“Mother!” she cried. I was disgusting to her in that moment—froufrou, dependent. I’d offended her sensibilities of what it means to be a woman of strength.
What she didn’t see was the choice I’d made, to honor and embrace my husband’s delight in caring for me. He lived for Saturdays when he’d get up early and drive across the border to the produce market in Juarez and search for the ripest red papayas that I loved. It brought him joy. And it brought me joy, too, to share in the sensory ritual, to receive what he longed to give.
When you’re free, you take responsibility for being who you really are. You recognize the coping mechanisms or behavior patterns you’ve adopted in the past to get your needs met. You reconnect with the parts of yourself you had to give up, and reclaim the whole person you weren’t allowed to be. You break the habit of abandoning yourself.
Remember: you have something no one else will ever have. You have you. For a lifetime.
That’s why I talk to myself all the time. I say, “Edie, you’re one of a kind. You’re beautiful. May you be more and more Edie every day.”
I am no longer in the habit of denying myself, emotionally or physically. I’m proud to be a high-maintenance woman! My wellness regimen includes acupuncture and massage. I do regular beauty treatments that aren’t necessary but feel good. I have facials. I get my hair painted—not just dyed one color, but three, from dark to light. I go to the department store makeup counter and experiment with new ways of doing my eyes. If I hadn’t learned to develop inner self-regard, no amount of pampering on the outside could change the way I feel about myself. But now that I hold myself in high esteem, now that I love myself, I know that taking care of myself on the inside can include taking care of myself on the outside, too—treating myself to nice things without suffering guilt, letting my appearance be an avenue for self-expression. And I’ve learned to accept a compliment. When someone says, “I like your scarf,” I say, “Thank you. I like it, too.”
I’ll never forget the day I took teenage Marianne clothes shopping and she tried on an outfit I’d picked out for her and said, “Mom, it’s not me.” Her comment startled me. I worried I had raised her to be picky or even ungrateful. But then I realized what a gift it is to have children who know their own minds, who know what is “me” and what is “not me.”
Honey, find you and keep filling it up with more you. You don’t have to work to be loved. You just have to be you. May you be more and more you every day.
KEYS TO FREE YOURSELF FROM SELF-NEGLECT
Anything we practice, we become better at. Spend at least five minutes every day savoring pleasant sensations: the first sip of coffee in the morning, the feel of warm sun on your skin or a hug from someone you love, the sound of laughter or rain on the roof, the smell of baking bread. Take time to notice and experience joy.
Work, love, play. Make a chart that shows your waking hours each day of the week. Label the time you spend every day working, loving, and playing. (Some activities might fit in more than one category; if so, use all the labels that apply.) Then add up the total hours you spend working, loving, and playing in a typical week. Are the three categories roughly in balance? How could you structure your days differently so you do more of whatever is currently receiving the least of your time?
Show yourself some love. Reflect on a time within the last week when someone demanded something of you or asked you for a favor. How did you respond? Was your response out of habit? Necessity? Desire? How did your response feel in your body? Was your response good for you? Now reflect on a time within the last week when you asked—or wanted to ask—someone for help. What did you say? How did it work out? Was your response good for you? What can you do today to be self-ish—to show yourself love and care?
Chapter 4
ONE BUTT, TWO CHAIRS
The Prison of Secrets
In Hungary we have an expression: If you sit with one butt on two chairs, you become half-assed.
If you’re living a double life, it’s going to catch up with you.
When you’re free, you’re able to live with authenticity, to stop straddling the gap between two chairs—your ideal self and your real self—and become congruent. You learn to sit fully in the chair of your own fulfillment.
Robin was struggling in the gap between two chairs when she came to see me, her marriage on the brink of collapse. She’d grown exhausted trying to live up to her husband’s exacting demands, and their marriage had become passionless and empty. She felt she needed an oxygen mask just to get through the day. In search of relief and joy, she began an affair.
Cheating is a dangerous game. Nothing is more exciting than a new lover. When you’re in a new bed, you’re not talking about who’s going to take out the garbage, whose turn it is to drive the carpool to soccer practice. It’s all pleasure, no responsibility. And it’s temporary. For a while after the affair began, Robin had felt alive to joy, more optimistic, more nourished, able to tolerate the status quo at home because her hunger for affection and intimacy was being fed elsewhere. But then her lover gave her an ultimatum. She had to choose: her husband, or him.
She booked her first session with me because she
