Hello, my lovelies! Sorry for the lack of posting yesterday and Friday. Simply had too much to do, and I'm sure you know how that is. Well, on with the posting for today - that is what y'all came to read, isn't it? Okay, today I'm not really tackling any major, huge, universal issues. So, sorry, if you came for a rant, please go get some ice cream instead. Today's just for me to sort of report on what happened yesterday. It's my blog, so I figured I'd fill you in on some of my personal progress. In a way, I guess you could still say it's tackling a larger issue. As my teacher said yesterday, there's two things a woman watching a burlesque performance is usually thinking.
1. She's amazed that you are up there doing that because she wishes she could do it too.
2. She is also a performer and knows how it is to be up there.
Not sure if I've covered this, but I have this tendency to be absolutely awful to myself. You may take this opportunity to call me a hypocrite, if you wish. Yes, the things I try my best to teach others to do - respecting each other, keeping mean comments to yourself - I'm really bad about not doing myself. I can forgive anyone else practically anything, but I am really not nice to myself sometimes. It really tends to flare up if I'm doing something where I perceive there is a "right" and a "wrong" way to do it. Performance tends to fall neatly in that category, and I can be truly terrible to myself if I pick up in any way that I have screwed up. If I'm doing it perfectly, everything is fine and breezy and wonderful, but the second I make a mistake, I go to pieces.
Part of learning burlesque performance, I have discovered, is going to be learning to silence those bad little voices that say "You did it WRONG." Any sort of performance, once you hit the stage, is probably 5% actual preparation and 100% how you just go with it. Yes, I know that's 105%, just like in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, but seriously... When the moment comes, it's all about what happens up there and just going with it. Garter belts snap, microphones fail, stuff gets stuck that's not supposed to stick, stuff doesn't stick when it's supposed to, hair takes a mind of its own... All of that shit just happens and my job is to make it look like it's all part of the show. I know the stories - told to me and that I've read - about stuff that's gone wrong during a fantastic show. To an extreme, people have DIED on-stage and the show must go on. I just need to learn to apply that to what I'm personally doing. I know I go on about how mean we are to each other, but maybe I should address how mean we are to ourselves.
Think about all the nasty things you say to yourself. I know we all do it. We say things to ourselves that we wouldn't even tolerate another woman saying to us, much less a man. Seriously, we can be really horrible to ourselves and, even though I know it's going to take me a while, can we all try to work on that? Let's try and catch ourselves when we start on a self-hating diatribe.
I'm not going to tell you to be all merry sunshine and "look at how awesome I really am!" because that doesn't work. I know it doesn't because it's the same Pollyanna bullshit that people have been feeding me since I was five. We all have stuff about ourselves that we really don't like and would like to improve upon. That's great, actually. That's probably how we grow. But do we really have to be so mean to ourselves about it?
Another thing I'd like to mention: when you're going down that list of stuff you hate about yourself, take a step back. Look at that list, maybe ask your doctor or something, what you really CAN change on there. Short of surgery and miracles, there's no way most of us are going to stand without our thighs touching AND have triple-G boobs AND a Brazilian butt AND have doctorates in three subjects. We need to be way more realistic with ourselves. If you think you're too fat, ask yourself how you can healthily change that. If you think you're not smart enough, pick up a book you've never read before and get through it for real - underline, look stuff up, ask people about it! We spend way too much time obsessing about things that we really can't do much about. When we do that, we lose sight of the things we CAN modify.
... wow, that escalated quickly. I was really planning on going over what I actually went over with my teacher yesterday, I promise! Well, if you came for a rant and didn't go for ice cream when I asked you to, thanks for thinking outside the box... cone... whatever. Seriously though, everybody, we need to all try to be nicer to ourselves, especially if we're going to be nicer to each other. I'm sure that on some level, just like when the patriarchy wins when women bring each other down, the patriarchy wins when we bring OURSELVES down. If we keep being horrible to ourselves just like we've all in some way been taught to do (hate is a learned behavior in all its forms), then we're just letting them keep us in a second-class position. Not cool, y'all.
I'm not perfect. I will probably continue to be horrible to myself until I catch myself at it, then I'll feel worse, but then I'll try again to get better. Hopefully, eventually, that'll lead to actual betterment. You can't get better at all if you don't acknowledge the problem, right? Let's all promise, right now, that we're at the very least going to start CATCHING when we're being mean to ourselves.
Marigold, actually feeling more confident after last night, saying have a good Sunday!
