…someone to see you, show yourself love, be loving kindness, become kindness, be generous and sexy, be horny :)
I was having dinner with a guy friend of mine the other night who mentioned something about my integrity and I told him that lately I've been realizing (and grieving over) the fact that I have never seen how valuable it is. I told him that I always thought that everyone had it. In fact I used to think that everybody had it put together and I was completely fucked up.
He said, "I can't believe with your personality that you even feel unsure at all."
Which of course is crazy because everyone feels unsteady sometimes, but I thought about what he said and people have always seen it in me. I just couldn't see it in myself.
I told him about one of the first times recently that I was able to be in my body and own my own integrity.
I was on date with this guy who took me out on his boat, then to dinner.
At dinner, he started talking about this public person — "a friend of his" — who has a rough image. He said that they are really nice in person.
I said, "Well they probably don't get treated like that.”
He proceeded to argue with me about how your persona didn't need to match up with who you were.
And I said, "I didn't say that. I said that person probably doesn't get treated like a nice person."
He asked me why.
I said, "Because niceness is not what they built their career on." I also said that I had compassion because sometimes something works once and you get carried away with it.
He said, "So you're saying they sold out?"
I said, "No, I'm saying that they might have gotten carried away with the image that they were putting out."
He still didn't get it.
I said, "You went to college right? Then you understand that every action has a reaction."
I also said, "That wouldn't work for me because it would make me sad and lonely. I need who I am to match up with my work."
To which he responded, "Oh I get it, you want to win and you want to win the right way."
I left that dinner thinking, What the hell just went on? I felt a little scared and a little ashamed.
I talked it over with a few friends and realized that he was defending himself. He wants to be a good guy inside but do bad things at work.
He wanted me to conform to his ideas without having any opinion even though I didn't realize that we were talking about him until after I left.
Essentially he would have liked it if I stopped being me so he could feel better about himself, and he was doing it through this so called "I have a friend" story.
This was the first time I held my own with someone like that, without taking someone else down, meaning I didn't have to talk poorly about the other person, like when he said "you're saying they sold out."
Because in the past sometimes it would come out purely and naturally, like it did, because that's usually how integrity comes out, and people would say "Sue we're not all like you" and I would be filled with shame and hide or say something bad about someone when I didn't even mean anything bad.
Also, that was the first time I walked away from a date and that shamed and scared me. In the past that would have turned me on.
I never called the guy again.
So, now I'm sitting at dinner with my friend telling him this story — mind you he knows how much I have struggled (emotionally, financially, etc) to write my show — and they said, "Sue you didn't sell out, you could have dated the guy with a boat so he could take care of you."
Ha! See? People see it. I would never date someone for money. The only reason I would have ended up anywhere near that guy is if I was still addicted to the shame and wanted to hide my light in his dark
But thankfully, that ship has sailed!!
This one is going to be short, because I'm on a roll writing the end of my show, but I had to write a little blurb about this.The other night I was getting my nails done and a homeless lady with a mustache and a beard came in and told the girl at the desk that she wanted the works. Mani, pedi, facial and massage. She parked her shopping cart and took a seat. She took a look at the brochure and the prices and decided against it. When the woman left, the manager sprayed Lysol all over the place. I had so many feelings, I think the manager thought she could Lysol them away. Well needless to say it didn't work, at least for me. I really had to sit there and see what I was feeling. Of course someone that dirty can make us uncomfortable, but she is still a person. I haven't resolved it in myself yet because, the answer cannot be that you're only allowed to be groomed if you're already groomed. It just can't be.
This one is going to be short, because I'm on a roll writing the end of my show, but I had to write a little blurb about this.The other night I was getting my nails done and homeless lady with a mustache and a beard came in and told the girl at the desk that she wanted the works. Mani, pedi, facial and massage. She parked her shopping and took a seat. She took a look at the brochure and the prices and decided against it. When the woman left, the manager sprayed Lysol all over the place. I had so many feelings, I think the manager thought she could Lysol them away. Well needless to say it didn't work, at least for me. I really had to sit there and see what I was feeling. Of course someone that dirty can make us uncomfortable, but she is still a person. I haven't resolved it in myself yet because, the answer cannot be that you're only allowed to be groomed if you're already groomed. It just can't be.
