The Gratitude that Lives Beneath Pain

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During my nine-months of foot pain due to a ruptured fascia, I yearned to be back in dance class. I feared that life as I knew it could be over. Now that the pain has decreased to being without a cane, I am grateful to just walk to the grocery store.

But here’s the thing, and I’m unexpectedly comforted by saying it…
Life as I knew it is over!

Life is now a series of deliberate steps that consider what speed, aggression, and distance is best for me. Rather than single-mindedly sacrificing all else for my goals, angered by anything in my way, my COMFORT has become as important as my AMBITION.

You see, I couldn’t be angry at my foot. It granted me a dance career into my 50’s?!

Many people have said through the years, “dancers are masochists.” And in a way, it’s true. Without pain we don’t know if we’re working correctly. Being sore in the gluts and inner thighs means it was a well executed ballet class. Being sore in the quads and hip flexors means it was not.

Pain was a part of life.

But pain that keeps you from living your life asks you to DIG rather than QUEST. The questions change. Rather than, how could I execute movement better moving forward; it becomes, how have my life choices brought me to this juncture?

Has being tough sacrificed my foot, my future, my wellness and strength?

A client recently inquired about my dance career. As I gave the chronology of my career, I realized that my choices to go from one dance form to another was due to my feet. I didn’t want to wear point shoes anymore, jump anymore, wear heels anymore…

My experience of these choices, at the time, was simply wanting something different. I adapted again and again to experience all that the dance world had to offer.

Now I’m considered—at 61-years of age—to be in the Autumn of my life. The time where we reap the benefits of our younger years’ hard-labor. But what does that look like?

This 9-month reflection has delivered a renewed vision of myself in the world. While my body will always inform what I do, I need not physically do it all. The mind-body relationship, I’ve grown expert in, has informed my dancing and aided my healing.

These nine-months has birthed an understanding that my next chapter is to educate practitioners in mind-body alignment: fitness trainers, physical therapists, psychotherapists, nurses and the like. Those who know body mechanics already and are interested in the emotional healing added by understanding the mind-body connection.

My toughness surely contributed to my foot’s present condition. But even that, now gives way to gratitude. My future feels on track; and, my wellness and strength are enthused by this interruption. It’s been a reality check directing me toward the next step of my life’s work.

Adapting my focus through my dance career gave my career longevity. Considering each step I now take will give my life longevity. We learn to be more deliberate and present as we mature so we can recreate our place in the world as we age.

Now my choices will give BodyLogos longevity. So that, my work lives longer than me, through the commitment and promise of other practitioners. This is my promise.

Whose Life is Mine?

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It was after 8-months of foot pain and 3-months on a cane, an MRI report showed that my foot condition was severe and chronic. Something the doctor said we’ll manage. But, it is not repairable.

A few days of tears were followed by various problem solving ideas to possibly keep me in ballet classes, and more dire, keep me in my livelihood as a personal trainer. I began to regain hope. Then my mom called!

Bringing mom up to date on my prognosis was met with, “Well I have back pain everyday!”
“Yes mom, I know. Thankfully you don’t have to make a living on your feet any longer.” This sentiment was met with more layers of self-proclaimed hardships and her thick skin until I hung up and burst into tears.

There’s a big black hole that children raised by narcissists or addicts can easily trip back into. The belief that they’re UNIMPORTANT and IRRELEVANT.

Thankfully I have another, more helpful, belief: the greater the pain, the greater the potential for growth. And, I’ve learned that, the only way to the other side of a hardship is through. There is no getting around it!

So, I allowed myself to feel unimportant deliberately. And a funny thing happened. It felt easier than wishing or insisting on being important.

I am UNIMPORTANT. It’s root sentence being, I am me, helped me discern the difference between the “I” and the “me.” In that moment, the grander “I” encompassed who I am inspired to become; while the “me” represented who I’d been.

But it can be challenging to surrender the importance of who you’ve been. It can be interpreted as giving-up on yourself. But it isn’t that at all. It’s stepping-up within yourself. It’s understanding the power struggle between “I” and “me” within your own consciousness.

