by Jenny Rose | Apr 26, 2018 | A Flourishing Woman, Mind
I’ve never really thought much about vampires. I read Bram Stoker’s Dracula as a teenager, but I didn’t get into Anne Rice and I didn’t watch TV for nearly 20 years. When I came to Maine, my partner immediately set out to correct my cultural deprivation. He introduced me to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which I fell in love with, which led to Angel. Then there was True Blood and Jace Everett’s sexy song, “I Want to do Bad Things With You,” along with a lot of other sultry Cajun music.
James Marsters as Spike (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
The aspect of vampires I was familiar with was the archetypal one. We’ve all run into people like this. They’re the ones we walk away from with a feeling of having been drained, no matter how brief, inconsequential or seemingly innocent the interaction was. Sometimes it’s hard to pin down exactly how they manage to suck all the energy out of any given person or situation, but they do. They’re insatiable and dangerous. I suppose they might be sexy, too, but not in the straightforward, I-wanna-do-bad-things-with-you-way where you both get to have fun. They’re all about the fuel, and others are just fuel-dispensing appliances.
These vampire series, characters, actors and writers added a lot of good creative manure to my already robust interest in all things magical, archetypal and mythological. Lately I had an idea for a writing project within the frame of plants and trees with thorns, and I wanted to revisit vampires within that context.
Well! Little did I know what a goldmine I would find.
I have a well-used reference library of witchcraft, folklore, myth, legend, symbology, magic and occult, not to mention the Internet. Any kind of magic intersects with herbs and plants, so I have a lot of reference books covering those subjects as well. I began to think about thorny plants I’m familiar with. The most obvious, as they grow all over our land here in Maine, are brambles. Bramble, it turns out, is a lovely old-fashioned word meaning blackberries or raspberries. I began to research folklore surrounding brambles.
I happily juggled my laptop and handwritten notes. Books piled up on the floor around my chair. I lost track of time.
I discovered brambles are a specific (meaning remedy) for vampires. Who knew? If you are bothered by a vampire, you need only cut some bramble canes and lay them in front of your windows and on your threshold. When the vampire arrives in the dark hours to drink from you, it will be unable to pass the bramble canes until it counts every thorn. This task should keep it well occupied until sunrise, at which point it will be forced to decamp.
I was enchanted by the vision of a sensual, dark, hollow-cheeked vampire, intent on seduction and blood, hunched over outside the window trying to count the thorns on a bramble by the light of the moon. (Do mature (ahem) vampires need reading glasses for close-up work?) Picture his slumbering victim, young, palpitating, curving flesh on tempting display as she sleeps naked amid the tumbled sheets. So delectable! The smell of her flesh! The sweet throbbing pulse at her neck — and other places! Alas! He must stop to count the thorns. The cruelty of life! Or maybe I should say the cruelty of undeath.
How is it I’d never known that vampires had this particular compulsive side to their character? Why does no one ever talk about these important things?
This was too juicy a lure to ignore, so I temporarily abandoned my research on thorns and collected a new pile of books to see what else I didn’t know about vampires.
Photo by Anton Darius | @theSollers on Unsplash
Interestingly, the Christian cross and so-called holy water were not traditionally used to repel vampires. (All due respect to Buffy and Angel.) The vampire is an ancient universal archetype recognized well before Christianity in cultures all over the world.
That being said, there are several plants that assist in vampire protection, one of them being the old stand-by, garlic. This can be used fresh or dried. Another protective plant is peppermint. Presumably, vampires dislike the smell. The Element Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells suggests wearing fresh peppermint leaves around one’s neck in bed, and adds parenthetically that peppermint is an aphrodisiac. Perhaps part of the efficacy of this old spell is that one will not be alone in the bed.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
Both garlic and peppermint can be used fresh or dried, in combination or singly. If you know from whence the vampire rises, garlic scattered over its grave should keep it firmly underground where it can do no harm. Peppermint oil is also said to be efficacious, applied topically to the skin or pillow (of the intended victim, not the vampire). Surprisingly, lilac oil is also recommended. This is quite hard to find even today, and very expensive. (How was this discovered, and where? How was the oil procured?) The spell clearly specifies it must be essential oil from the lilac, not a chemical perfume. Interestingly, a remedy for psychic vampires, as opposed to the coarser blood drinkers, was infused rosemary taken as a tea or used to bathe in.