1. She's amazed that you are up there doing that because she wishes she could do it too.
2. She is also a performer and knows how it is to be up there.
Not sure if I've covered this, but I have this tendency to be absolutely awful to myself. You may take this opportunity to call me a hypocrite, if you wish. Yes, the things I try my best to teach others to do - respecting each other, keeping mean comments to yourself - I'm really bad about not doing myself. I can forgive anyone else practically anything, but I am really not nice to myself sometimes. It really tends to flare up if I'm doing something where I perceive there is a "right" and a "wrong" way to do it. Performance tends to fall neatly in that category, and I can be truly terrible to myself if I pick up in any way that I have screwed up. If I'm doing it perfectly, everything is fine and breezy and wonderful, but the second I make a mistake, I go to pieces.
Part of learning burlesque performance, I have discovered, is going to be learning to silence those bad little voices that say "You did it WRONG." Any sort of performance, once you hit the stage, is probably 5% actual preparation and 100% how you just go with it. Yes, I know that's 105%, just like in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, but seriously... When the moment comes, it's all about what happens up there and just going with it. Garter belts snap, microphones fail, stuff gets stuck that's not supposed to stick, stuff doesn't stick when it's supposed to, hair takes a mind of its own... All of that shit just happens and my job is to make it look like it's all part of the show. I know the stories - told to me and that I've read - about stuff that's gone wrong during a fantastic show. To an extreme, people have DIED on-stage and the show must go on. I just need to learn to apply that to what I'm personally doing. I know I go on about how mean we are to each other, but maybe I should address how mean we are to ourselves.
Think about all the nasty things you say to yourself. I know we all do it. We say things to ourselves that we wouldn't even tolerate another woman saying to us, much less a man. Seriously, we can be really horrible to ourselves and, even though I know it's going to take me a while, can we all try to work on that? Let's try and catch ourselves when we start on a self-hating diatribe.
I'm not going to tell you to be all merry sunshine and "look at how awesome I really am!" because that doesn't work. I know it doesn't because it's the same Pollyanna bullshit that people have been feeding me since I was five. We all have stuff about ourselves that we really don't like and would like to improve upon. That's great, actually. That's probably how we grow. But do we really have to be so mean to ourselves about it?
Another thing I'd like to mention: when you're going down that list of stuff you hate about yourself, take a step back. Look at that list, maybe ask your doctor or something, what you really CAN change on there. Short of surgery and miracles, there's no way most of us are going to stand without our thighs touching AND have triple-G boobs AND a Brazilian butt AND have doctorates in three subjects. We need to be way more realistic with ourselves. If you think you're too fat, ask yourself how you can healthily change that. If you think you're not smart enough, pick up a book you've never read before and get through it for real - underline, look stuff up, ask people about it! We spend way too much time obsessing about things that we really can't do much about. When we do that, we lose sight of the things we CAN modify.
... wow, that escalated quickly. I was really planning on going over what I actually went over with my teacher yesterday, I promise! Well, if you came for a rant and didn't go for ice cream when I asked you to, thanks for thinking outside the box... cone... whatever. Seriously though, everybody, we need to all try to be nicer to ourselves, especially if we're going to be nicer to each other. I'm sure that on some level, just like when the patriarchy wins when women bring each other down, the patriarchy wins when we bring OURSELVES down. If we keep being horrible to ourselves just like we've all in some way been taught to do (hate is a learned behavior in all its forms), then we're just letting them keep us in a second-class position. Not cool, y'all.
I'm not perfect. I will probably continue to be horrible to myself until I catch myself at it, then I'll feel worse, but then I'll try again to get better. Hopefully, eventually, that'll lead to actual betterment. You can't get better at all if you don't acknowledge the problem, right? Let's all promise, right now, that we're at the very least going to start CATCHING when we're being mean to ourselves.
Marigold, actually feeling more confident after last night, saying have a good Sunday!
This blog goes hand in hand with one of my favorite methodologies: Self-actualization. I think I mentioned something about it before in one of your blogs.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_actualization
You're individuality and creativity is extremely important, but you also need realistic goals and a realistic idea of yourself and the world around you. If you spend your whole life trying to impress others, you will never be happy with yourself. Having said that not trying to impress yourself will leave you underwhelmed and ashamed.
So what do you do? Laugh at yourself and accept yourself as you are; smell the roses, learn some opposing viewpoints, define yourself in a meaningful way. You will grow, learn, and will probably have a realistic idea of where to go next.
-- Also I had to look up Pollyanna and was amused at the context of it's use. =P