The Search for Self Worth

“Crazy people don’t sit around wondering if they’re nuts.”

It’s a line from Proof, the play I’m currently in where I play the older sister to a potentially crazy potential mathematical genius, and daughter to a mathematical genius who truly was crazy. It is my job – my character thinks – to gently or not so gently convince my sister to move to New York now that our father has died, so she can be near me, where I can watch her, take care of her and get her help…because I think she’s crazy.

“I think you have some of his talent…and some of his tendency toward…instability,” I tell her.

I am undermining, condescending and even somewhat manipulative. I talk down to her, tell her what’s best for her, try to interest her in the mundane and materialistic world that I want to pull her into, and I treat her like a child who cannot possibly know what is best for herself, even though she’s 25.

Call it what you want. As of last Friday, Mercury Retrograde ended, which is one of three periods a year of a three-week window where astrologically Mercury appears to be moving backward in the sky. According to astrologists, the ability to communicate effectively moves backwards with it.

Whether or not this is true, it’s been a hell of a couple weeks for me. Not only did I find myself misunderstanding and misunderstood, I found myself fumbling around in my head, trying to figure out what my actual perceptions were and what my ego was insisting was the truth – how I was protecting myself and whether I was simply refusing to take the blame for something – many things – that were or weren't my fault.

I know that seems vague, but really the issues at hand weren’t what was at the root of the problem, it was my feeling about them. Was there something wrong with me? Why was I finding it so hard to find my footing; to acknowledge my own role in these situations and yet still be able to recognize that despite my faults I was an ok human being; that these faults did not completely define me?

Let me be clear here: I am not hearing voices, I do not see people who are not there, and I have yet to have anyone tell me that I might actually be courting mental illness. Yet in my own head, I was the sister that I talk down to in Proof. I am Catherine, struggling to find footing, vacillating between truth and fiction, between fighting for normalcy and fighting against lunacy, and finding both sides to be a slippery slope. I found a part of me telling me that there was no way what I was saying or thinking or even feeling could be true; that I am incapable of anything; that I am, in fact, crazy for thinking that my life might work the way I’ve been living it: that it is crazy to believe that I can live a happy productive life in any way, shape or form that I choose.

In the last week, I’ve found myself stuck there: my brain insisting that I am wrong, worthless, while my heart screams that the world is what I make of it; that the world I want does exist, and even if it’s not coming about in the easiest and most comfortable way possible, it is coming about nevertheless.

The other day I went for a long walk that turned into a series of short jogs interspersed with walking. I’ve been wanting to run for awhile; run, or swim: some more active form of exercise than the long periods of walking I’ve been doing. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that my epiphany came about as the result of the release of some endorphins, and it reminded me that it’s my job to take care of myself and do the things that make me feel good, physically and mentally. I was fighting with these two sides of myself as I came back up a long hill, trying to figure out what the problem was, and finally, even though it’s been there all along, even though I had been staring at it in the face, alluded to it constantly and even acknowledged it to some extent, the answer finally showed itself in full glory: I think I’m crazy because I don’t think that I am believable: because I don’t believe me. And I don’t believe me because I am lacking the self worth to believe that I could possibly have anything good to say or offer, even to myself; because, unlike what I had previously believed, low self worth doesn’t mean only that I am lacking in the confidence to know that I are lovable regardless of what I am doing, it also means that I don’t think that my ideas, thoughts, feelings and intuition are worth as much as everyone else’s...not even to me.

(Writer's note: before you panic that I am losing all perspective, please read my last post, Writer's Tourette's, about how I write about my feelings as they happen as a way to release them.)

By realizing that self worth is at the root of the issue, I have finally realized that the answer is not in asking again and again if I am justified in feeling the way I do, but instead in taking the steps to develop the self worth that will help me know that at a deep visceral gut level, without having to ask.

I can now look back at a lot of my life and see it: see this lack of ability to trust myself in situations where I might have been right; perhaps not in how I handled it, but right at least in my feelings about the situation in the first place. I would cast about for the opinions of others and ask them if my view or feeling was worthwhile; made sense; didn’t seem crazy. Every time, they said yes: that I had a reason to feel as I did, that I was right to take the step I had taken, that I had a right to my own happiness. And yet, I still found it hard to believe.

This is not to be mistaken with an egotistical need to always be right. I think for most of my twenties I angrily insisted that I knew the right way that everyone should live and would tear someone down for disagreeing with me. I don’t think I’m there anymore…most of the time, anyway.