Photo by Vincent Foret on Unsplash
Iron is very commonly used as protection against many otherworldly folk, and vampires don’t like it, either. An iron ring set with pearls is said to protect the wearer from vampires. (Why this combination? Where did this belief come from?) Also, if one takes more than 100 iron nails and hammers them into the ground over the vampire’s grave, it will not be able to rise. Similarly, in what is clearly an old bit of women’s witchcraft, if one drives nine wooden spindles into the ground over the grave three days after burial, the vampire will not be able to rise.
I liked all that, but many of these protections are quite similar to other specifics for various spooks, haunts, ghosts and fairy folk. I’ve saved the good stuff for last.
Photo by Manuel Sardo on Unsplash
It turns out everyone used to know vampires are obsessive compulsive! If one doesn’t happen to have brambles, fishing nets can be used at windows and doorways. In this case, the vampire has to stop and count the knots. Or, if you prefer, sieves can be used, because they have to stop and count — you guessed it — the holes. This makes me think about our modern screens. Here was I, thinking it was all about keeping out the bugs. Nobody ever told me we were keeping out vampires as well. Alternatively, one can sprinkle millet in the graveyard where a vampire is buried, and it won’t be able to leave until it counts every millet seed.
This changes things. I wonder if this is the vampires’ dirty little secret. Maybe all the dark brooding looks, swirling cloaks, drama and theater is just distraction from what they don’t want anyone to find out — that they’re compelled to count. It definitely dulls my frisson of erotic fear. I wanna do bad things with you — as soon as I count this. What if the vampire’s prey has freckles? It almost makes me feel sorry for them. Keeping secrets is hard work. Think of the relief when people switched over to Christian crosses and holy water and forgot about brambles, nets, millet and sieves (and freckles).
My absolute favorite vampire remedy, though, has nothing to do with counting. It involves the oldest cleaning and purification tool: running water. For this one, it’s necessary to know exactly where the vampire is buried. One must procure the vampire’s left sock. (The left sock, not the right. Is this further evidence of compulsivity? Do vampires label their socks left and right? Does one ask politely for the left sock, steal it while they sleep, or wrestle the vampire for it?) Fill the sock with dirt from the vampire’s grave and stones from the cemetery in which it’s buried. (What if it’s a sock with holes in it? Do vampires darn their socks?) Throw the sock into water running away from the area to be protected. Now you have banished the vampire from that area.
Finally, for all you peacemakers out there, here’s fokloric advice from the Romani people of Macedonia. Vampires, it transpires, love milk. Romani legend says if one makes regularly scheduled offerings of milk to a troublesome vampire, it will agree to leave a short list of people alone.
(This is beyond fascinating. What other traditions and folklore come from this group of people? Who were they? Do they still live tribally? Were their milking animals cows, sheep or goats? Do they have written or oral records? Why are they the only ones who figured out a peaceful coexistence practice regarding vampires? But no, that’s probably carrying it too far for this post. I can research that another time. Do they have protective spells against werewolves, I wonder? Hmmm …)
There you go. Now you know everything you need to know to protect yourselves from vampires. You’re welcome. I hope you’re half as delighted as I am by this esoteric lore.
Before I leave you this week, I do want to say that I am in no way minimizing or mocking the suffering of those who struggle with obsessive-compulsive disorder and like illnesses. I write this post in the spirit of playfulness and fun. Please accept it as such.
David Boreanaz as Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel)
Hand me that bramble branch, will you? Where are my glasses? Let me see … one, two, three …
How long until sunrise?
All content on this site ©2018
Jennifer Rose
except where otherwise noted
by Jenny Rose | Jun 22, 2017 | A Flourishing Woman, Self-Love
Recently I went back to the little mountain town in the Southern Colorado Rockies I called home for twenty years, and wrapped up the sale of my house. It was an important trip for me, one which I’ve been anticipating ever since I arrived in Maine two and a half years ago. My partner and I drove out and drove back. I didn’t try to blog or write on the road, but I made a lot of notes and I discovered a persistent theme.
