L E O N I E . W I S E

calling on the four elements: earth, fire, air, water. lighting a candle to honour my intention

my writing for 21.5.800 is private. it’s a conversation i have chosen to have with myself as i realised earlier on this month that i had been spending so much time following what others were saying and doing that i’d forgotten what my own voice sounded like.

so i retreated somewhat. and decided that 21.5.800 would be about me. and an experiment in communicating with myself via the medium of technology – namely my macbook and ommwriter.

bindu has been writing about fear. and this morning i realised that it’s not fear that’s holding me back.

it’s shame.

and this realisation has brought about the wonderful beginning of a new and deeper, more truthful and honest conversation with myself. and because feeling shame can lead me to intentionally causing harm to myself…

today my intention was simply this:
i will get through this day without doing myself any harm

(i’m doing pretty well so far)

i believe it’s no accident that things are happening to me right now that bring me to an awareness of a 30-something year long conversation i have been having with myself.

things in my professional life have been difficult over the past year. the details of what exactly has happened isn’t the important bit; it’s what i have been telling myself about it (and the bigger story of myself) that is.

because it’s not just in my working life….
that just happens to be the thing that has been pressing my buttons, bringing my awareness to this conversation, forcing me to take some kind of action. because how i am feeling ultimately has nothing to do with my current workplace.

its all to do with ME.

it’s about value.
how i value myself, my time, my existence.

looking back throughout my life, i have made a lot of decisions based on a conversation with myself that i am not worth anything. it has shaped my choices even down to the food i put in my mouth and the things i have chosen to numb me from the scary things that have happened in my life.

i have looked outside of myself for some sign that i have worth.

1. i do it by taking jobs just because people ask me to and i know i could do them well (even though the work doesn’t make me happy)
2. i compare my daily rate with that of my husband (who is REALLY smart and does something that pays well)
3. i seek validation that i am worthy or that my choices are ‘good ones’
4. even when someone tells me how great i am, i find it difficult to believe

and i am very quick to say to myself “see? i told you you’re not worth it” when someone leaves, or when i encounter something that i haven’t been able to deal with emotionally. it’s like i have somewhere in the past made value = some complicated mathematical sum that i have long forgotten how to answer.

i had forgotten that my idea of the worth of myself cannot be taught to me, or shown to me, or told to me by anyone other than myself.

changing my conversation with myself is the only way i can change my value of myself. it’s not through listening to anyone else, or by measuring it with how much money i make, how many friends i have, or how many books i sell.

because none of that matters.

YOU might think i’m amazing and wonder why i can’t see it myself (you might not). but you (or anyone else) telling me that i am valuable and worth the space that i occupy on the planet isn’t going to make one jot of difference until i can say it to myself and truly believe the words i hear myself saying.

venus (after surgery). banksy installation at the bristol museum 2009

so, anyone who reads this blog (or any of the blogs of emma, jo, lisa, megg, penny, sas and susannah) will already know that last weekend we all got together in a cottage in a small village in england. i still don’t (and don’t think i ever will) have the words to adequately describe the weekend, even to those that were there with me! it was a gzillion different kinds of wonderful.

the weekend was full of such openness, sharing and love that the only way to be there was as my truest self. i come home on a high, with a heart full to bursting point, fallen in love a million times over with each of the beauties i shared my weekend away with.

and i find myself returned home to the same place, the same husband, the same job, the same clothes in my wardrobe (okay, apart from a new coat purchased after being inspired by emma) and yet not the same life.

it’s the same feeling i have had upon returning home from being held in the company of women in the past; a feeling of being accepted, fully, simply as myself, then leaving that safe space & making my way out into the world once more.

and it’s hard.
hard to come home and integrate back into the world.

because i am no longer physically cocooned in a cosy cottage, within a warm blanket of loving arms, understanding and love. all i have here is me and the world.

yes, my friends are still there and still love me. but they are not here. and i am not there with them.
yes, my husband is still here and still loves me. and i love him dearly, that hasn’t changed.

but still i feel like a piece of me is missing…
it’s like all my friends suddenly grabbed their coats and left the playground, leaving me standing there alone with just the sound of the empty merry-go-round grinding slowly to a halt.

as i said before, it’s not the first time i have come home from a weekend away feeling like this. and the realisation came to me today that this is all i really have.

me. here. by myself.

so, everytime everyone else has said their goodbyes and gone home, i better bloody well be willing to love myself; to sit down with my reflection, greeting myself with the same look of love in my eyes that i have seen in others when they look at me.

that is my love after love.

Love After Love

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Derek Walcott

photo by my beautiful friend darlene

i’ve been thinking over the past couple of days about how easy it is for me to see so much good and potential and promise in others – the friends dear to me as well as colleagues & passing acquaintances. i find it easy to offer encouraging words to remind others of the good that they are and that they do.

it is easy for me to speak from my deepest knowing to a friend; to speak the truth of who she is and what she is capable of. i often also find that my eyes will soulfully communicate with hers, which often has a more powerful transmission than anything i could give voice to.

yet, like many women i know, i find it hard to say these things to myself. i find it hard to speak to myself from my deepest knowing of the beauty and the value that i also have. and sometimes (well, most times for me), it’s not actually something i would be able to verbalise anyway… it’s more of a feeling, a knowing, a deep recognition on a cellular level, than anything i can ever speak. it’s showing up in the mirror, meeting myself in my reflection and having a conversation with myself through my eyes rather than by using my voice.

i often feel frustrated at not being able to fully communicate through words what it is that i feel and really want to say. there are a number of people who write so deeply with words that really resonate with me and i often wonder why it is that i am unable to string my thoughts and feelings together in such a beautiful and engaging manner. very often, even thanking them for their words feels impossible to ever communicate in any meaningful way.

and it feels like this wordless conversation has been going on for me my whole life.

in fact, in a lot of my poetry there’s a common thread of feeling like words are ‘stuck in my throat’ – wanting to get out somehow, yet i never really feel like what i want to say could ever be spoken coherently. even now as i sit here writing, i can feel a tightness in my throat, like there’s something stuck there that wants to be spoken that is unable to come out.

so, right now, i sit here again frustrated… not because i can’t get my message across to you, but because i feel currently unable to have the conversation with myself that i truly desire.