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Hi, friends. Welcome back. I don’t know about you (though I’d be curious to) but it’s still crazy busy over here.
Sometimes in my life, I feel like a big idea grabs me and then just kind of follows me around for days and days consuming all my attention. The only way the space for that can happen right now, though, is if something else gets shafted. Last week, when I was obsessively reading Maggie Smith’s memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, for instance, the thing that got shafted was sleep. That can only work for so long, however, so this week I’m back to juggling only the most essential things, including good sleep, to the best of my ability. In this state, and with the number of things I’m juggling right now, sifting for ideas (or clarity) feels like sifting for tiny bits of gold out of a lot of dirt and sand.
Once all the pieces were laid out together, though, I realized those disparate pieces of gold fit together into some kind of weird jigsaw puzzle. So, I thought I’d lay them out for you. Stick with me. I promise you’ll see the big picture in the end.
Piece #1: What’s the epitaph on your tombstone?
If you’re following the news you know that E Jean Carroll has finally gotten her day in court to lay out the details of how Donald Trump raped her in a Bergdorf’s dressing room in the 90s. I’ve been a subscriber to E Jean’s Substack for a while now, and I feel like she’s a friend. It’s been hard to read about the trial, to feel her pain and suffering, even as I am so damn proud of her. Everything, all at once.
One of the things I love about E Jean, and how I got drawn to her, is her skill at creating community in her online space. In part, she does this by asking the silliest but most thought-provoking questions, and then really paying attention to the answers. Recently, she posed the question, What will it say on your tombstone?
There were so many funny and poignant answers in the thread. I tried to be funny, but I’ve never been particularly good at that when I’m trying. I quipped something about never having been Cleopatra, which is the thing about Westerners talking about reincarnation which always amuses me. Seriously, we can’t all have been Cleopatra!
The epitaph I came up with that felt the most true, though, was this:
She was remarkably good at being herself, which is no small feat.
I’m not likely to lay under that saying, since I prefer to be composted and a tree planted on top of me, but if I had to lay under a carved stone that would work.
Piece #2: You’re always whole
Sitting on the side porch the other evening with my housemate, we got to talking about change and transformation. She was paraphrasing Sonya Renee Taylor, author of The Body Is Not An Apology, from an interview on the Finding Your Way podcast. Sonya said something about being in the midst of change and the importance of getting still and quiet enough to really listen to and be honest with yourself. That way, no matter what happens, you can remain whole.
Sitting there I thought, though I didn’t quite have the words for it at the time, But aren’t we always whole? I mean, I know we don’t always feel whole. I know I have felt, in my own life, like there’ve been long periods when I’ve lost parts of myself, which, ironically, I only realized once I felt like I got them back.
But increasingly, as I endeavor to take more and more responsibility for myself, I am beginning to suspect that we are always whole. If we don’t feel whole, it’s because we’re hiding or denying parts of ourselves. Or we’re projecting or leaking parts of ourselves onto the people around us. But that doesn’t mean that we can actually give parts of ourselves away or disavow anything that we are.
If you’ve ever had some aspect of yourself you thought you’d dealt with or gotten rid of come around to bite you in the ass, you know this is true. What is that saying? No matter where you go, there you are. I suspect it’s also true, or certainly has been in my case, that no matter how much you try to deny or give away, you’re always your whole-ass self. Which on the positive side means you’re also everything you’ll ever be. Just like every tiny acorn contains a whole tree, no matter how small or partial you feel, everything that’s possible is inside you, right now and always.
This matters from the perspective of integrity practice, since integrity is, at its root, about wholeness. Practicing integrity isn’t actually about finding lost parts of yourself (though it can feel that way, for sure). It’s really about reclaiming and recognizing them— all the great things and all the messy, complicated, uncomfortable ones, too. They’re all yours. They’re all you. It’s holding them with some patience and compassion for yourself that’s the trick.
The mechanics of that trick is simple, if not easy. Practice regular self-observation. Not in a policing way, but with curiosity. Sit with any discomfort you feel when pain or shame arises in response to something that you are or some way you move through the world. Think honestly about how that thing functions inside you and in your relationships, and how you want to carry it. Be awkward and imperfect and vulnerable. Remind yourself that literally everybody is awkward and imperfect, even if you never see them be vulnerable. Have mercy. Rinse. Repeat.
Piece #3: Be a ______ in your _______.
Clearly, I’m on kind of a Maggie Smith jag right now. On my walk back and forth to work, I was listening to an interview she did for the Creative Pep Talk podcast. In the course of the conversation, she shared a prompt she had also shared in her own newsletter. It was simply this fill-in-the-blank statement: Be a ______ in your _______.
In her case, it became Be a poet in your prose. Contemplating writing a book-length work of prose, she had to give herself permission to write it like a poet, because that’s her heart, the truest thing about who she is.
Extending it out, the exercise becomes one of contemplating the truth of who you are, and how to be that no matter what you do or where you go. Which doesn’t mean you have no regard for what’s appropriate in one situation or another. For instance, left to my own devices, I’m an absolute potty-mouth. Being myself wherever I go doesn’t mean I get to swear like a sailor all the time (though I wish it did), but it means I have to be true to myself. I have to let myself be seen. I have to be willing to be all that I am, consciously, to the best of my ability, all the time.
She was remarkably good at being herself, which is no small feat.
There are so many forces conspiring to make us feel like we aren’t or can’t be our whole selves. That parts of us are shameful or unacceptable or too much. That our connections are based on pretending that parts of us do not exist. But have you been around people who were unabashedly themselves no matter where they went? Even while they were staying in connection? Even while they were dealing with the world as it is?
Did it feel good and safe to be around them? Did it feel like by being honestly themselves they gave you permission to be honestly yourself?
That’s what it feels like for me to be around folks who are practicing their integrity. Not just in terms of trying to live their beliefs and do what they think is right. Not just because they stand up for what matters. But because they’re all in. No matter where they go, there they are, which emboldens me. Giving themselves permission to be exactly who they are, they give me permission to be exactly who I am.
I give you that permission. Here’s a little slip to stick in your pocket if having a concrete reminder will help. Because I know that if you take that permission and run with it, then you’ll pass that slip along to other people that need it. And don’t we all need it?
Sh*t To Help You Show Up April 28, 2023
Thanks for the food for thought. What came to me for the fill in the blanks was “Be the Muse in your Art.” I’m with you, plant a tree on me.
The epitaph and the fill in the blanks are great questions to ponder. I dont have any answers but I appreciate the prompts! And your epitaph is excellent.