Reclamation, according to a quickie internet search, means “the process of claiming something back or of reasserting a right” or “the cultivation of waste land or land formerly under water.” It strikes me there’s an interesting and subtle possibility of conflict in those two definitions. What exactly is waste land, and who has the power to define it? Also, what does cultivation mean? Big Ag? Monocropping? Pesticides and Roundup? Or cultivation by plants, animals and wind?
In any event, I’ve been carrying the word reclamation for some years now like a talisman. It’s a cord linking events and choices of the last years of my life together.
Photo by Tanja Heffner on Unsplash
I remember exactly when it started. I was sitting in a chair in the salon where a friend cut my hair for years. In the mirror, I could see my hair falling over my shoulders and down my back, thick and wavy and beginning to be streaked with grey. I was desolate because of a broken relationship, and I saw a woman who was unwanted in that mirror. I didn’t want to be her anymore. I wanted to be someone else. My friend asked me what I wanted to do and I told her to cut it all off. “Reclamation,” I said. I couldn’t say more because I didn’t want to break into sobs, but she knew exactly what I meant, and she tied a smock around my neck and started cutting.
My ex-boyfriend had loved my hair. I loved it, too. It made me feel sexy and beautiful and feminine. Cutting it was the first step I took on the road leading me to this attic space in central Maine, where I sit this summer morning (with short hair) writing with the windows open and the sound of crickets, frogs and birds flowing in.
I held onto that word, reclamation. It became a boat to sail away in, and then a lifeboat, and then a raft and then a spar of wood in a fathomless sea of floating debris that kept me alive until current and waves took me back to shore.
Photo by Edewaa Foster on Unsplash
The little town I lived in had no claim to fame or big dollar tourism except for a golf course. When I moved there the course was renowned for being one of the most beautiful in the country, and visitors came from all over during the summer to play there, filling the inns and RV parks. Then drought struck that part of Colorado, the golf course was sold to an absentee owner who immediately got crosswise with the town, and gradually, due to a mixture of water problems, politics and general assholery on the part of the owner, the golf course went downhill, people lost jobs, the greens became unkempt and the tourists stopped coming. Then, just about the time I left town, the golf course closed.
I don’t play golf and my living fortunately didn’t depend on the tourist trade, but every morning, just before dawn, I walked on the golf course.
I didn’t do it for exercise or as a discipline. It was my lifeline. It was the one place where I never failed. I was guaranteed solitude and peace. Nobody knew where I was. I knew the course so well I could disappear into it, be absorbed. I had several routes, one for ordinary days, one for days of grief, one for days of rage and the longest one for days of despair. I used some of the cart paths, but mostly I followed the contours and edges of the greens and walked along the river, which was generally only a trickle, if not entirely dry. I often heard owls going to roost as meadowlarks began their morning chorus. I saw bears, foxes, skunks, deer and geese.
In the days of relative plenty, maintenance men worked as early as I was walking, but I was a familiar local figure and we ignored each other. I avoided them and they only saw me at a distance. There was an elaborate sprinkler system, of course, that worked all night every night and made the whole place fresh and green and cool, a stark contrast to my daily reality of hauling or pumping grey water out to my garden because of drought and watering restrictions. I lived a five-minute walk away.
During our recent trip we only spent one night in that little town, but I woke early, slid into my clothes and walked to the golf course. I knew it had been closed altogether for some time. This year the drought momentarily broke in the valley with record amounts of snow and rain, and the river that so often dried up flooded, both on the course and through the town. As I slipped through the gates and passed the “no trespassing” signs in the dark of early dawn, I could hear the river, an amazing, miraculous sound. The scent and chill kiss in the air of running water was very different from the mechanical chik, chik, chik of an automatic sprinkler.
The cart path was rutted, muddy and overgrown. Large tree limbs had fallen and nobody cleared them away. The river actually broke out of its banks and spread across a former green. I’d seen pictures in the local paper, but I still couldn’t believe my eyes. The town sent in machinery to make barriers out of heaped-up debris and mud. Whole trees had toppled, their root balls pathetically exposed to the sky.