  • When speaking with mom: “I” share my circumstances so mom can align with my life, but her self-absorption makes “me” invisible to her.
    • “I” was aligned and visible to her. Her self-absorption made “me” invisible. Visible versus invisible.
  • When dressing for a date: “I” consider who I’m meeting and align my outfit to unite us, then others indulge “me” with an above the rest attention on my style.
    • “I” aligned and united with my date. Their compliments made “me” superior to another. United versus superior.
  • When sharing my course details with potential clients: “I” want to impress upon them the merits of mind body alignment, while closing the sale validates “me” as an authority.
    • “I” align with the merits of mind body alignment. Selling them on its merit validates “me” as being needed. Mind body alignment versus me.

“I” and “me” often experience conflicting truths. Letting “me” be unimportant meant that I could focus on the greater RELEVANCE of “I.” The “I” that is in alignment with her own life and relieves others of any responsibility to that end.

My big black hole lit up!

Others may or may not validate “me” as IMPORTANT, but “I” am always RELEVANT. Relevant because, it can elevate my “me” into alignment with my “I.”

IMPORTANCE and RELEVANCE were synonymous before this insight. The purposeful, inspired, expansion of “I” is now able to deliberately oversee the goals, impressions and judgments of “me.”

To keep myself RELEVANT, “I” commit to the RELEVANCE of all “me’s.” Whether they inflate or deflate “me” with their own inner conflicts.

To turn up the light in my big black hole is to:

  • Recognize the importance of making my mother visible… for my own visibility.
  • Give attention to having been inspired by my date… for our union.
  • Validate the merits of my clients, before me or my course step in… to demonstrate the value of mind body alignment.

It is not selfless to make others important. It elevates your own relevance.

Pigeon Pair

My Pigeon Babies have Flown the Coup

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Pigeon Pair

Story Timeline: March 20 – April 29, 2024

During the past two-months of nursing an injured foot, I was joined by a nursing pigeon with two hatchlings. They transformed my, all but, house arrest into a sacred retreat.

I nested in my apartment convalescing, refraining from as many activities that created stress mentally or physically; while they were nestling, in a ceramic pot of soil, just outside my terrace door growing into young squabs.

Together we created an oasis for growth that forged a special bond.

Vastu experts’—who offer physical and spiritual guidance—state that the arrival of a pigeon-nest at your home is a sign of happiness , good fortune and peace. But, at the time of their arrival I was battling foot pain that was dismantling my life.

I wasn’t exactly peaceful. I was panicking. There must be something deeper here?

I couldn’t show up for my clients, family and friends in the way they or I was accustomed to. I was afraid I could lose what’s most precious to me: my love interest, personal training clients, and a newly launched virtual fitness program.

But, their arrival restored the happiness and peace that had been thwarted by my unaccustomed limitations, by making me a witness to NEED. Theirs and mine.

Committed to incubating the pair of eggs for two weeks and continuously warming the hatchlings for another. My single pigeon parent must have been hungry!

When I found the babes alone, the parent forsaking the responsibility to warm and protect in need of food to feed, I spread bird seed around the perimeter of the nest.

Upon the parent’s return, the seed swiftly disappeared and was regurgitated for the, voraciously hungry, chicks.

As mentioned, I haven’t been as helpful to humans as usual, because I can’t walk. But I felt successful helping the pigeons. I placed window screens at the bottom of my terrace door so, when open, my cats wouldn’t endanger the chicks. And, I planted pansies all around the nest so they’d feel enclosed and cared for.

Knowing pigeons mate for life, I wanted to offer my friendship to the mourning and single pigeon parent and make the nursery welcome. Everyday I’d sit on the door sill and talk to the chicks reassuring them food and parent would return. And indeed, daily reunions would be met with greater and greater enthusiasm and hunger!

The squabs kept each other warm. They exercised regularly, at first walking around the perimeter of the pot-nest before sinking into exhaustion. Then, they’d hop from pot to pot learning to use their wings a bit. And finally, walking beyond the pots to strut along the entire length of the terrace.

