Читать книгу FLAUNT! - Lora Cheadle - Страница 12
ОглавлениеYou’ve read my stories, you’ve seen the metaphoric masks and costumes I covered myself with. Now let’s look at yours! Even though you know your stories, because you lived them, I challenge you to make each of them into a burlesque routine!
Say what, Lora?
Okay, here’s how it works. Remember that burlesque is a parody! Dissociate from the emotion of what happened and focus on the lesson each story taught, the beliefs created, and the elaborate costumes and masks that were generated. See each memory, each story, as an episode in a miniseries, as a succession of interconnected burlesque routines that are the individual building blocks that helped create the woman you are today.
Creating a burlesque routine begins with a song, so strive to find one that personifies your story or sets the requisite mood. Hear that song as the background track to that memory and see if it reframes things. Next, move on to costuming. Since you are the star of your story, what are you wearing? Maybe not literally but symbolically. And what are the layers of this costume? What’s being shown, and what’s underneath, hidden? Are things being layered on or taken off? Again, reframe your memories and stories as routines, and see how the understanding surrounding that memory changes. Don’t forget that jewelry, makeup, hair, and props are all part of costuming as well! What accessories are you wearing, and what do they symbolize? Last, what is the choreography, the order of action? How are you the star of your own routine?
Think of my stories, hear the ZZ Top song “Legs,” and see me pom-pom-dancing around in a denim miniskirt, ruffle ankle socks, heels, and a Flashdance-inspired sweatshirt. But as I remove my sexy sweatshirt, notice the tightly laced corset, signifying my need for approval, that I reveal underneath. See how I trade a mask of bold, “can’t hurt me” confidence for my lavender smart-girl glasses? As I unlace the corset, do you see my tender heart, which may be represented by soft-pink heart-shaped pasties? You get the idea! Have fun with this!
As you burlesque your own life, your own stories, recognize the constraints and inhibitions present there and in your way of thinking. See the impact society, family, friends, culture, religion, or your career had on you and your beliefs. Then turn those beliefs or constraints into a physical object that you can remove as you would a jacket, revealing the kind of woman you are underneath. The kind of woman you are in your heart, the woman you’ve always been. The woman you’ve always wanted others to really see.
It’s like stepping into a virtual dressing room where you can try on — or take off — a wide variety of options and beliefs to see how they might look and feel before deciding to buy.
Don’t be nervous — this is more like playing dress-up than shopping for jeans! This is not about bashing everything valuable and meaningful, throwing away advice from everyone who has ever loved you or had your best interest at heart. These exercises and practices are to increase your level of awareness around who you are and why you do what you do. They help you recognize where your beliefs may have originated and give you the opportunity to try something new, to flaunt and expose yourself in ways you may never have dreamed!
Creating Your Costumes & Masks
For many of us, the story of our life begins long before we are even aware it’s being written. And although this prewritten story is one that is appropriate for the beliefs of our culture and community, it may not be appropriate for us. From the moment we are born, we are labeled as a boy or a girl; taught how boys and girls should look, act, and feel; and judged as either capable or not. We are told what religion we are; what we should believe, value, and accept in life; and what we should expect from others. We form an identity based on what others tell us we should be, not necessarily on who we really are.
If we are smart, our families and teachers plot out a life of academic success, culminating in a prominent career. If we cry easily, we may be presented with a script that casts us as overly emotional, weak, or in need of protection. If we are a certain race or religion, we are handed scripts that include a lineage of persecution, limitation, privilege, or success.
We are taught what to expect from people of various cultures, religions, classes, genders, and political affiliations based on their label or stereotype, rather than our own firsthand knowledge or experience. While learning generalities about groups presents us with potentially useful information that guides our interactions, it also sets us up for misinterpretation and a tendency to judge others. Perhaps you can remember a time when you judged someone incorrectly, based on their label or stereotype? Uh-huh. I certainly can!
When the world, or the people in it, look different from the way we think they should, we become anxious, experiencing what is known as cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort that occurs when our beliefs or assumptions are contradicted by new information. Whether this discomfort is major or minor, personal or impersonal, it is resolved in one of three ways. We either reject, explain away, or avoid information, in an attempt to persuade ourselves that no conflict really exists.
Growing up with an accountant for a father and a mother who worked part-time so she could stay at home with me meant that I was raised with some pretty conservative beliefs around money. Namely, that we did not spend what we did not have, and the only debt that was justifiable was a home mortgage. Period. For right or for wrong, that was my belief, and it served me well. Until law school.