Photo by Alejandro Escamilla on Unsplash
Once, I could have walked several paths on the golf course blindfolded. I often was there in the dark. Now my footing was uncertain. The grass grew up to my waist and I kept tripping over hidden windfall branches. Weeds filled the sand traps. The greens were, of course, gone. The groomed contours that once marked my route had vanished, forcing me to slow down and move more cautiously. I strained my eyes to discover familiar slopes and hollows in the dim light.
As I moved deeper into the old course, I thought of all the hundreds of mornings I’ve spent there, praying, weeping, raging, pressing myself against nature in every mood and season. I took my joy there, my hope, my dreams, and my gratitude practice. The golf course was a place of creative inspiration, a place of guidance and comfort, a place in which to staunch wounds enough to carry on another day. I was real there. I didn’t try to hide from myself.
That highly-groomed, herbicide-gagged, shaved, enslaved, money-making piece of land (a waste land) is going wild again. It was captured, bought, and pimped by a businessman in order to create a profit. Now, Mother Nature reclaims her own. The land begins to remember itself. As I walked and the light increased, showing me myriad signs of healing, I felt akin to the land. What is happening there is happening to me. I had a pimp, too — myself. I sold myself for what I thought I was worth in order to get what I needed. Now the land and I reclaim ourselves from a bleak and limited culture that relies on chemicals, profit and power-over rather than natural cycles and cooperation.
Reclamation is not a controlled, civilized process. It’s wild, sometimes catastrophic. The river made a scar where it broke its banks and uprooted trees, but it carved out a new bed for itself. The old bed will fill in. New growth will cover all that exposed earth. The downed limbs and trees will rot and feed the soil and mycelium while native plants and grasses return. Is this what we mean by waste land? Forest fire, flood and storm are acts of nature that reshape the land and environment. Life dies and renews, one act leading to the other. We often experience reclamation as terrifying and tragic. Human beings, for the most part, don’t welcome change unless we control it.
Yet we do change. The world changes. The weather changes. Those around us change. We can neither stop nor control it in any significant way, and I’m entirely grateful for that. The golf course and I are messy. Our hair is disheveled. Our trim, neat lines are blurred. The high unmown grass through which I waded brushed against the hair on my bare legs. The water feeding the land and the water of feeling that feeds me have carved a new, wider path. Bridges and trees sag and unravel, not trash but compost for the next thing. Paths and fences fall into disrepair. Grass and saplings mingle freely, each reaching toward the other at the edges.
Photo by Laterjay Photography on Unsplash
Snakes, rabbits and insects live again in the shelter of the grasses. Does can leave their fawns safely concealed while they browse, and their presence will bring the mountain lions down from the foothills. Owls will find abundant mice, voles and other rodents in what was a carpet of sterile green velvet. The beaver and raccoons will no longer be trapped or shot, lest they disturb the regulated beauty of the water features or annoy the tourists. Over all this complex, creative system, the meadowlark still sings, that king of the high fields and plains, and his song still brings tears to my eyes and an ache to my throat.
That land will always be home to the woman I was. I was glad to return for a brief hour and realize my beloved place has moved on, just as I have. The land and I were both over-civilized into waste land, but now we’re reclaiming ourselves. The golf course and I reassert our right to be what we are. We surrender to change, to mess, and to the transformative edge of chaos.
All content on this site ©2017
Jennifer Rose
except where otherwise noted
by Jenny Rose | Sep 15, 2016 | Power
Since I began this blog I’ve wanted to write about boundaries, not only because I myself am trying to develop better ones, but also because it seems to me boundaries are a large part of what’s broken in our culture.
We’re all aware of headlines from all over the world about human rights, ethnic and racial struggle, politics, sexual identity, religion and war. It seems to me boundaries are a core piece in each headline; an enormously complex piece of human function and dysfunction. How do we define, understand and effectively manage boundaries — both our own and those of others? How do we manage people who consistently violate our boundaries?
Trying to organize my thoughts about this is like trying to herd cats. That being said, I can choose a starting point, so I’m going to start there and see if the subject organizes itself as I write.
I approach most subjects with a definition and curiosity about what others are saying about it. A Google search for “boundary” tells me it’s a “dividing line.”
I’ve read two articles recently about boundaries. One is written from an emotional intelligence perspective and one is about human rights, kind of a sidewise look at boundaries through the idea of respect. Both have contributed to my mental soup on this subject.