I was like their fairy God-Mother watching with pride as they grew up.

Like some dogs, squabs are so ugly they’re cute! Their beaks, from day one, are twice as long as an adults making them look like miniature Vultures!
• Week one they resembled the Abominable Snow Monster from Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer covered in yellow kinky down.
• Week two they grew wing feather quills, or skeletons, without the barbs, or soft colorful portion. They looked stark naked! But at least they looked like a bird!!
• Week three their tails developed quills, while the wings filled in. They looked like my high school prom date dressed in a tuxedo, topped with a kinky blonde afro.
• Week four their tails started to fill in, while their new head feathers only partially cloaked the kinky yellow down. They looked like an old Red Skelton.
• And, week five their heads had nearly grown into the size of their beaks and they looked like young adults.
It was at this point that I woke up to find an empty nest. My heart sank. My little nursery just disappeared.

But then, to my surprise, twice a day, morning and evening the duo would meet their parent on my terrace for a reunion. They’d celebrate with a quick feeding outside the railing of the terrace, then frolic around the terrace pots that awaited spring plantings.

Bent over the screen, leaning my hands on the terrace floor to get closer, the adolescent babes walked right up to me unafraid. All of us independent, not NEEDING the other, just wanting to be together.

Then off they’d go. Without ever stepping foot in their already vacated nestling-pot.

Does the heartache of an Empty-Nester lie in not being NEEDED anymore?
I decided to transform and elevate that sentiment to having the good fortune to have been NEEDED.

Typically, once pigeons leave the nest they don’t return. But they did return, repeatedly, just to celebrate the bond we all share

I now trust that the humans in my life, personal and professional, that can celebrate—even rejoice in—having NEEDED, will remain through my convalescence to celebrate the journey once I am once again fully-fledged.

The Emotional Yo-Yo of Healing

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Between internal scrutiny—examining how an injury could have been avoided—and external perception—experiencing how your world responds to your injury—the ups and downs of healing goes beyond the body’s health. It’s an emotional yo-yo!

Being diagnosed with plantar fasciitis accompanied by a fascia tear led to months of physical compromise. I gimp around with a cane; I can’t demonstrate while training clients; I struggle with a single grocery bag.

I haven’t felt free to be me. And, the worst part is, I don’t feel beautiful.

Finally, it was explained to me by Ming Chew, a NYC PT fascia specialist, that I was quite dehydrated and my fascia was brittle. In addition to his therapy, he put me on a hydration regime with minerals to condition the fascia and permit healing.

I felt responsible for and irresponsible about this depletion!
I blamed myself for the tear and drank water like my life depended on it!!

After 2-weeks of this regime I was thirsty for the first time in possibly a decade. I was thrilled that my body’s hydration meter was back on the clock and my general condition was improving.

At this juncture I felt relieved that this dehydration issue was caught before it caused problems on a deeper organ level. Shame turned to celebration!

At every incremental improvement, a celebration would soften the blame for having allowed such a condition to creep up on me. After all, I’m an athlete and trainer who’s in constant dialogue with her body!?! How could this have happened?!?

Initially, my limp prompted questions from folks, and a huge percentage of them had experienced plantar fasciitis before. Nearly everyone recommended calf stretches, including the doctor. But it felt wrong to me. It produced the wrong type of pain.

Reluctantly, I followed these orders until a cane became my constant companion. It was after this that Ming came onto the scene and determined that stretching likely worsened the fascia’s tear.

With every well-meaning person who gave stretching advice I’d be seething under my breath. They’d say, “I know just how you feel. I experienced the same thing.” I’d think to myself, “If your advice helped you, you really don’t know how I feel!”

Humanity redeemed itself, in my eyes, at my boyfriend Anthony’s gig one night. He leads the stage on the drums, while historically, I’d lead the dance floor on my feet. But, I only had one foot!?!

If you’re a dancer or know one, you know that you can’t keep a dancer down when they love the music. It’s in the blood!

