They say you never get a true reflection of what you look like even when you look in the mirror. I have a line in my show that I repeat many times about how I wish I could get outside myself walk down the street and see what I look like.  Lol I just laughed thinking about when I first started with my most recent therapist. I remember the day she realized that I thought I was ugly and a looser. She waited a while to tell me that I was an interesting study because most of patients come in thinking they are a lot more than they are and she had to work to bring them into reality.  For me, she said she had to help me realize that I was more than I thought I was.  Lol, I keep laughing, because I'm remembering when the head of Fox casting called me while I was in her office. And another time, when Laurence Fishburne called. After I hung up, I went right back to talking about how I looked like a guy and what a loser I was.  As I'm writing this I'm realizing that I hung on to that, there was something safe about believing that. I call it, being addicted to the intensity of a bad feeling. My mom dressed me like a boy and if I ever did even the smallest thing, like leave the cap off the toothpaste, they wouldn't speak to me for days.  As a kid I internalized this. I thought for sure they hated me.  Then, as an adult I experienced the world like that. I was also taught to never be conceited. Which is pretty funny, because the opposite of conceited, is not life threatening self hatred. LOL.  A few days ago I wrote about the girl who used to steal all my boyfriends growing up.  As an adult I had girls say to me";Sue you don't notice how many guys check you out." and I always thought, that was a good thing because I wasn't being conceited. But, guess what? those girls would use it ot their advantage and take the guys. LOL. Also, I would sit in work meetings and guys would say to me, "oh you want to be  respected for the way you think not the way you look?" And I would sit there stunned, thinking of course, why would I build a career on looks when they go away? and I didn't think I looked like anything. Which sounds humble, but really I wasn't living in the world as who I am. Yes, you are not supposed to take what others say about you to tell you who you are, but there is something to be said about being in reality. I always thought if someone treated me poorly it was because they hated me. (childish)  But recently I've been given the honor of having an 89 year old woman in my life. I noticed that every time I did something nice for her, she would be mean to me. So ,one day, I walked into her kitchen and said, "We need to have a talk"I said, "I'm noticing that every time I'm nice to you, your mean to me. I'm a very nice person and I'm not going to stop being nice, so guess what's going to happen?" She said,"I'm going to stop being mean?"  And guess what ?she hasn't done it since. I am still processing all this so I hope I'm being clear. In the past if someone was mean to me, I would stop being nice................I WOULD STOP BEING NICE............. I would walk away instead of taking a risk, taking that little extra step to put myself out there, to see what happens. She is still in my life. It's soooo deep I can't even express it.  And all it took was a few words, a little belief in myself and an understanding that I'm human and I need people in my life as well. I really believe that people like when you set boundaries with them, because obviously they can't stop themselves. So, when you do it for them, they are relieved.  My guess is that they are thinking, thank you, I had no idea why people always left me....lol  OK, so back to this, what do I look like? Sunday I was leaving my building to go pay a bill,  I walked by the doorman and he laughed. I said what are you laughing at? He said you just have this force field around you. Like this box where people just sense not to cross it.  It's a good one though, it's not stand offish at all."   They tell me all the time the nicest person in the building to those guys. It's because i have that force field. OK, so I go to pay my mini storage bill, I walked in and there was the guy behind the desk and a girl at the counter filling out forms. I paid the bill and said "thank you have a nice day." And the girl says something, which caught me off guard, I thought she said "you too," but I wasn't sure. So I said, "excuse me?" And she said,I was just telling him how pretty you are." I walked out in shock, thinking, really?  But, as I'm writing, it's all coming together. It's the insides that dictates what the outsides look like. It's an energy that vibrates and people notice.  I used to think if I told people what I needed it would make everyone go away, but I find the opposite happens.  If I don't tell them I go away. I always wanted to do  joke about playing hard to get. Where someone tells me the way to get a guy is to play the game and all it gets me is in my apartment by myself thinking , oh yeah, I'm showing them." And and,and, they don't hate me; they hate themselves and sometimes a little love, real love, is all they need. ( more about this tomorrow) Since we can never really see what we look like we have to feel it. And what other people think of us is none of our business some of the time but it is important to match the insides up with what's being put out into the world.  That's why keeping that force field flexible is the key to it all. Not too big, not too small, just right sized.......