The Old Hag
I came to the realization today during my piano lesson that I'm a self-critical, perfectionist, controlling hag. It's such an ugly thing to be, and I need to lighten the hell up. I laughed with my piano teacher after she joked about my scowling in parts that I was unhappy with...and my solution was to put a mirror on the piano, angled so that I can see myself as I play and strive for a more peaceful look...or passive...or something other than scowling.
Attacking a new discipline is challenging...not just in learning the "thing" itself, but also in the changes it requires internally. I guess that's why I have such an appreciation for those who manage to harness that discipline and create beautiful things...why I am so hard on myself: because I want that for myself...need that for myself...maybe now more than ever, or at least in a long long time.
I was sharing this with one of my loves after my lesson and found it interesting that most of the time I go through life, liking myself, loving myself even, feeling that everything is just groovy, until something shifts. Life barrels its way through all that happy grooviness and I'm left feeling that I don't really like myself all that much. In fact, I don't even want to look in the mirror...I don't want to see the ugly hag grinning at me like she's won somehow and taken the place of the me I want to be.
There are only a few relationships that allow me to truly rid myself of the ugly hag. And I'm grateful that I'm loved unconditionally by those important people in my life as a reminder that it's okay to be just as I am. The piano is becoming another place that forces me to strip away the self-criticism and just be. Writing is another, yet now that I'm seeing this self-criticism rearing its head, I can see how in my writing in the past, I've had the same hag there...peering over my shoulder...scowling at my work.
I've felt before in certain times of my life, during those powerful life shifts, that I was cracking open, a welcoming light shining from me, propelling me into a shiny, new place. Lately though, I've felt that same cracking, except this time it feels like I'm oozing. A black, stinky muck oozing out of fissures...and the patches I've used before aren't working so well this time.
Attacking a new discipline is challenging...not just in learning the "thing" itself, but also in the changes it requires internally. I guess that's why I have such an appreciation for those who manage to harness that discipline and create beautiful things...why I am so hard on myself: because I want that for myself...need that for myself...maybe now more than ever, or at least in a long long time.
I was sharing this with one of my loves after my lesson and found it interesting that most of the time I go through life, liking myself, loving myself even, feeling that everything is just groovy, until something shifts. Life barrels its way through all that happy grooviness and I'm left feeling that I don't really like myself all that much. In fact, I don't even want to look in the mirror...I don't want to see the ugly hag grinning at me like she's won somehow and taken the place of the me I want to be.
There are only a few relationships that allow me to truly rid myself of the ugly hag. And I'm grateful that I'm loved unconditionally by those important people in my life as a reminder that it's okay to be just as I am. The piano is becoming another place that forces me to strip away the self-criticism and just be. Writing is another, yet now that I'm seeing this self-criticism rearing its head, I can see how in my writing in the past, I've had the same hag there...peering over my shoulder...scowling at my work.
I've felt before in certain times of my life, during those powerful life shifts, that I was cracking open, a welcoming light shining from me, propelling me into a shiny, new place. Lately though, I've felt that same cracking, except this time it feels like I'm oozing. A black, stinky muck oozing out of fissures...and the patches I've used before aren't working so well this time.