Friends enjoyed my chair/cane dance, and fellow dance floor companions borrowed some of my one-legged moves. But the greatest moment came when Anthony and I danced together to the next band.

Alone on the dance floor, onlookers were visibly inspired. They saw a man loving his woman, and a woman untethered by her limitations, doing what they too wanted to do—dance with abandon.

I felt happy to be moving, cane or no cane. I felt free to be in the moment, injury or no injury. I felt innocence and acceptance, perfect or imperfect. I felt beautiful again.

My smile stretched from ear to ear, and I finally elevated above my condition.

What happened that night, with the help of many onlooking strangers, friends and Anthony, was I realized I AM HEALTHY. Healing is a process that takes time, but the miracle of regeneration was in tact, no matter the fault or learning curve of my circumstances.

We are self-regenerative in mind and body. The only thing that we can always count on is change. And as long as we strive to be our best, without constantly scrutinizing our performance, that change will elevate us.

No matter your circumstances, accept your innocence and expect positive change.

Doing Nothing Can Change Everything

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Our bags backed, goodbyes made, we wait for our ride to the airport home bound. Anthony says, “so much has changed since we got here!” I reply, “but we’ve done nothing?”

One week of not having to do the things that shape our daily lives and satisfy our ambitions. One week to relax and recline. It was an intellectual vacation filled with experiential bliss.

In reflection, I realize we didn’t do nothing we experienced non-doing. The Tao concept of Wu Wei—to align with the natural flow of life.

The primary difference between doing nothing and non-doing is, non-doing does not fall into laziness or apathy. But instead, elevates you into a state of open-mindedness and receptivity to a new reality.

The only mental activity we engaged in was choosing a restaurant for a dinner reservation. Everything else we engaged in happened for us: watching the birds, listening to the sea, tasting the salt air, feeling the breeze tickle our sun drenched skin, and seeing each other enjoy the sensually of living.

Our minds rested from our constant demands and our bodies rose to frolic in its newfound freedom.

Spontaneous happenings, orgasmic stillness, and nature’s embrace guided our days. No one or no thing directed us beyond the current of our environment. We lived life as an Active Meditation.

So much had changed…

We were transported into a state of trust. A trust, that the Universe is for us to enjoy and engage in so totally that we feel encouraged to loose our minds. No books to loose ourselves into. No expectations to satisfy a sense of value. We simply lost ourselves in living.

Letting your mind’s constant chatter stop influencing your state of being is a gift that keeps on giving. It leads you to your senses instead of your emotions. Senses that connect you to each moment as you pass through them.

Upon our return home, I find myself slowing down to sense my reality. I see the places I judge, race and push myself––away from my senses––away from being happy. Places that I can transform into a more pleasant presence that feels good.

Presence creates positive change—a flow of goodness that is under the surface of what our minds think is important, but isn’t.

NYC Bike Lane Mayhem

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As I peddle to the curb to exit the bike lane, I get slammed by a battery operated bicycle. Out of nowhere and at the speed of a motor vehicle, he tries to pass between me and the curb.

I hear the bicycles metallic clank as they crash! The next thing I know, I’m climbing up from the ground, bewildered.
A woman asks if I’m OK?
I’m not even sure what happened, as I check myself for torn cloths or pain points.

The battery bicycle rider spoke little English, but could at least say, I’m sorry.

What strikes me, even more than the mayhem that plagues the NYC bike lanes with battery and motorized bikes making it another (but narrower) car lane, is my lapse of recall between the hit and my fall!

Shock interrupted my timeline.

This interruption has happened to me before in a motorcycle crash, when unexpectedly hit from behind; in sexual abuse, when unexpectedly woken in the night; and, when falling down a staircase, when the woman behind me unexpectedly slipped.

But other car, motorcycle or bicycle crashes, that I have seen coming, have not interrupted time?!

The unexpectedness, not the life threatening consequences, is what interrupted my experience creating a time warp. The unexpected, is what I couldn’t face, recall or feel, then or now.

