The Essence of Myself

I’m in need of seeing myself. Really looking in the mirror and recognizing who I am.  I sometimes try to do that – and recall acting exercises from college – but easily get confused, tense, scared. I see my mother. I see my “face” with its deep lines and baggy jaw, but I don’t know that I see me. I know I’m in there. My eyes beckon me. But somehow I’m afraid to go inside.

I recently had the joy of a visit to one of my Master Classes in Chicago by Joe Mazza, a photographer. I’d invited him to take the class if he’d shoot a few shots of me teaching, but instead what I got were the most sensitive and truthful (not to mention gorgeous) photos of the work we did that day. And I saw myself. For the first time in a long long time. It was liberating. I liked who I was. I got beyond the face in the mirror and got a glimpse of the whole person, the heart of me. The age was fascinating. The flaws were captivating. The life was full. The woman was powerful.

Last night I went to an event and disappeared. It was a friend’s family event. It was over the top in kind of a great way. There was plenty of heart along with the spectacle. But the first thing I did was fixate on how I was “less than.” I made myself small and insignificant, looking everywhere to validate that lack. I gave up myself.  And man, was that easy. Luckily my family wouldn’t let me. They embraced me whole. They saved me from the downward escape into unimportance.

This morning, as I take in the extra hour of Daylight Savings and watch the rain pound the ground outside, I wonder… how do we so easily give ourselves up? I hear it from actors all the time, and other artists, as we define ourselves by how others see us. Value us. Determine our careers… How do we lose ourselves? Give others a power that is much better held ourselves. That is ours. So I started to go a little deeper.

We are uniquely ourselves. We are glorious in our essence when we connect with it. When we look in the mirror or at that photograph that really captured us, and see our “self”. More necessary though is knowing that we are artists, sensitive and intense and connected to ourselves most fully when we are immersed in our art. We are suspended. We are one with ourselves, our centre, and everything around us. We are fully and authentically our “selves.”

And then we come out of it and often feel lost. That’s because we feel a need to identify and qualify ourselves in terms of others. We are so attached to some idea of “self” that we lose the connection to who we really are. We give that external self power and in a way, we give up our genuine core self.

It’s a journey. From birth to death. The loss and finding of self. So… I think we start with an awareness of the difference between the self we are and the self we project, the defined self. And remember the connection with our core, our spirit, that which fills us when we feel the “magic” of our artistic connection – the place we go when we lose ourselves. We don’t have to disappear. (Or compare. Or qualify.) Or define… ourselves.  Quite the opposite. We merely have to embrace our hearts, our core, and our selves will be there. The true mirror is in that connection.

Feels good to even entertain the notion… and begin.

Here is something Thandie Newton discussed so gorgeously in a TED talk. I encourage you to watch it. Listen to what shes says about Embracing Otherness, Embracing Myself.

“There is something that an give the self ultimate and infinite connection — and that thing is oneness, our essence. The self’s struggle for authenticity and definition will never end unless it’s connected to its creator — to you and to me. And that can happen with awareness — awareness of the reality of oneness and the projection of self-hood. For a start, we can think about all the times when we do lose ourselves. It happens when I dance, when I’m acting. I’m earthed in my essence, and my self is suspended. In those moments, I’m connected to everything — the ground, the air, the sounds, the energy from the audience. All my senses are alert and alive in much the same way as an infant might feel — that feeling of oneness.”

Watch Thandie Newton’s TED TALK in its entirety: Embracing Otherness, Embracing Myself