I would like to think that the phase I have been in -- where I am struggling to see where the bullshit lies and what I actually believe -- is a step between the angry, Always Right Morgan and the Confident Morgan who can fully accept responsibility for what she did wrong, but also know what she did right, and why neither of those things really matter in the long run of who she is, only how she acts and evolves.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: I’m a work in progress. What I know today is that something set me free on that walk: it was knowing that the answer was no longer in asking if I am crazy, it is asking what I can do to improve my self worth to the point that I know when an idea I’m entertaining is the stupidest thing I could possibly act on, the best way I could handle the situation -- not for anyone else, but for me -- or somewhere in between. 

It is being able to trust the gut feeling and the logic, and knowing that it will work out for me if I follow it, because my ideas, my gut feelings, are worth just as much as everyone else’s, and because – ultimately – they need to be worth even more to me.

Love and self worthy kisses,

Morgan

Mountains Out of Molehills

I have recently befriended some of my neighbors that live down the hill. Amongst their defining characteristics, they are all expats like me – although they hail from various parts of the world – they’re all men about my age, and they have fantastic potluck/dinner parties.

One in particular is a great cook, but the rest of them are great at asking if they can help with something: the first time I went over there for a Mexican cooking night, the dishes were scooped off the counter and washed as they were dirtied; the tasks I needed done were done without complaint and even with some enthusiasm, and the conversation – covering everything from living abroad to podcasts on NPR – was so enthralling that soon six hours had passed before I even noticed. I don’t think I’m totally off base at this point to say that these men are STRAIGHT. Sorry guy friends, but this sort of helpful, multi-tasking behavior is not necessarily something that I expect from you; considering that these men calmly discussed how other people in Boquete had assumed they were gay, too, I don’t think my astonishment is that out of hand.

Here’s the thing: every time I go to this house and my contribution is a dish I’m asked to make while I’m there, I bring a recipe. I bring a recipe because, despite the fact that I consider myself a “concoctionist” and therefore make things up as I go along for the most part, there is something about being surrounded by people good at what they do and comfortable with who they are that makes me incredibly uncomfortable.

This isn’t the first time this has happened. On my first date with my ex-boyfriend, we decided to make dinner at my house. He took on fish tacos, and I made a recipe out of my book, because I was too nervous to just throw things in a bowl and trust my ability to have it turn out for someone I was trying to impress. That night, Isaac asked me for my opinion on the pico de gallo he’d just made. It was delicious. I told him it might need more lime, because suddenly I had panicked, and couldn’t figure out if the right answer was to say it was great or to try and improve it. He very respectfully disagreed with me, and we ate it as is – truth be told, it was already perfect.

I remember telling someone about this first date later; about how insecure I had felt cooking with the host of a cooking show, even if that’s how we’d originally first met: because I had just published my SECOND cookbook, for crying out loud, and he had interviewed me for his show.

“Morgan, you’re one of the best cooks I know,” this friend said when I told her the story. “How could you possibly be intimidated by someone else’s cooking?”

I’ve been thinking a lot about this, because of how I’ve found myself feeling in the presence of my neighbors. It helped that that first night we started discussing how one of them – the really fantastic cook, actually – had healthy enough self esteem that anyone could tell him pretty much anything about himself, good or bad, and he would simply register the information without tying it to how he felt about himself, for better or for worse. Tell him he had just made the best batch of carnitas ever, and he’d probably agree with you. Tell him that you thought he’d overcooked the steak, and he’d shrug his shoulders and move on.

 I am not like that. In fact, I have found the reason that I often feel so uncomfortable in the company of these men is because they expect nothing from me but my friendship: I do not have to be the best cook there – and to be honest, I’m not – I do not need to wow anyone with all my travels abroad, because they’re just as well-traveled as I am, and I’m not even the only one fluent in Spanish.
And you know what? This is really scary for me. If I’m not impressive to someone, then what am I? If I can’t offer something to them that they don’t already have, how could I possibly be worth anything at all?

I know how ridiculous this sounds on a very basic level. I am not totally devoid of awareness of what I can offer to a new group of friends in terms of my personality or my characteristics. However, it’s brought up a very important issue that I had already been working on: if you take away or minimize my accomplishments, I struggle to believe I’m worth anything.

The second summer I lived in Mexico, I had a conversation with a woman who pointed out to me that even lazy people deserved love. My immediate, visceral response says everything: “NO,” I thought, “No, they don’t.” That means that somewhere in there, somewhere not quite hidden anymore, I don’t feel like I’m worth love if I’m not accomplishing something. If I’m just there to enjoy myself, if my only role is to be me, to know that I am worthwhile regardless of what I have or haven’t accomplished, I feel adrift and unable to find my footing. If I’m not something to someone else, I often feel like I am not anything at all.

Thankfully, aside from eating delicious food and having fun interesting company, my time with my neighbors has become good practice. I feel uncomfortable, but not necessarily in a bad way: I feel uncomfortable because I’m trying on a new skin in their presence. It doesn’t quite fit yet, but like some of the best shoes I’ve ever owned, I have to break it in before it will truly feel comfortable. As I said last week, if I want my life to be different than it’s always been, I have to do something different than what I’ve always done.

So here’s to different; to growing pains, and to new friends who need nothing more from me than me. Most importantly, here’s to being comfortable with that.




Love and still uncomfortable kisses,
Morgan

Baby Steps Still Propel You Forward

I can be an impatient person. I see an end goal, a final project, and all I want is to have it DONE. Although I have the ability to also foresee the many, many steps involved in getting to the end of something, it is often hard for me to calmly take each step, knowing that eventually what I want will materialize before me, not with a *POOF* as if out of nowhere, but instead out of the many small steps I have taken in the right direction.

This has been especially hard for me lately. I am planning a move, and the move requires many small steps that will eventually leave me in the new place where I desire to be. In turn, moving will give me some time and space to focus, which will then lead to more time to write, something I want so badly it leaves a lump in my throat.

I have been craving time to write for years. This craving is what led me to quit my job in Bellevue – it led me to make a decision to divert part of each paycheck into a savings account that I never touched; to stay at the job in Bellevue for a year, wanting to tear my hair out, as my baby steps eventually led to the day that I turned in my resignation and walked out with the money to start again.

I learned about publishing in baby steps: how the industry worked, the advantages of self-publishing, the slowly changing behemoth of traditional publishing, and the joy of learning of other like-minded individuals who want to breathe life into their words and share that life with others.

I wrote my cookbooks in baby steps. Talk to wineries and restaurants; create recipe templates, call, email and cajole contributors, make appointments to take pictures, test recipes one at a time, lay out pages, edit, edit, EDIT, print, sell, one Facebook post, one local retailer, one Amazon sale, one new friend at a time.

I have grown confident of my writing in baby steps. Regardless of how long I have called myself a writer, it has only been recently that I have started sending out essays to publications, no longer afraid of their rejection. Suddenly I realize that I have something important to say and all I need is to find the right place to say it. This is not to say that I will not continue to improve, but only through writing for the past four years have I finally gotten to the point where I can realize that I am actually a writer in a way that feels real and visceral.

I have found my way here through baby steps. I feel a book trying to emerge, and I want it to come out in one fell swoop, leaping out of my brow much like Athena leaped, fully formed and ready to fight, out of Zeus’ forehead. The task seems overwhelming. It seems like I will never finish, because it is so hard to start; because the baby steps seem so infinitely small.

More than a year ago, two writing friends and I decided to do the Artist’s Way. It is a 12-week program to help people rediscover their creativity, in whatever way, shape and form it may take. One of the essential parts of the course is the morning pages: first thing in the morning, you take a pen and a notebook and write. At first, I got up an hour early to do this. At first, I wrote the three pages suggested, but then I realized that I was taking on more than I could handle. I cut it down to a page, got up a half hour early, and found it was the most joyful part of my day. Fifteen months later, I look forward to waking up, making coffee and settling in with a cup in one hand and a pen in the other, a notebook resting on my lap. More often than not, I fill two or three pages before I realize what I’ve done. I have filled more than 500 pages – front and back – with my scrawling handwriting. 

I am impatient, and yet the mountains I have moved the farthest are the ones that I pushed a little at a time. Although the ones ahead seem daunting, all I have to do is look behind me to see how far I’ve already come, one baby step at a time.

Love and baby step kisses

Morgan

All Parts of Me

 

Tonight I gave a man a hug. I gave it to him because he needed it, but he wasn’t the only one to benefit.

The ashram is many things, but it is not the place to hug. It is a celibate community that does not encourage exclusive relationships of any kind – friendship or romantic relationships. Although it works to encourage introspection and giving people their space, human contact falls to the wayside. A couple days ago I showed my hot sauce stash to another man at the ashram, and he touched my arm in thanks. It jolted me to realize how long it had been since I had been touched like that by a man – not in a sexual way, but a squeeze to show me physically that my generosity was noticed, noted, and appreciated.

I forget where I read it – fact or fiction? – but somewhere, I read that babies can die if they aren’t held, simply from the lack of contact. Even if they don’t physically die, there is certainly an emotional component to this lack of touch. I know it because I feel it now in a way I didn’t before – when someone reaches out to me in love regardless of whether it’s platonic or romantic, my entire being blossoms in response.

It’s unfortunate that this lack of touch is what brought my appreciation for physical affection to my attention, but then again, it’s a very human characteristic to realize how much you miss something once it’s gone. I am still reeling at the thought that I get to hug Kyle Jaynes again because he was found alive after being lost for four days and thought dead after he disappeared on a hike; I ate a hamburger today because I got the chance to eat beef, and I haven’t had the opportunity to do so for awhile, since the ashram serves mostly vegetarian fare.

When I first came to the ashram, I thought it was the first place I had been in a long time where I could be myself, but that’s not true. This is the first place I’ve ever been that I could be THIS self, but that doesn’t mean I’m ALL parts of me here. I have found emotional support here, but not the physical comfort to accompany it; I have found a spiritual path, but it doesn’t leave room for my trucker’s vocabulary or my road rage at tourist drivers (many of whom actually come from British Columbia in their campers and manage to drive in front of me…regardless of where I am!)

Tonight, I feel enlightened, because I can focus on being here, now, without worrying about where I will go next, or what I want to be, when I’m already it…I’m already me. This morning, I didn’t feel enlightened. I will probably lose my enlightenment at some point – like when my alarm clock starts beeping at me tomorrow morning. Someone pointed out to me here that enlightenment comes in small pieces; in mundane tasks and every day moments, where you feel such profound joy to be where you are that all other thoughts are whisked away. In those moments, it doesn’t matter if I’ve reached some far off space that I hope to hold for the rest of my life; it doesn’t matter if I have everything I need or want to live the life I want and deserve. All that matters is that at that moment, I connect in a way that is tangible…as if I put my finger on a thread of the universe and can feel the vibrations resonate through me, as if I were the guitar body, and someone else is twanging the strings. 

Love and sometimes enlightened kisses

Morgan

What Would Confidence Do For You?

I used to work with a man whose last name was Murphy, so everyone called him “Murph.” He was in his fifties, and while we worked at the same company he had his 30th wedding anniversary. When I asked him the secret to his marriage, he said it was two words: “Yes, dear.” He told me that to him it meant that sometimes it wasn’t worth the battle, and agreeing with his wife instead of starting a fight was worth more than the opinion would have been. This was one of the great life lessons I learned from Murph, but not the most important one.
It turned out I knew the guy his daughter was dating – we had both gone to WSU and had a mutual friend. I told him that I really liked the guy, and that his daughter had good taste.
“I know,” he said. “When she was growing up, I made sure the most important thing I instilled in her was confidence in herself. I knew if I gave her that, I would never again have to worry about her decisions.”
It has taken me years and a lot of heartache to get to the place where Murph’s daughter already was. This is not something I think I lacked because my parents didn’t give it to me – they always told me I could do whatever I wanted – but somewhere in the middle of society and culture, the idea of instilling confidence in our children has gotten lost, and I was no exception.
I think a lot about what our lives – women’s lives especially – would be like if we grew up having more confidence in ourselves. How many fewer destructive relationships would we have? How much more money would we make? How much more would we stick up for what we believed in if we had confidence, not necessarily that we were right, but that we had a right to our opinion and our feelings? How much less would we worry about our bodies if we were confident that we were loveable regardless of what we looked like? How much less would we agonize over where we were going in life if we had the confidence to believe we could do anything?
I’m getting there, but I’m not there yet. If I had had half the faith in myself as others have had in me, I would have been able to take a lot of shortcuts to get to where I am today. Although I know that we can’t grow into the people we are without some growing pains, I think developing confidence early would help us recognize the value of the other lessons sooner. Now that I know that, I can forge ahead, confident I’m heading in the right direction, and that the lessons will be worth the growing pains.

Love and confident kisses
Morgan