The unexpected, the out-of-control, the unforeseeable, is what takes us out!

And, we’ve all experienced this phenomenon whether in or out of a shocking time warp. Being out-of-control takes us out of our mind’s comfort zone and we short circuit.

But, there’s more to this story than my mind’s timeline.

In every one of the incidents where time was interrupted, I didn’t get hurt. In fact, I was elevated in some way.

  • In the motorcycle crash, I was thrown past a parking space and bicycle lane to the sidewalk while in the time warp. Then, I returned to real time, when I landed on my feet like a super-hero with a few descellerait steps.
    • I was elevated by my confidence being ignited!
  • In the sexual abuse, I was woken by my perpetrator stroking himself coming toward me. Then, I disassociated into the time warp, into a different environment entirely, where I felt embraced by the Universe and safe. Then, I returned to real time to find my perpetrator lying beside me asleep.
    • I was elevated by experiencing the blueprint of mind body alignment, and being introduced to my future life purpose!
  • In the staircase fall, I felt my knees buckle when the woman behind me fell into me. The cascade down the stairs happened in the time warp. Then, real time returned with me buried under a bleeding woman 60-pounds heavier than I.
    • Uninjured, I was elevated by learning that I was resilient!

The time warp in every situation knocked out my defenses—my learned strategies—from their habitual patterns. I was unable to discern mentally the right action. Instead, my body’s intelligence took over with a perfect amount of surrender and strength to serve and protect me.

All this makes me wonder why we worry so much about what we cannot yet wrap our minds around? Would our lives be happier, and better served, if we could trust the body’s intelligence—the physical world’s involvement—to help guide us.

Could feeling out-of-control be an invitation to stay out-of-our-minds and into-our-bodies?

Next time I feel out-of-control, rather than continuing to muddle around in mental worry, I intend to consider, and act on, what my body is asking for in lieu of the situation. No time warp necessary!

If mind body alignment is intriguing to you, download my Free Mind Body Blueprint. You’ll discover the story your body’s tension is telling.

A Fireside Chat Ignites Old Ways

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Gathered around my cousin’s Christmas Eve fire doing needlepoint, we chatted about everything and nothing. I feel relaxed, engaged and productive. She comments on how big my needlepoint project is, when I’m already so busy with work projects.

I had spoken about feeling burnt out. Frustrated, that at my age of 61-years, I was still building my work projects; and, wished that my only job now was to share my work with the world.

While she was correct in thinking that a smaller quicker project would reap a rapid reward.
And, reward is a way out of burnout!
I realized that what I needed wasn’t a bonus or a reward, it was easeful engagement with my creativity!

Her enquiry made me aware of my mindset. I was soothed by the doing. The reward of a finished product was something else. The reward has never been what motivated me to create. I was inspired to create. I learned who I am by creating. Creating has been a need, not a job.

A reward, if or when it would come, was in addition to the easeful engagement I was experiencing while crafting. Self-development was what felt rewarding as I went along.

Easeful engagement feels like engaging with your own unique rhythm.
It’s in flow—in right relationship—with your spirit.
A physical connected-ness that’s truer than anything else I know.

As my Christmas visit continued, my needlepoint and mindset emerged together into a resolution.

My old way of creating—becoming a dancer, writing a book, building an app, crafting a program—wasn’t made on deadlines. I just trained, wrote, built and crafted to the beat of my own drum.

I allowed the process—my creativity—to dictate the speed of my development. I followed my body’s connected-ness.

After multiple business courses I’ve been instructed to create deadlines for accountability. To lead with mental authority. A deadline that I’ve come to realize thwarts my creativity and makes me chase time.

My needlepoint mindset brought me back to my old way of engaging with my Self. A way that is curious about what’s inside me, what interests me, what could support my development.

Tao writings say: “How do you know what is right for the world, by knowing what is right for your own life.”

My resolution this year is to reclaim my creative spirit as the Source of my work. I promise to listen, rather than make demands, to what wants to be expressed and when. And, return to Source timing.

