Are You a Finished Poem? Spiritual Bypassing and the Art of Being You.

So, I realised something. I’m reading Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés and I don’t know if that’s relevant or not, but it was while I was reading it that this idea started to form…

The other day, I shared a story about the Russian ballet teaching style - I’m yearning to teach and do ballet again so it’s all over my insta feed at the moment. It was funny to me! But it got me thinking, a bit, afterwards. So, It went something like:

“If you feel down. Get up. If you think you’re good enough. You’re not. You can always be better. If you’re scared. Good. That means you need to do it.”

Dame Margot Fonteyn, one of my earliest inspirations

And that’s how classical ballet is taught! It’s how my teacher taught me and it’s how her teacher (who was Russian) taught her. And having that drilled into me for over 10 years as a kid and young adult, consequently, it’s how I live my life.

So thinking about this, I realised something HUGE. I’ve been WAY OFF.

Because I’ve lived my life like that: questioning, improving, doubting myself, ok? Not always good! Often a bit harmful. But VERY strengthening.

my pointe shoes

But now, I’m teaching people: “you’re enough as you are” and “you don’t need to change” and I’m like DAMN. Those two standpoints couldn’t be further apart if they tried! And in fact, it feels a lot like toxic positivity or spiritual bypassing, to only teach people that shit, especially when I don’t particularly buy into it myself.

Because listen. If I didn’t operate the way I do, I would not be where I am now. If I didn’t have raw determination to succeed and always be better, if I didn’t “feel the fear and do it anyway”, if I didn’t speak my truth even when my voice is shaking, I would not be me. And I would not be able to do what I do.

“Bloodthirsty, unwavering drive and determination” I called it in my post.

WE NEED THAT!!!

To get stuff done, we need to be driven and determined and not sitting back, wondering why opportunities are never coming our way, or just shrinking back into our cocoons because we have no desire to grow.

Yes, we do need softness. Of course we do. We do need self-acceptance. We do need self-love. But what we do not need is to fall into the trap of using this as an excuse to not do the work. The trap of thinking “well I’m enough as I am aren’t I, so why do I need to grow?” or “well I love myself exactly as I am so why should I strive to be better?”

I get it, right. There’s a place for that which we will come back to, but we also have to have the fire in our bellies as well.

Ok. You’re a project, right? You’re the architect of you. You’re a work of art.

You’re a poem.

I write poetry. And I often joke about how none of my poems are ever actually finished.

I’ve come back to poems after 20 years and edited them. Some, because they were awful and needed to be completely re-written and sometimes life is like that. But I’m not talking about those poems.

I’m talking about the ones I come to and think. Damn that’s pretty good. So yeah, of course it was a great poem when I closed my notebook on it 2 decades before but now, when I look at it, I’ve gained some experience. I might decide to explore certain images more closely, to tweak the language or the structure so it communicates more effectively and realises it’s intention. See?

Still the same poem but evolved. I won’t say “Improved” because it was fine as it was. But now, it’s something more.

And guess what. There’s a certain fear in deleting words or lines, in delving deeper and being more honest about the intention of the piece. So maybe I could just close the notebook again and let it be. Safer that way. No risk.

And no reward.

This is the important part now…

Note I said I loved my poem the way it was. I accepted it as a beautiful and complete poem before the editing process.

I wasn’t editing it because I didn’t like it. I was editing it because I liked it so much that I thought it was worth spending more time working on it. To allow it space to grow and evolve and deepen and become more honest with itself, with me and with any readers it might one day enjoy.

So yes, your self-love and self-acceptance is essential. I want you to love and accept yourself SO MUCH that you feel driven to dive deeper and achieve your potential whatever that looks like for you. I just don’t want you to use the idea to get you resting on your laurels and never exploring yourself more.

“Radical self- love” as it’s known is, for me, not about loving yourself into oblivion. It’s about loving yourself into PHENOMENON.

It’s not about productivity or outward achievement.

It’s not about comparison or competition with others.

It’s very much a private and personal process.

Nurturing yourself.

Cheerleading yourself.

Empowering yourself.

Not needing the external validation. Trusting your intuition, your ideas and your imagination.

We’re told that a lot of growing into and beyond mid-life is about this whole process of “unlearning” these toxic patterns and I’m not disputing that toxic patterns of behaviour are unhelpful.

But do we need to unlearn? Is it even possible to do that?

Could we not instead reframe the learning? To repurpose it? Wouldn’t it be more empowering to ask those toxic patterns what they were teaching us and then apply that wisdom in healthier ways?

I mean, I’m hard on myself A LOT – because of that conditioning I mentioned from my ballet years. I’ve got that programming now.

But I’ve patched in some self-compassion and awareness so that when I’m struggling with myself, I can sit with myself and HONESTLY ASK WHY, just like I might do with a friend. “Why are you struggling. Let’s lay it out bit by bit. Let’s talk through it, break it down so we can untangle the mess in your mind. I’m hearing you with no judgement or expectation and holding your honesty as sacred.”

But I can only do this when I love myself. When I care about my wellbeing, just as with a friend. When I am willing to accept myself as I am: imperfect. When I’m in a state of mind to remember that I move in cycles and that “this too shall pass”. When I work within my cycles and allow myself to sometimes put the heavy stuff down until I’m strong enough to pick it up again, making that determined promise to myself that I WILL pick it up again – or, when I’m ready and come back to it, if it’s no longer needed, to offer it gratitude and leave it behind. When I “make hay while the sun shines”, knowing I have super-productive bursts as well as fallow times and that both are necessary for my wellbeing. For the successful harvest, there must be times of rest and replenishment for the soil. This is nature’s way.

So yes, you can love yourself into existence! We are all at different stages of this journey and all bring with us different experiences from our past and if you’re still trying to unlearn your patterns or repurpose your wisdom, if you’re still working on your self-acceptance, that’s that! And maybe you are in a fallow period right now. That’s absolutely wonderful. Honour it. Lean into it. Trust it. Go through that process.

Just remember that it’s not the final edit!

Love you loads,

Cheryl