3. The Elephant in the Room

Perhaps we shouldn’t go any further without addressing the elephant in the room, or in this case, the SELF on the page.

You’ve probably noticed by now that when I refer to the SELF I use capital letters. I made the decision to capitalize the SELF, and also detach it from any sort of possessive pronoun, such as my or your (as in my SELF or your SELF), deliberately.

Initially, I wrestled with this decision, going back and forth between all caps and lowercase, worrying that if I referred to the SELF in this way, it might look odd or stand out. But then I checked in with my SELF (something I’ve only recently learned how to do) and realized that looking odd and standing out is exactly the way I want the SELF to appear.

I want the SELF to look big. I want the SELF to have room. Otherwise, I fear, the SELF will get lost. Anytime anything is omnipresent, it risks being forgotten, neglected or taken for granted. Like water is to fish, the SELF is to us. After awhile IT just…disappears.

And yet, we all have a SELF. None of us are SELF less. 

Even the most SELF less among us, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Jesus all had SELVES that they inhabited while they walked upon the earth. 

You, me, we all have a SELF, but how often do we acknowledge IT? How often do we attend to IT? How often do we ask IT what IT needs? How often do we listen?

If you’re anything like I used to be the answer to this question is “Not very often.”

Most of the time, the SELF is the proverbial elephant in the room, that obvious thing that we all know is there, but pretend doesn’t exist out of fear that IT might slow us down, that IT might get in the way, that IT might, (God forbid), have a need.

Instead of recognizing the SELF and what IT needs, we push the SELF down, we shush the SELF, we bark at the SELF, “Your need doesn’t matter. Needs are for the weak. GO, GO, GO!”

When we do focus on the SELF, it’s usually on the outside SELF, on our faces and bodies. We primp and pluck, shape and starve thinking that if we can just make the outside SELF shiny enough, tiny enough, fit enough, then we will be safe, then we will be happy.

The problem with this approach though is that the inner dialogue that accompanies the eternal search for external beauty is rarely kind. In fact, it’s usually quite mean. 

For as long as we’re focused on perfecting the outside SELF, we’re usually rejecting the inside SELF. For as long as we’re striving to make the outside SELF more beautiful, more acceptable, more anything, the inside SELF suffers.

Here’s what the inside SELF suffers from: SELF judgment.

Every time we SELF criticize, SELF chastise, SELF deprecate, the inside SELF gets smaller, goes deeper, hiding like a terrified child until, one day, the inside SELF just stops coming out. One day the inside SELF just shuts down entirely.

By the time Covid hit in March of 2020, my inside SELF had been long gone, buried years ago by relentless SELF cruelty. My outside SELF was there, fairly shiny, tiny and fit, but never shiny, tiny or fit enough. 

Without my inside SELF, I had no clue what I felt and no idea what I needed. All I knew was that my outside SELF, alone, wasn’t going to be enough anymore.

If I was going to make it through a global pandemic (without bringing my whole family down with me), I was going to need my inside SELF too, which meant that I was going to have to start making amends.

If I wanted my inside SELF to come up and out of hiding, I was going to have to start being kind to IT.

ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM