Embrace Your Ugly

Stop running from your deep-rooted vulnerability and breathe into the remaining empty space - it is the most painful but empowering thing we can do...

How many of us feel great about ourselves exactly as we are? We live in a world where each week we begin a new diet, we worry we won't make it to the gym as many times as we set (and are annoyed when at the end of the week we haven't), we are concerned our salary isn't what it could be and we repeatedly scroll on social media looking for a hit, something we don't even know what it is - but the hyped up guess and buzz word would be dopamine.

So how do we let go of chasing something to do, buy or be seen as, and instead breathe into the empty space of who we are, as we are, today, and be happy with what we find?

In my early 20s it was easy to cling onto a number of external props such as hair extensions, false eyelashes, acrylic nails and anything else that contributes to our creating of the 'naturally' perfect image that had been imposed by the media.

Now in my forties, the goal posts have moved and it extends to a new car, a bigger house perhaps for some even another child! (Ahem, not me!) All the while continuing to be unconsciously by oppressed the beauty measures taken above - and let's throw in some Botox for good measure too.

But remove all these add-ons that are sold to us as 'proving we are good enough' - and what are we left with? Yes a rather aging face, but in a world where that is not accepted, vulnerability.

Vulnerability is what my therapist once told me was the most uncomfortable feeling for a human being to bear - because essentially we fear we are unlovable.

Being unlovable is imagined

Showing up in the world and being seen 'just as we are' (in the words of Bridget Jones' Mark Darcy) is one of the most bravest but empowering acts we can perform for ourselves. Being liked for our authenticity and not for the picture we paint will in turn allow us more confidence in our true self, therefore freeing us from the modern day reliance on material possessions that portray us as 'making it in the world' and a supposed success.

Author and researcher, Brene Brown, recognised for her TED video on shame, talks about 'taking off the mask and hoping that the real me isn't too disappointing' in her bestselling book, Daring Greatly.

"When we're anxious, disconnected, vulnerable, alone and feeling helpless, the booze, and food, and work, and endless hours online feel like comfort, but in reality they're only casting their long shadows over our lives."

Brene Brown, Daring Greatly

They are filling our internal 'empty space'. What is known by many within the 12-Step program as, 'Our hole in the Soul'.

So what would happen if we didn't reach out for those crutches that help us to fill the time, to numb the feeling and instead we made the conscious decision to be ever present and engage with the person in front of us?

Well, we fear what is deemed as our 'ugliness' might be seen; our insecurities, our truth and our fears. So instead we hide them, causing us to be incongruent with what we say. We have all been in the situation where the sub-text isn't what is being said in the conversation, and as such, friendships start to fail or are being labelled as 'toxic' due to a lack of compassion for each other.

Stop Lying About Who We Really Are

In the 2009 Hollywood hit film the 'The Invention of Lying', the characters live in a world where no one can lie. Writer Ricky Gervais stars as the main character Mark Bellison who after a fall gains the ability to stray from the truth, which as you can guess at first is a novelty, but in turn he longs for the truth, for authenticity.

In becoming adults we have learnt to survive in the world by creating barriers and defence mechanisms that work to protect us from being vulnerable, since what happens to the vulnerable? Well, they get eaten. But seeing as we're not in the wild, we can learn to love our more vulnerable side, incorporating it into our personality, own it, and use it to help us connect on a deeper level with others, having compassion for their own vulnerability that they too likely suffer with.

So how do we avoid these unbearable emotions of loneliness, of shame, of vulnerability that all act as the core of why we might not like ourselves and carry shame? Just throw our brand new iPhone's in the river? Abandon our ambitions for a Range Rover Sport that make us feel we are as good if not better than everyone else you ask? No, of course not, it's not about abandoning our wants and desires, and besides, we all need a reason to go to work! But we can stop running. We can stop running from the person that we are today, without the Range Rover, without having lost that half a stone and without having yet met that man or got that dream job. You are perfectly lovable as you are, right now, today.

Buddhism at its Best

By adopting the Buddhist approach of mindfulness, one way of managing to cope with the uncomfortable emotions we all want to avoid is by leaning into them, face them, FEEL them.

Next time your grasping out for some more caffeine, another biscuit, grappling for a glass of wine or causing an argument with your partner, instead, acknowledge the tightness in your chest, recognise the lump in your throat that makes it hard to swallow, and take a deep breath in through your nose and 'hold' those heavy, dark, overwhelming feelings in the pit of your stomach.

Instead, breathe in, count to ten, make a conscious decision to open that heart of yours, to yourself and in turn, others. And don't be afraid if the tears start to fall, rest assured they will stop. It is normal to fear that if you let the floodgates open, a tsunami might then ensue, but at some point they will dry up, if only due to dehydration.

The result? In confronting the empty space, the discomfort, the feeling your are unlovable head-on you can soothe your inner child - and with it will come a sense of relief.

You no longer have to run, to fight it, you are accepting yourself. Are you perfect? No one is, you're human - and you are entitled to be loved exactly as you are. You were born an innocent babe, and certain life lessons have simply lead you to believe or behave in a way to hide your shame, but there's so much time left to embrace you, love you, exactly as you are.

It is in embracing our vulnerability and the accompanying uncomfortable emotions we choose to run from, we learn to face our darkest fears and emotionally hold our inner pain - we prove we are valid in the world and we are worth 'it'.

What's 'it' I hear you ask? It is love.

By making a detour from the destinations of money, recognition and success projected onto us by society, we take a risk; we relinquish a false, superficial image that only contributes to the inferiority of our neighbour, (which someone else has previously contributed to our own complex) and instead we prove we can be loved for who we really are, freeing ourselves from fruitless desires and short term relief.

In accepting ourselves and swapping our ambitions of a Range Rover and the new iPhone with the altogether raw performance of living authentically, we are opening the door to compassion for both ourselves and others, allowing us to form deeper connections that are more validating and valuable than any monetary reward or material recognition. In embracing our ugly, we get to feel more love.