My experience is that any piece of human function or dysfunction begins with myself. Self-reflection and self-inquiry are powerful tools for me, even though I occasionally wince at what I find!
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
So, let’s play a game. Open your refrigerator, or your pantry, or your cupboard. Look at a shelf where you keep food. Everything is in a container. The container around the food is a boundary. If none of that food had boundaries around it — well, that would just be a mess.
As we start thinking about boundaries from ourselves outward, let’s take a jar of strawberry jam. It’s a glass jar with a screw top lid and it’s clearly labeled strawberry jam. Effective boundaries, it seems to me, begin with a correct identification of what’s being contained. We have to know who we are before we can create healthy boundaries, because our boundaries won’t look like someone else’s. They’re not one size fits all. You can’t keep strawberry jam in an eggshell. You don’t want raw eggs in a jar labeled strawberry jam. A can with the label torn off could still be food, but it’s hard to use it effectively.
Mislabeling happens in two directions. There are those externally who tell us who we will, should or must be (or who we will, should or must NOT be), and there are our own internal expectations of who we are and what we need. If something goes wrong right here, at the first step of boundary work, we’ve got problems.
This takes us directly back to several dynamics I’ve posted about — expectations, stories, saying yes and no, and pleasing people among them. My experience in my own western middle-class culture has been painful pressure to be who I’m expected to be, not who I really am. If this can happen to me, a straight, white, average-looking, average-sized, able-bodied, unambiguous female, then I know hundreds of thousands of people out there are being systematically emotionally and spiritually maimed in ways I can’t begin to fathom.
This opposition to knowing and being ourselves is everywhere. Capitalism is based on the idea you’re not okay as you are, but you will be if you buy…whatever it is.
Photo by Viktor Forgacs on Unsplash
I’m strawberry jam. I’m not grape jelly, even though it’s more valuable. I’m not blackberry jam, even though it’s more attractive. I’m not raspberry jam, even though it’s more popular. Go ahead, glue a label on me that says “currant jelly.” I’m still going to be strawberry jam, and my true boundaries are a glass jar with a screw top lid and a label that says strawberry jam.
As cruel as it is, the external pressure we feel to be other than we are is not the most damaging thing. The most damaging piece is what we do internally to ourselves. I can spend my whole life with my fingers in my ears and my eyes squinched shut saying I’m peanut butter, but I’ll always be strawberry jam. Other people will know it. I’ll know it. Nothing will ever work for me because I’m in the world trying to be something I’m not. I won’t find my people. I won’t find my place. I won’t figure out and make my contribution. I won’t have effective boundaries. I won’t be happy.
Not only that, but my inability to manage and maintain effective boundaries affects everyone around me. If my jar is cracked or broken, strawberry jam is going to ooze out onto the shelf. It’ll make a mess. It’ll attract pests and predators. It’ll be wasted and it will impoverish the peanut butter, the toast, the butter and whatever else might have connected with me as strawberry jam.
Photo by Jonathan Pielmayer on Unsplash
In order to have healthy boundaries we have to know what we need. In order to know what we need we have to know who we are. Finding out who we are can be a terrifying prospect, especially if we’re captive to what other people, media, our culture, and most of all ourselves tell us we MUST be in order to get loved and find happiness, meaning and purpose.
I have made up my mind I will build better boundaries. I will figure this out. If anybody out there will walk beside me, I’ll be very pleased. I know I’m not the only one struggling with this. In fact, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have trouble with some piece of it.
My starting point is right here, with myself. I’m strawberry jam and my boundaries are a glass jar and a screw top lid. My label says strawberry jam. I’ve no interest in forcing, persuading or coercing anyone else to be strawberry jam. I just know what I am. It might be that strawberry jam is outlawed, shunned, shamed, beheaded, tortured, raped, imprisoned, damned to Hell, unsaved, unenlightened, unlovable, unwanted, unworthy or lined up against a stone wall and shot under a hot sun. I’ll still be strawberry jam. I’m not confused and I’m not going to feel ashamed about it.
Peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwich, anyone?
