The Opaque Mirror

I recently rewrote my bio for one of the websites I advertise on and, not having done that for a few years, it took me on a little journey of self-discovery.

The request for the bio came on a day I was not feeling my best. My emotions were flat and while I could tell you (with passion) the attributes and skills of others, for myself, the mirror was opaque. In the past I would have pushed through it, writing things by rote, maybe asking friends for advice or just resubmitting an old bio but this time, I really couldn’t bring up the energy to care. I didn’t want to express what I wasn’t feeling or worse, express in writing exactly what I was feeling — for a bio, that wouldn’t have been, shall we say, inappropriate. I felt at the time the only thing I could do was ignore the request and let the fates have their way.

Of course, that is not how the fates, aka website managers work. Employment, marketing, and other people’s needs and demands carry on despite one’s individual moods and peccadilloes. Normally, as I wrote above, I acquiesce and am generally pleased with the result but, on that day, no pleasure would have come from denying my internal state. And, it turns out, it was the healthier (business and personal) option.

As I have written before, our codependent parts can be quite the pleasers, attention grabbers, wall flowers, bullies, or the “whatevers” in order to get their needs met. In regard to this little bio writing episode, one could imply then that my codependent parts were perversely refusing to cooperate so that another would come in for the rescue: tell me how wonderful, skillful, and talented I was; and then recite a variety of bon mots to be gilded on my epitaph. And perhaps that held some truth but, in retrospect, now that I have come through it and, yes, rewritten my bio (quite nicely, thank you), it was more about my Self, my internal leader, taking charge and saying: “you know you are fine. You know you are skillful, creative, and knowledgeable. In fact, Jo-Ann, you know it so well that it doesn’t matter if anyone else does. The important thing is that you know.”

So, perhaps you could say that for a few days I had a distorted image of myself that refused to cooperate with the rest of the world but, on the other hand, you could also say that the “opaque mirror” was just a rebellion of all my parts that were sick and tired of trying to prove to others that I am good enough.

Whatever the reason, my bio is great … and I am not so bad myself.