There was no way I could ever save enough to pay for law school up front, and the only way that I could go was to take out student loans. Which, according to my childhood belief, was not justifiable debt. Cognitive dissonance! My assumption that only one kind of debt was valid failed to take into consideration that there could be a time and a place for debt, and that leveraging oneself in pursuit of an education could be a smart thing to do. Reject, explain away, or avoid. Those were my options.
Rejecting that belief would have made me stressed and scared, feeling like an irresponsible spendthrift. Avoiding the decision was not possible, since I desperately wanted to go to law school. So I explained it away in the most rationally irrational way possible. I took out student loans with the plan that a few years later when I bought a house, I would take out a larger loan and pay off my student loans with the extra mortgage-loan money! That way I would be left with only justifiable debt — a mortgage. And I did! See what I did there? That was a pretty sneaky way of fooling myself into being able to hold both my belief that all debt except mortgage debt is bad and still take out the student loans that I needed.
Cognitive dissonance has nothing to do with our level of education or intelligence. It’s a universal phenomenon everyone experiences, and it’s difficult to combat, because often we aren’t consciously aware that we’re engaging in it!
One Million and Fifty Shades of Glitter
Have you ever seen someone toss a handful of glitter into the air, either under bright stage lights or in sunlight? It’s beautiful, glorious — and distracting! Why? Because the glitter reflects and refracts the light, causing us to take our eyes off whatever is happening onstage and focus instead on the scintillating shimmer of distraction all around. Which is exactly what happens in our own lives. We get distracted by others, by our own thoughts, ideas, and personal histories. Pretty soon we don’t know what’s real and what’s the glittery distraction of cognitive dissonance.
The upcoming exercise, called “Living in the Glitter,” consists of eleven questions for you to use to uncover your own cognitive dissonance. They help you see if your beliefs are based on reality or if you are rejecting, explaining away, or avoiding new information in order to keep your assumptions intact.
Let me give you an example of what this might look like: I have a client who was raised with the belief that homosexuality is a sin. Unbeknownst to her, one of her best friends growing up was gay. As you might imagine, when he revealed that he was gay and asked her to attend his wedding, it was like a cloud of glitter had suddenly been tossed into her brain. How could she attend the wedding and support her friend in his happiness while also maintaining her belief that homosexuality is a sin? She couldn’t wrap her head around how he could simultaneously be a sinner and the spiritual, wonderful human being she knew him to be. No matter which way she looked, glittery confusion reigned. Resolving this conflict meant she could:
(a)reject her belief that homosexuality is a sin, potentially setting herself at odds with the beliefs of her church, family, and other loved ones;
(b)avoid both the wedding and her firsthand knowledge and experience confirming her friend’s high-quality character and deep spiritual connectedness, possibly resulting in the termination of their friendship; or
(c)find a way to explain why both her conflicting beliefs could be true. In this instance, she rationalized that her friend and his partner were the one exception to the otherwise accurate belief that homosexuality is sinful, thus allowing her to attend and celebrate their wedding with joy and still hold both contradictory beliefs comfortably.
Cognitive dissonance — otherwise known as hypocritical behavior — allows us to maintain our belief system, ensures our survival, and makes us feel good about being a hypocritical, contradictory mess! Don’t fret; we’re all this way.
In looking at your own stories, can you identify where cognitive dissonance may have crept in? Probably not easily, which is why, before delving into the stories of your childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood, we begin with the “Living in the Glitter” exercise. These filter questions provide new context and insight for the key moments and stories that affected you along the way. They help you challenge your own long-standing beliefs and put you in touch with your own hypocritical messiness so you can see your cognitive dissonance for what it is: a way to reject, explain away, or avoid anything that challenges the veracity of your beliefs.
Black, White & Glitter
Have you noticed that most of life is neither black nor white but some scintillating shade of glitter that you can’t quite name? One moment it looks gold, then the light catches it and it’s red, but then a silver fleck jumps into view. If you have ever listed out pros and cons to help you make decisions and then still not been able to decide, you will know exactly what I’m talking about. Wouldn’t life be easier if everything was just cut-and-dried? Look at how frequently news stories deal with elusive, shimmery shades of glitter. Did the officer shoot the suspect because he posed a viable danger and the officer feared for his life, or did he act unreasonably based on a racial bias? Whoa. Is this something we can ever answer with complete certainty? Probably not, and that uncertainty can be excruciating.
The discomfort that comes from living in this glittery confusion sometimes makes us want to pretend that things are clear and precise, even when they are not. Instead of admitting that life is filled with value judgments, errors, and complexities none of us could ever see through, we sometimes pretend that we can. And in slipping back into our black-and-white ways of thinking and reacting, we overlook the fact that sometimes, it is in the glittery, complex tragedies that the biggest gains and unexpected joys are born.
What are some of the black-and-white beliefs held by your family? If you are looking for a starting point, think about the biggies: race, gender, nationality, religion, marital status, political affiliation, level of education, and sexual orientation. But know that it’s usually the subtle ones, like A worthy woman sacrifices for her family that are more impactful.
Reading my story about student loans and my conviction that having debt was not okay, you probably won’t be surprised that one of the black-and-white beliefs held by my family was that wasting things (especially money) was wrong. Like really, really wrong. The energy crisis of the seventies was in full swing during my childhood, inflation and mortgage interest were on the rise, and my parents were living on one income.
The principle of not wasting is neither right nor wrong, black nor white. It simply is. However, my family’s black-and-white belief affected me, causing me cognitive dissonance around money and my own spending habits. I felt the need to justify my expenditures to myself, classifying all expenses as frugal, so as not to be wasteful and wrong. But the fact was, most of the decisions I made about money were neither frugal nor wasteful. They were just decisions!
Using the “Living in the Glitter” filter questions, I was able to see where I rejected the notion that being wasteful was okay, explained away why I needed to spend what I did, and avoided being honest about my spending or budgeting. I came to terms with the fact that I could be both frugal and wasteful at the same time and integrated new information and beliefs around money into my life, making me much happier and easier to live with. And since glitter is an all-season color, let’s embrace the glitter!
Living in the Glitter
Ask yourself these filter questions, and see what shifts for you. Move through the questions with a sense of curiosity and wonderment, as if you were watching a burlesque routine (Ohhhh, I can’t wait to see what’s underneath that!), instead of with blame, shame, or judgment.
1.Besides me, who around me holds this belief?
2.Is there a reason that I, or those around me, hold this belief?
Let me butt in for a moment here and explain what I mean by a reason for holding a certain belief. My grandpa was a pilot in both World War II and the Korean War. His experience, coupled with wartime propaganda, shaped his beliefs about those of Asian descent. A reason is not a justification. It does not excuse the belief or make it correct. It explains logically why someone would feel the way that they do. And until we discover those reasons, we are much less likely to create lasting change.
3.How is my belief true?
4.What evidence can I find that supports my belief, and what is the quality of this evidence?
Okay, okay, the preceding question is a tad lawyerly and a little ridiculous, I admit. It’s just that there may have been a time or two when I was more interested in being right than in really, honestly being right. And I may have gone to great lengths to prove a position that in my heart and head I knew wasn’t accurate. Mum’s the word. Perhaps you can relate.
5.How is my belief false?
6.What evidence can I find that is contrary to my belief, and what is the quality of that evidence?
7.Does this contradiction cause me mental angst or discomfort?
8.In what ways have I rejected this contradictory evidence?
9.In what ways have I attempted to explain away this contradictory evidence?
10.In what ways have I avoided looking at this contradictory evidence?
11.What would changing my belief mean for me, as well as for my relationships with others?
As you walk through the rest of this chapter and the next one, see if you can identify beliefs that arose as a consequence of your childhood stories.
Maybe it’s time you slipped into something a bit more comfortable?
How Black-and-White Thinking Leads to Self-Judgment
Living without conscious exploration of our programmed beliefs can trap us in a cycle of self-judgment that robs us of our ability to be seen for who we really are. It can also prevent us from fully growing up and creating our own independent identity. Instead of looking objectively at ourselves, building upon our strengths and healthily exposing our weaknesses, we create a facade. While that facade may protect us from criticism or from having to look too deep within ourselves and square our own contradictory beliefs, when we fail to reconcile our external persona with who we are on the inside, we end up engaging in an elaborate game of hide-and-seek that has long-term unhealthy consequences. When we cover parts of our true selves that are out of alignment with the persona we have created, we lie about — and discount the veracity of — our internal world in favor of an artificial construct. We fail to establish our own well-thought-out identity, independent of the wounds, vulnerabilities, and neuroses of others.
And as a consequence, we can never truly be seen or accepted. Either by ourselves or by others.
Contradictory Contradictions
Living in the glitter means being self-aware about the conflicting and contradictory areas of your life. Knowing that certain things about you don’t make sense and being okay anyway. It’s like admitting that you are a vegetarian who sometimes delights in a good, juicy burger.