All content on this site ©2016
Jennifer Rose
except where otherwise noted
by Jenny Rose | Apr 13, 2024 | Connection & Community, Emotional Intelligence, Shadows
I have felt, for a period of some years and more frequently since 2016, that the planet would be better off without human beings. I’ve said it, I’ve thought it, and this is the first time I’ve written it. I would be happy to be the first in line, gladly give up my life in the certain knowledge that without us, Earth could heal, cleanse itself, and nurture all the countless species we have failed to notice, value, and cherish. Let the rape stop. Let the wide-scale poisoning stop. Let the brutality, suffering, stupidity, greed, and criminal disregard for others stop.
Photo by NASA on Unsplash
I freely admit to the pessimism and bitterness inherent in my view. I’m also aware of how paradoxical it is. I truly care about most people. Put a single human soul in my path, and I rarely fail to make a connection and feel some kind of empathy and kindness for them. I’ve spent my life caregiving, supporting, and teaching people, taking great joy in my contribution.
In my last few posts, starting with “The Locked Room,” I’ve thought a great deal about self-love and self-trust. It occurs to me my despair over human behavior as a whole must include me. My willingness to see us all wiped out includes a willingness to be wiped out myself. If other humans are capable of the atrocities happening all around us every day, so am I. If I want to see that dark potential destroyed, if I’d be glad of it, even, my self-love is seriously incomplete.
I’m not sure I’d call it self-hate. I don’t hate myself, you, the stranger on the street, or friends and family, but I hate what we are capable of. I hate what we can (and in some cases choose to) do. I believe some of us are willing to heal, grow, change, unite, and make better choices, but right now most of the human power in the world (as we understand power) lies in the hands of a few louts nobody seems to be able to overcome. Indeed, many cheer them on.
And that could be any of us, cheering them on. In the right context, with the right ideology, it could be any of us. I am too old to tell myself fairy stories about how I would never fill-in-the-blank. Easy to say as I listen to my sheets rotating in the washing machine, drink clean water from my tap, notice the old copper pipes rattling as the furnace comes on, and type on my laptop in my fully electrified, clean, intact house in a peaceful neighborhood on a Saturday morning with my feet propped up on my desk. I am sane. I am healthy. I am well-fed, housed, and employed. Most people do not have the luxuries I take for granted, the safety, the peace. People do terrible things out of terrible pain and dysfunction. I am not immune. None of us are. I’ve been fortunate, and that’s through nothing but luck.
A few weeks ago I read a piece by an author on Substack, Anna Kay, who writes a newsletter called The Hinterlands. I stumbled across her “A World Without a Heartbeat” by chance. She was not a writer I was familiar with, though I have since subscribed to her. She turned me inside out. I wept. I was comforted. I was awed and envious of her evident belief in human goodness. I was softened. I was challenged.
Most of all, I was challenged. As I read her words, I glimpsed a different frame, a frame of hope rather than bitterness.
I could not possibly paraphrase her words and I wouldn’t dare try to give you a synopsis. It’s not a long piece, and if you only follow one link out of the hundreds I’ve posted here in the last eight years, let this be the one. Please.
By Photoholgic on Unsplash
What moved me most was a world without humans would be a world without stories. A world without stories, a world without music, a world without art. A world without reverence and gratitude for nature. A world without human appreciation. Somehow, that seems like a terrible loss. I’m not sure why. Wouldn’t the planet be every bit as rich and beautiful if no one enjoyed it? Surely it would. Yet the loneliness of feeling unseen and unappreciated hurts because I’ve lived in the heart of that feeling.
The question I ask myself is am I willing to allow some or all of my bitterness to dissolve in order to deepen my ability to self-love? Bitterness is a heavy burden and there’s plenty in the world. Do I need or want to add to it? Is it useful?
It’s true we humans are capable of terrible things. Isn’t it also true we’re capable of remarkable courage, generosity, intelligence, creativity, and love?
Couldn’t we each make a list of human teachers, guides, beloved ones who have inspired us, protected us, and made us smile as well as a list of those who have done us wrong?
Our choice is which list to make, which to dwell on.
I’ve become deeply involved with the Substack community. I follow several other creatives simply because they inspire me. They make me feel better about the world, about life, about myself. They balance some of my despair and horror regarding the state of the world with beauty and hope. I’d like to introduce you to some of them:
Questions:
- Do you believe humans have value as a species? Why or why not?