Last year I blogged about a little restaurant in the neighborhood that I grew up in and got more hate mail than any other blog before, or after. All of it was from people from the neighborhood.
I made reference to it being like a ghetto and gave the dictionary meaning that I was referring to.
It read something like, "When businesses comes in and take financial advantage of a condensed area."
Evidently ghetto is an emotional word and it triggered lots of anger in lots of people.
People who told me to Fuck off and never come to my neighborhood again and that my mother must be ashamed of me.
Well it turns out that said restaurant was taken over by the bank — shut down, gone, buh-bye.
My first thought was I was right. My second thought was, Why were they so hateful?
Maybe they could scare me to shut me up because they don't want to see the truth, because then they might have to see something in themselves.
So let me get this straight: the message is, don't express yourself unless it goes along with what we believe or you’re not welcome here anymore..
Sounds like a gang mentality to me.
Of course people can disagree with me, but the level of hatred was crazy. And they didn't even defend their case — they just tried to shame and threaten me.
When I was little, my mum took me to the dentist and when I got home I told my Dad that I thought the dentist was taking my mother’s money.
He told me to never to say that again and sent me to my room.
When I was a teenager, that guy got busted for some form of fraud.
Well when I was little I shut my mouth because I needed a place to live.
Now I’m a big girl.
I'm from Boston, MA 02125.
I see truth and feel when things are not on the up and up. Why? Because I am honest.
People have been trying to beat it out of me forever.
I will not be silenced and I definitely will not shrink to make others feel comfortable.
So I guess the question is: What does it mean that I grew up in a place that tried to beat the truth out of me and didn't win?
I understand that sometimes you have to say things over and over in the same voice for people to get it because emotions get in the way, especially when it's something that goes against everything that they believe. I respect that people see things differently because of their own experiences. I am also open to hearing other perspectives. But as far as being afraid of bullies, it's not going to happen.
I don't need everyone to see it, I don't need everyone to like me, but they do have to respect me, especially when I'm right.
I used to think that this was complete bullshit. How could that be, if there is all this bad stuff that goes on?
How could that be true when it takes more courage to be loving than hateful?
How could it be true that even if you choose to be loving, others will still funnel it through their own hatefulness?
That part is not true unless you let it be true.
I used to feel like it wasn't worth it and the old adage of "If you can't be ‘em, you might as well join ‘em" was the only way to survive.
Well not anymore. Simply surviving is not enough for me anymore.
Janis Joplin sings "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." And that is where I am at in life.
I am starting to realize that love might be the only thing that is real and consistent.
That when people are nasty and mean, it's just words and sometimes actions, but unless those actions are murder — meaning they kill us — we still have the choice to choose love.
And love does not mean being a doormat. Love does not mean to be completely selfless. Love means respect.
It's the simplest way I can put it. And unless you have respect for yourself, you can't have respect for others.
If you make the decision not to be nasty to yourself then the decision to not be nasty to others will be made automatically.
Why? Because you have to have nasty in you to be nasty.
It's like when the terrorists attacked. A lot of the machinery they used to grow their "gang," if you will, were weapons that we gave them during the Gulf War.
Think about it: they can only get you with your own weapons.
It seems so simple, yet it seems that the connection through hate has become the stronger bond.
I used to be so scared that if I expressed my compassion I would be attacked so kept it inside and didn't express it.
I became the ugly out of fear of the ugly.
See it's like the camouflage suits they wear in the army — you try to blend in so the enemy won't get you.
You stay small to make others feel comfortable.
It doesn't work. The enemy will never feel comfortable until they surrender to love.
I have been attacked for my compassion but I don’t care. The attack means nothing. Really it' s just words that cause feelings.
It pricks old feelings that are from words that were told to me about myself that aren't true.
So from now on no more shrinking to make others feel comfortable, no more camouflaging myself so you don't see me.
It's only words and words can't kill me, but they can make me walk around dead even though I'm alive.
So not until I am dead will I stop, will I shrink, will the spirit leave my body.
I have the courage to stand up to the ugly with love and I believe others have it in them too because as long as there is breath there is hope.
...is really just a form of torture. I find myself doing it when I get scared. I guess I could describe it as some sort of need to be taken care of, but it's a screwed up way to do it.
I find when I get scared, I yearn for something — anything — to make me feel better.
I guess that's why people take drugs or act out, but since I'm not into that anymore, I'm really, really trying to go deep and see the things that I do to myself emotionally to torture myself.
As I'm writing this I see how crazy it is. In a healthy world, if I were scared I would want a hug, and if there is no one around for a hug, then I should at least be gentle with myself.
Believe me, I've gotten much better at this. I used to wake up in the morning and not be able to get out of bed until I found something to worry about.
Once I did, I would jump out of bed and begin my day.
I guess that is the same effect that drugs have on your body.
They give you a false sense of moving forward, all the while taking you down.
Imagine what that does to my nervous system?
My career is taking off again and with that comes all the feelings about why I shut it down to begin with.
Growing up, I looked like a boy and all I wanted to do was look like a girl.
But once I did, I experienced what it felt like to be a girl and sometimes it was painful.
I used to think that boys had it made, that they didn't have any feelings and that they got away with murder.
I remember a therapist telling me that that was not the case. Oftentimes it's much harder to be a guy because their emotions are all jammed up inside them.
It's easy to hear it, but to integrate it is a whole other ball game.
Ha! Ballgame. I have forever been jealous of boys and their sports and the money they make.
I've been jealous of them my whole life (boys I mean).
Some of it is old feelings and some of it is a reality.
Sexism is alive and well today and oftentimes it's perpetuated by women.
Even I can be guilty of it. If I hate being a woman sometimes, then what will I manifest with other women?
And don't even get me started on the guys. If I'm so jealous of them, how can I ever get outside of myself and be loving and compassionate towards them.
The anger that I feel sometimes when I suffer a some slight because of sexism is almost unbearable.
It used to be any slight of any kind.
I think that it’s the anger that made me shut down.
I couldn't tolerate it, I couldn't process it. I remember being in therapy one time and being so mad inside, but on the outside I was weepy.
My therapist asked me why I was weepy.
A year later it hit me: I express my anger through weeping because that's the socially acceptable thing for a girl to do.
Here's my theory: guys are terrified of a woman's anger because they couldn't tolerate their mommy's anger. They hated how powerless that made them feel so they never want to feel that way again.
Well as sad as it may be, we are all grown ups now and just as I need to look at my own reasons for holding myself back and not having enough love and compassion for men, the men need to do the same.
They say that sometimes the anger or feelings are so intense when you first feel them because they are repressed childhood feelings. Those feelings are harder to feel, but if you can allow them to come out and process them in healthy way, they will not always be that intense.
I think they call that the maturation process.
Which is much more difficult to go through in you later years, but never impossible.
So for today, I'm going to let all my childhood feelings come up about how mad I was that I was born a girl and how jealous I am of how guys get it easier sometimes.
I will sit here and think about how when I was little no one let me feel my anger. They were beating the shit out of me and I wasn't supposed to have anger. I would spend hours in my room sleeping and repressing my anger.
Flash forward to my sitcom Costello. The executives hid behind the walls telling me not to be a bitch and "don't be like Rosanne."
I had appropriate reasons to not be happy about what was going on on that set, but what did I do?
I went home to bed.
I had a director (a man) say to me, "I wish I had a Mercedes when I was 30." I had a guy who was jealous that it wasn't his show. A guy that I fought to get on that show.
The show was called Costello and they all had jobs because of me and what did I do? I went to bed.
Well now I am able to feel the powerlessness that I have over the fact which will fuel me to my healthy anger to get something done!
Being a girl has gotten me fucked and not in the good way.
I'm beginning to feel worthy of what I have and being a girl is very powerful. I mean we do create life.
I’m making a citizen’s arrest on PEOPLE OPERATING ON A LOW LEVEL. Seriously, it bores me. It used to scare me but now yawn, yawn and yawn.
However, if those people should ever choose to take a few minutes to have a few uncomfortable feelings, in order to TRY to not be so ugly, I would care, a little.
Notice I said TRY.
That's all you really have to do to begin the changing process.
I know you are not happy in that skin of yours.
So, rather than spreading all that unhappiness all over everyone else, try to hold on to it.
It can take practice, like hold it for one minute, then the next day two, and so on.
Hold on to it until you are strong enough to realize how unhappy you are and that the truth is that the only way out is through.
Only you can dig yourself out of your own hell.
Think about it: if you spread your misery you're just making more misery and you'll never be happy :)