Having awareness of our contradictory beliefs decreases the amount of internal stress that we experience, because it provides space for both the conflict and the solution. Internal discord comes from covering up (lying about) our periodic passion for burgers because it appears to be in conflict with our concurrent belief that vegetarianism is both healthier and a more environmentally sustainable way to live. Our beliefs don’t have to make perfect sense! When we are aware of our own contradictions, it means that we no longer feel compelled to lie to ourselves, our internal discord decreases, and we feel peace.
Holding contradicting beliefs isn’t the problem; pretending that our beliefs are always perfectly rational and noncontradictory is the problem. The fact that we aren’t neat little packages of culinary ideology — or anything else, for that matter — is not alarming. Nobody is that black-and-white about anything. What is alarming is the way we habitually lie to ourselves and to others, covering who we are and what we believe.
This habitual covering is so ingrained in us and our society that we don’t even realize we are doing it. Act I of this book is all about recognizing and releasing this covering. And since the thing that holds us back is often an unexamined belief or idea that has been a part of us since childhood, it can be difficult for us to see. Our subconscious minds and our childhood programming, in particular, are like the main operating system of a computer. The operating system runs all our various programs, and while we are aware of the various programs that are running, we are usually not aware of the main operating system until it interferes with those programs. Our own unexamined beliefs tend to stay really hidden, until we try to maneuver around them.
Which is why storytelling is so impactful to humans. Because we more easily see lessons through others than we do through ourselves. Not sure what I mean? Think of the parables of the Bible, the lessons in Aesop’s fables, or the lore of nursery rhymes. If someone accuses me of being needlessly dramatic, calling for help where none is necessary, I might become defensive or not fully comprehend. But tell me a story about a shepherd crying wolf, and I totally get it. Humans learn through story.
You know my coming-of-age stories and the ideas and beliefs that were formed as a result. Now let’s reflect on yours. But before we do, allow me to give you a friendly little warning about what to expect in the rest of Act I. Chapters 2 and 3 are the deepest, most introspective portions of the whole book, encouraging you to unearth the stories of your childhood, adolescence, and adulthood and reexamine them through a new and different lens. Use the “Living in the Glitter” filter questions to challenge your own long-standing beliefs and assumptions so you can be free to re-choreograph your life according to who you are today. Please do not read everything in one sitting! Break it down. Work through the stories of your childhood and stop. Allow yourself some time to ponder and reflect. Tackle your adolescence, then take a break. Move on to your adulthood when you feel ready. Allow yourself the grace and space to let this process unfold naturally, to trip the light fantastic and to really enjoy, without rushing toward Act II.
Your Childhood Wardrobe: Begin with a Classic Base Layer of Self-Judgment. . .
As odd as it might sound to those of us who were raised by parents who said things like, “If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you jump off, too?” one of the first things we teach children is how to compare and judge themselves against external standards. Instead of cultivating intrinsic motivation and self-satisfaction, our society layers on external rules and teaches children that their worth is based on how well they please others. Crazy? You betcha!
As young children, before our indoctrination into “who we are supposed to be” and “what we are supposed to do” is complete, we generally had no problem being exactly who we were, without shame or judgment. Whether we were shy and withdrawn or bold and daring, we had no problem showing it. We were unapologetic about what we liked or what we thought, and it wasn’t our concern if somebody else saw things differently. We were honest about who we were, and we were curious about life. If we were curious about something new and different, we approached it, seeking more. If we were frightened by something new and different, we announced our fear, hid our heads, or cried. Instead of pretending, judging ourselves, or making excuses, we expressed what we felt.
Before our childhood indoctrination, we lived out our truth, whether that truth was socially acceptable or not. If we wanted to color outside the lines, we did so with joyful abandon. We had no judgments about which toys were “appropriate”; we just knew what we liked, or explored freely until we did. We were unselfconscious and nonjudgmental, flaunting ourselves, laughing out loud, and smearing spaghetti in our hair simply to feel what spaghetti in the hair might feel like. We did not feel guilty for touching our bodies, sleeping in too late, or eating what we pleased, nor did we attempt to change ourselves based on the opinions of others.
We navigated our lives moment by moment, going from the jungle gym to the sandbox to the slides, with very few concerns. We didn’t try to contain our own emotions, and we comfortably expressed whatever we felt without embarrassment, judgment, or shame. Above all, we trusted that each day was designed especially for us, because as the center of our own universe, we deemed ourselves worthy of such magic.
And since we were not influenced much by the opinions of others, we were difficult to control.
Wise parents and caregivers who wanted us to succeed in life looked for ways to control us and to influence our behavior, guiding, socializing, and introducing us, step-by-step, into society. Boys may have had dolls taken out of their arms and been told, “You don’t want people to see you playing with a girl toy, do you?” Girls may have been told not to get dirty or play wild, “like a boy.”
But no matter what we were taught, the bottom line was, if we were good girls, who did what we were supposed to do, we would be rewarded; and if we were bad girls, who disobeyed, we would be punished. We were taught that disobeying the rules would hurt those around us and make us feel bad. We were taught that our obedience would please those around us, bringing us pride, joy, and satisfaction.
Let that sink in. We were taught to have shame. We were taught to judge ourselves. We were taught that other people’s opinions of us were more important than our own opinion of ourselves. In order to make us easier to control and easier to teach.
We were conditioned to believe that we could control other people’s happiness through our actions: “Don’t make Daddy mad by crying!” or “You will make Mommy so proud if you clean your plate!” What an enormous burden to carry! No wonder, as adults, we still believe that our obedience or conformity has earth-shattering implications for those around us. Perhaps, like me, you are so conditioned to please, to think that things can’t be done correctly unless you are involved, that you sometimes have a hard time saying no. Many of us, no matter how educated or self-aware, still fall into this type of goodgirl, people-pleasing syndrome, believing we can make others happy if only we try harder!
It is important to learn the beautiful traditions of our culture, our family heritage, and how to keep ourselves safe, healthy, and fun to be around. It is essential to know how to behave in public, respect others, and defer to authority. It’s just that, for many of us, the balance between learning to please and respect others. . .and learning to please and respect ourselves got lost. Many of us inadvertently learned to deny our emotions, condemn ourselves for our natural tendencies, and adopt the mindset that who we are, at our core, is defective or wrong. Because much of our learning consisted of suppressing our individuality, bringing it more in line with those around us by avoiding the things that could lead to shame or embarrassment, we grew accustomed to covering and hiding essential pieces of our personality.
No matter how we were raised, many of us still equate our inherent goodness, or badness, with the feedback we receive from others. It is from this place of guilt and shame that we learn that, in order to be successful, we need to judge ourselves stringently against external standards, always striving to do more, because otherwise we will never be good enough.
This classic base layer of childhood indoctrination, woven from shame, fear, and judgment and stitched together with a healthy dose of “or else,” is the garment many of us have worn close to our hearts for so long that we may not even be aware that it’s there. We spend the rest of our lives mired in self-judgment, shame, and the subtle feeling of unworthiness, without knowing why.
When we FLAUNT! we strip out of this base layer, and we set ourselves free.
Field Trip: “I’ll Tell You What I Want, What I Really, Really Want”
As adults, many of us have no idea what we want. Especially high achievers. Those of us who move competently into our heads, successfully performing tasks and fulfilling our responsibilities to a T. Those of us who are adept at doing all that we “must” do in order to succeed often forget how to move into our hearts, tune in to ourselves, and articulate what we want. We get so conditioned to responding with the “right” answer that we forget to answer with the truth.
I’m guessing that, like most kids, at times you covered your beliefs, went along with popular opinion, and pretended to like something you didn’t. Or perhaps you tried to impress another by being someone you weren’t. Maybe you didn’t want to be perceived as difficult or rock the boat. Or maybe it was because you weren’t really sure what you wanted.
Although we all have different childhood experiences, for this exercise I want you to go back to a place and time when you were naked, before you learned to cover and hide yourself, to remember everything that brought your heart and soul pure, creative joy. You know, before socialization and indoctrination kicked in! This exercise focuses on the fun, positive, and creative aspects of play. You are not digging into trauma; you’re digging into joy, and you are doing it by taking a field trip!
Think of places you enjoyed as a child and, like a good caregiver would, plan a field trip for yourself so you can reconnect with play and the activities that brought you joy. If you loved playing with toys and using your imagination to create elaborate scenarios, plan a field trip to the most captivating toy store you can find. The reason for this exercise is to reexperience how you felt playing, using your senses to explore toys, so get out there and experience play! If you loved dolls, go to the dolls. If you were into games, peruse the games.
Look at the toys. Notice their colors and packaging. Pick them up and see how they feel in your hands. Touch them. Feel their texture and weight. Smell them. Do you remember the scent of doll hair, crayons, or glue? Listen to the sounds they make and remember how you played. What story lines would you create? Imagine taking a boat in the bathtub with you now. Would you sail it around, plunging it in and out of the water? Is it a struggle to remember how to play and what to do?