- What human-driven activity gives you hope?
- Do you see humans as part of a healthy planet or an invasive species, wiping out all competitors?
Leave a comment below!
To read my fiction, serially published free every week, go here: 
by Jenny Rose | Mar 30, 2024 | A Flourishing Woman, Self-Love
When I wrote about internal locked rooms earlier in the month, I had no idea how much there would be to unpack. In subsequent discussions about locked rooms and unconditional love (for a connect-the-dots map go here) a friend tells me she believes trusting herself is the biggest barrier for her in unconditionally loving herself. Me being me, I asked her how we define trust. In asking her I asked myself.
Photo by Jonathan Simcoe on Unsplash
Here we go again.
Trust is defined by Online Oxford Dictionary as “firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something.”
Trust is a tricky subject for me and I’ve so far avoided taking it head on, but this feels like the right time. Part of my hesitation to talk about it is my own identity as a person who doesn’t trust easily.
I feel that piece of identity as a shameful aspect of my character. As I write this, I have a vivid childhood memory of being in the back of a dim car in a blinding snowstorm feeling scared. An adult in the car was also fearful, as were the family dogs. The driver asked me, “What’s the matter, don’t you trust me?”
The answer clamored inside the car, “NO!” For a moment it seemed to me we’d all shouted it, though nobody said a word and I huddled, frozen with fear and not daring to speak, in my corner.
It’s bad not to trust; disloyal, unloving, unnatural. But I learned very young trusting those around me was dangerous. All my life I’ve been torn between my shame about not trusting and a determination to survive and learn to self-defend … which sometimes (often?) means not trusting.
I don’t see trust as a black-and-white belief. I might trust someone completely with money and business affairs, but not at all as a confidant. I might trust someone as a parent but not as a dog walker. I might trust someone’s essential goodness but not their reliability in following through on plans.
This question of trusting ourselves, though, is slightly different. What does it mean, exactly, to not trust ourselves? What do I mean when I say it to myself?
Trust is defined as a belief, and beliefs can and do change. Belief is a choice. My belief that I’m untrustworthy is not something I was born with, but something I internalized from my family. I’m untrustworthy because I’m dramatic, I struggle with math story problems, I have needs and feelings, I’m intuitive, I’m sensitive, I have boundaries, I challenge authority and rules, and I tell the truth, among many other reasons.
Internalized voices are a bitch, because we don’t realize or remember they came from someone outside us.
And people outside us lie. People outside us can never fully see what’s inside us. People have agendas, their own wounds and trauma, and navigate around their own internalized bullshit.
Photo by Cristian Newman on Unsplash
People outside us are not necessarily reliable sources about our worth and value as a human being.
If trust is a “firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something,” we have specifics we can explore.
Reliability: I know myself to be reliable. I have many flaws, but my integrity is strong and I keep my word to myself.
Truth: A thorny aspect of trust. I wrote two paragraphs here about the ways in which others perceive my truthfulness. On edit, I realized none of that has to do with my truthfulness with myself, which will always be invisible to the outside world. Do I trust my truthfulness with myself? Yes. Absolutely.
Ability: This is my weakest area of self-trust. In some ways. At some times. I wrestle every day with imposter syndrome. On the other hand, I absolutely trust my ability to write, to teach, to swim, to dance, and to do many other things. Oddly, though I trust my ability in most cases, I don’t want others to trust my ability because I have a huge fear of disappointing people. This, too, is an old wound, first opened when I received constant messaging about how disappointing and inadequate I was as a child. Because of that, I don’t want people to rely on me for fear I’ll let them down, not from my perspective, but from theirs.
I told you trust was tricky for me.
Strength: Which brings me to strength. This, for me, is a no-brainer. I have absolute belief in my own strength. God knows I wouldn’t be sitting here at the keyboard typing if I hadn’t been strong all my life.
Given this mostly positive review of the components of this definition of trust, what’s the problem? Why have I so consistently mistrusted myself during my lifetime?
I can easily come up with two reasons. There may be more lurking in the background, but these two are in front: One is trust in my physical body, and the other is perfectionism.
