In years gone by when I struggled with life in differing ways, being authentic was an ever increasing challenge. In teenage years, it was a time of hyper-vigilance, exhausting me to the point of sleep at times, just to maintain ‘acceptability’. As I grew older and into young adulthood it evolved into a deep discomfort in my own skin. The ‘me’ the world saw, wasn’t me. It was a fabrication; a sculpted effigy of me that seemed more acceptable to what I perceived the norm to be. It felt like wearing a hair shirt but pretending it was silk, inwardly always wriggling in my own skin, never comfortable, always running from the truth of who I was.
In years later when this way of living swallowed me up and left an empty skin of a human being ready to face truth, I sat with my then therapist and asked myself, and him, why? Why and how had this come to pass? It became apparent to me over time… I had a brown spot. Like a shiny red apple hides its worm created brown spot…so had I, until hiding that shameful part of myself had just exhausted and depleted me.
What a relief it was. My first real taste of authenticity felt like a gentle hug I gave myself. If I was to judge that day, I would say it was a great day. If I wasn’t to use judgment, I would say it felt so warm to be real.
So why this piece? If its intention is not to be about psychological and philosophical analyses of some sort of dysfunctionality or developmental hiccup, which it’s not, then why do I tell this story of my own journey? I guess it is because for me, before I am a therapist and before others are doctors, nurses or any other label, we are all the same in our humanness. This is the binding, connecting place for us all. Sharing experiences of what it is to be human and the struggles we face on our journey through life connects us like nothing else.
Today in my practice, where I sit with others who struggle with authenticity, I witness many brown spots. Many shame laden places in clients’ deepest spirits around which they build stories, labels, diagnoses and unhelpful behaviours in order to cope and hide. This always moves me. Human beings witnessing each other’s simple ‘humanness’ always touches me.
Through my own work in self-acceptance and self-discovery I now feel the gentle gust of fresh cool wind through the room my brown spot is housed and I have learned that this too, alongside every other aspect of myself, makes up all of who I am. I no longer want to deny it and like an orphaned part of me now embraced, have given it its rightful place in my self. I no longer struggle with shame but when shame comes, I notice the judgment and allow it and say ‘yes, there you are again’. It comes and it goes, because this is what it is to be human. To be imperfect and enough.
Today, I am so grateful for my brown spot, because it has taught me to be compassionate with myself and through that, to be compassionate with my fellow travelers. It has been my greatest gift and I will always bless the gentle therapist who introduced me lovingly to my little brown spot.
I want to unfold.
Let no place in me
Hold itself closed.
For where I am closed
I am false.
–Rainer Maria Rilke
Karina Stell – November 2014