Easeful engagement is what makes me happy, and what makes me happy supports what I create, how I develop, and (I believe) the way the world will respond to it. Even if it takes a little longer.

Happy New Year everyone!
May your relationship with time be a guide and mirror for you throughout 2024!

 

A Thanksgiving Blessing Rose Out of a Thanksgiving Rejection.

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One year and nine months after my sister Sherry’s death, I was rejected by those I had once considered family. I was the only one my sister’s family excluded from the Thanksgiving guest list.

Sherry was my only sibling. Being excluded from the holiday table we’d shared my whole adult life was an abandonment from family that I knew too well. It triggered the childhood wounds surrounding paternal sexual abuse and maternal abandonment around it.

The blessing is, my mother rejected their invitation to be with me.

While she couldn’t, and still can’t, discuss my challenges around dad’s pedofile advances in my direction. She could choose me this Thanksgiving. A choice that has lifted a dark cloud that has hung over us for the last 40-years.

What I’ve learned is: my joy is more valuable than anyone’s anger, including my own.

A meaningful life is a coming home to yourself. It isn’t about being a savior to others or being patient and kind at your own expense. It’s about being your own hero. Only then can you be free to create the life you’ve been given.

My REACTION to my brother-in-law’s anger was calm rational. But my underlying TRUTH was tormented confusion about how he could be so aggressive toward me when we’d always been allies. My REACTION to my dad’s pedophilia was silence. But my actual TRUTH was terrified confusion about how he could be a caring father by day and scary monster by night… and where was mom night after night?!

I believed that my cloak of calm and silence were acts of love.

But I now realize, my passivity was not love at all. It was fear. Oddly, love and fear have a similar vibration, only opposite sides of the spectrum.

Difference is, love wants to resolve fear and fear wants to perpetuate anger.

My REACTIVE calm has created tremendous conflict within me. I became, by my own embodiment, the sacrificial lamb (so to speak). I have felt irrelevant by my brother-in-law’s accusations and unimportant by my mother’s absence. But, while it’s true I am a victim in this story, I also accepted the role.

I questioned my own relevance and importance, and coward to their anger and shame. I gave them permission to continue treating me wrongly. And, as the saying goes, people treat you how you let them.

Silence has been my REACTIONARY response, not screaming or blaming or fighting. It‘s time to change my REACTIONS into RESPONSES that reflect my inner truths.

This Thanksgiving I give myself permission to give my mom a second chance at motherhood. Just like she said over our holiday meal, “you kids gave me a second chance at childhood.” And, I also give myself permission to walk away from a brother-in-law who’s ruled by anger.

My mother’s love has been shown through her RESOLVE to stand with me, no matter what her limits may be. My brother-in-law has only showed a unquenchable anger that uses fear to perpetuate it’s destructive wake.

Answer life’s call! Keep your story moving! Be your own hero!
Happy Thanksgiving.

The Cages We Live In

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Like Noah’s Arch, I’ve always found it helpful to care for animals in pairs. Presently, I care for two four-leggeds, two winged-ones, two+ finned-ones. While my adopted menagerie of cats, birds and fish highlight differences between species, the pairs offer comradery within species.

Creating different environments for different animals to thrive has been my task as an animal rescue activist. But only recently have I considered two-leggeds as members of the menagerie. I too began to want comradery.

The winged-ones have been the biggest challenge since adopting a very lovable two-legged man into my world. Each bird had chosen me as their mate, which created rivalry between them, but they united in their jealousy toward my man.

I began to question if I should keep the newest member of my bird-duo. She was aggressive toward my longstanding bird-friend of 25+ years, and after 5-years it’s clear they’re not going to be peaceful comrades.

Every time I serve dinner to my man, she squaks to be included in our feast. She ignites the other bird’s shared, but contained, agitation, and they blast us with siren-like screeching focused on our food and ignoring their own throughout dinner.

This atmosphere isn’t exactly a thriving environment for my two-legged relationship.

But I took this bird on, with all her foibles, when I adopted her. Even if I found another good home for her, my commitment to her would be breeched. No matter how I looked at it, judgment was all I could feel… toward me, toward her, toward my man for being the agitator.