Perfectionism is one of the first things I wrote about on this blog. It’s another piece from my childhood I’ve struggled with it all my life, and I’m certainly not the only one. I’m conscious of it now, which is helpful, but it affects every day of my life and if I’m not mindful it rules me. Publishing this blog was one of my first real efforts at resistance. It took more than a year of weekly publishing to stop feeling panic as I pushed the “publish” button after a reasonable amount of writing and editing.
Even as perfectionism drives me, I’m aware enough to know I can’t define it beyond pleasing people. Which is impossible, and I know that. Yet the internal pressure to be perfect seems to be inescapable.
I’ve also written extensively about expectations. As a child, I was expected to be perfect according to conflicting expectations from three adults on whom I was dependent. Needless to say I failed to please any of them, which meant I lived in a constant state of shame and fear of abandonment. A perfect setup for internalized self-loathing. The road from self-loathing to considering unconditional self-love has been an amazing journey.
I was aware, as I explored ability, reliability, truth, and strength above, of a little voice in my head saying, “Yes, but—,” a precursor to the time I was late, or forgot an appointment, or the occasions I did deliberately lie, or the times I felt weak, or when my ability did not live up to my own unconscious standards of perfectionism.
As I became aware of this, I realized I will never trust myself if I aspire to be perfect in these four categories. I have never been perfect, I am not perfect, I never will be perfect, and I’m not much interested at this point in my life in attaining perfection in any way.
So fuck off, perfectionism. I’m not your bitch anymore. AND you will not stop me from loving myself, unconditionally or otherwise. Unconditional love is not built on some ridiculous set of expectations.
Photo by Emma Backer on Unsplash
Which brings me to an interesting insight on my relationship with my body. Let’s not do the body-as-a-political-signal thing, OK? I’m sick of it. We all live in a body. We have baggage about how our bodies look and function. We’re pressured, every day, to try to buy a “better” body, especially children. In today’s world, many of us feel we “should” be different, no matter what we look like. Currently, we’re obsessed with appearance and virtue signaling rather than health and function.
I don’t hate my body. However, due to autoimmune issues and years of chronic pain, I haven’t trusted it. Until the last ten years or so, since I’ve gone carnivore, my physical state was extremely limiting; I was unable to engage fully in activities I loved, get regular exercise, or even reliably manage the activities of daily living without severe pain.
Now I have my inflammation under control, my chronic pain is gone, and I’m able to joyfully live the kind of active lifestyle I’ve always wanted: gardening, walking, swimming, water aerobics, free weights, stretching, a little yoga, a little Pilates, a little time in the gym. I’m healthier and more active than I’ve ever been, but I am aging, and as I age, my body is changing. (Big surprise, I know!) I noticed, in my post about unconditional self-love, some of the things I wrote about unconditionally loving were physical things. In this culture, nobody tells us to love our varicose veins, or our age-spotted hands, or our lined neck. Instead, we’re encouraged to buy something and “fix” all those problems, or at least hide them.
That’s not unconditional love. (I also deny it’s “body positivity,” but I don’t want to dive into that rabbit hole!)
I know if I push myself too hard my body will hurt. I know if I allow my anxiety to spin out of control I won’t sleep. I know if I eat a whole pizza I will a) have inflammation and pain from the carbs and b) have severe constipation (cheese). I know if I garden for too many hours at a time I’ll be too stiff the next morning to get dressed without sitting down. I know if I spend too many hours in the pool I’ll develop eczema on my elbows and hips.
Photo by Cristian Newman on Unsplash
I ask myself, does all this mean I don’t trust my body? Because it actually sounds like I do trust it to react to my choices in various predictable ways. Is what I’m really saying I don’t trust my body to be a 20-year-old perfect body?
Well …. Yeah. I guess that is what I’m saying. Pretty silly.
My friend doesn’t feel she can unconditionally love herself without trusting herself. She’ll navigate her own path through all this. My own conclusion is I can trust myself. Perhaps I should consciously start doing so. (What an idea!) For me, lack of self-trust is not an obstacle to unconditional love, but it certainly makes a nice contribution to it.
Questions:
- Do you see trust as essential to unconditional love?
- Do you agree with this definition of trust? If not, how would you define it? Can you find a better definition?
- What aspect of trust in this definition do you struggle with the most?
Leave a comment below!
To read my fiction, serially published free every week, go here: 
