I got too much attention,” was all she would say to elaborate. But I got the idea that beauty set her on the wrong track–the track of thinking that it’s all about the outside. Mom always cared about how things looked to others, which is why it was such a sad irony that she became an undiagnosed bi-polar, alcoholic woman whom few could understand or admire.
Mom took up oil painting briefly mid-life, and did one painting, which I have on the wall of my consultation room. It’s hard for me to look at it, because it feels lonely. That must be the feeling it gave Mom too, because she never finished another one, saying just that: “Painting is too lonely.” It think she must have felt like this tree, surrounded by waters she couldn’t navigate–silhouetted so as to be graceful but enigmatic, unreadable.
I keep it there even though it’s hard to look at, because it reminds me to have compassion for everyone’s story and admiration for everyone’s inner being, no matter how the outside looks.
My mother was on a spiritual path, which is probably why I sometimes feel her guiding me from the other side. She took me to Theosophical lectures, and I have spiritual books with her poignant markings and mysterious words in the margin, in the handwriting I recognize as a mid-night, drunken manic hieroglyphic. She was ready to leave the planet at 70 mostly, I fear, to have her struggle end. Fortunately she was not afraid; she had faith.
I think of her now because I know that others feel alone too, and so I have a wish for them. It is to feel connected to the big thread of Love that is woven through everything. It is for them to know that they are all right exactly as they are. I wish that they might find a way to get up out of bed with gratitude for the way the sun hits the glass on the bedside table, or for the strange snoring of the dog who sleeps in the corner. I wish they might forgive life for its hardness, and forgive themselves for their softness, and laugh at some silly joke at least once a day.
I always wanted to heal my mother, and of course I couldn’t. I’m sure any good therapist would point out that I entered the healing and shamanic arts out of an unconscious wish that I might make up for that. Maybe that’s an example of making lemonade out of lemons. I know that my experience with my mother (along with lots of other challenges) has made me feel compassion for others and want to be of help. But the hardest challenge for me is to be compassionate towards myself.
In all the years I’ve counseled people in different ways, I’ve seen one theme reappear over and over. It’s the theme of finding it hard to love ourselves. No matter how accomplished the woman looks, she has surely struggled with this. No matter how together she appears, she has fallen apart and doubted every bit of it. This may not make it better for you, but at least you can know you fit right in. Lack of self love is an epidemic. I call it The INE Syndrome: the I’m Not Enough Syndrome
So let’s all take action right now to begin the healing at home. My first action is to send you a wish
My wish is for you to take on life as a lover would, with attention, with tenderness, with the thrill of meeting each other every day, and with a benign ability to forgive almost anything. That way, whether or not you have a lover in the flesh, you will have yourself. You came in with your self one day, and you will leave with her on another. May you love the odd, painful, gorgeous, mysterious journey in between those two days, and know and love her well by the end.
What will be your wish or your action to help another woman love herself? You can start today being an INE Syndrome activist without donating one penny! And your return will be that perhaps you will become more aware of slipping into self-loathing, or regressing into degrading comparisons, or sinking into depression. Perhaps instead you’ll begin a new habit of painting an environment where you are not along, but in a community of women out to change themselves, and along with them, a planet.