Then I realized, the feeling I get when my bird acts out was familiar! I was being triggered into the, “she doesn’t care about me,” punishing hopelessness, that I’ve always felt with my mother.

No wonder I couldn’t think straight!

After a few deep breaths, I could see that feeding her off my plate was teaching her that screeching reaped reward. To train her to stay quiet, take away the stimuli—cover her cage when serving dinner and save her some for after dinner as a reward for staying quiet.

I’m happy to report, it’s worked! But I still struggled?

Then I realized, the guilt I’ve carried for caging my birds was a part of this saga. They’re born in captivity and would die in the wild, but they’re built to fly free. My mind understands the need for the cage, but my body cringes.

Covering the cage exaggerated this internal argument. The punishing screech was easier for me to bear than covering her, until I had yet another realization. Considering my needs was as important as considering hers.

The root to transforming the relationship with my mom was revealed through my relationship with my bird.

After another few breaths, I could see that the cage and its cover aren’t punishing, they’re used to protect and shield them from threat and excess stimuli. Not so different from my apartment and its curtains.

The cages we live in are not made of metal, they’re made of hardened judgments that allow us no space for process, growth or learning. And the way out, as I have illustrated in this story, is to learn to love.

My menagerie and I are intact and learning to love each other. And my man continues to agitate the love-fest. Now, I can use what I’ve learned with my mom.

Am I Pretty Enough?

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My job was to sit quietly and let the potions do their magic, while makeup artist Jennifer Snowdon applied and explained the product line.

“Mature Makeup Redefined” is the tagline for Alchimie Forever—a skincare line used as basis for glowing makeup application. I modeled for them at The Brand Summit, presented by The Powder Group.

As Jennifer illustrated how high-definition film makeup—where you can see every pore, crease and crevice of the skin magnified—was the perfect cosmetic segue to aging with beauty. I suddenly realized, I was the there-said “aging beauty!”

There I sat with hair pulled back un-styled, wearing an un-stylish spandex tee shirt, no makeup stylizing my appearance, just plain ole me. The previous broadcast was a drag queen applying a mega-stylized makeup look! I paled in comparison!!

I suddenly felt naked on the screen.

Every time Jennifer’s hands left my face, her presence left the screen leaving me there alone. Without the permission to ask questions, share my knowledge of herbal nutrients mentioned, or just be witty, I felt powerless to fill the uncomfortable void I found myself in.

Am I pretty enough to be paid to model at a beauty summit?
Do I belong in this chair?

Belonging in this particular case meant being pretty. In other settings, it could mean being smart enough, skilled enough, loving enough, to belong. And, as we have all experienced, at one time or another, the absence of belonging ignites an upswell of shame.

A shame that dictates what you should-be.

As I sat with my nakedness reflected back at me, I saw a lonely innocence. Like a puppy at the pound begging to be chosen. So, I decided to choose the little-girl who needed me, rather than the big-girl who was judging me.

A curiosity about what each potion was doing to my skin began to override my “pretty enough” worries. I’d lean into the camera so I could see my skin subtly soften. Every pore, crease and crevice was waking up.

What I could-be began to override what I should-be.

My awake-ness felt more than skin deep. The shame my judgments had triggered were softening. I gave myself permission to be, see, and free myself, from myself. This freedom was different than broadcasting who I wished to be, as in a make-over. But rather, to be plain ole me.

What I began to notice was, plain ole me, when engaged, interested and playful, was more than pretty enough. She sparkled with a joie du vivre that was alluring, slightly mysterious, and a whole lot lovable.

My little double chin, quirky nose and character lines (such a better word than wrinkles) paled to the inner vibrancy that was allowed to surface. The camera doesn’t lie, beauty truly is more than skin deep.

Jennifer always says it, and broadcasts it, as her tagline: Make It Up True!

The transformation I made in that chair went from trying to look beautiful to being beauty. And in the doing, I redefined beauty to include me.