I want everyone to like me

The relief of self-honesty // the art of self-kindness

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A song I’ve been loving:

Absorbing the magic at Taliesin West, Arizona, 2019.

I want everyone to like me. I want to write what every single person in the world will connect with. I want to share things every single person will appreciate or value. I want to do things every single person will love and admire. I want to hear a chorus of approval. I want to be whoever I need to be in order to get a gold star from every person reading this newsletter. I want you to see only the good parts of me. I want you to think only good thoughts about me. I want to mold and morph myself to avoid your judgment. I want to anticipate your desires so I can meet them. I want to spend all my energy picking up on your energy so I can attune my words and self to what you might be wanting. I want a 100% approval rate. 5/5 rating on everything. Zero unsubscribes. I want you to like me. I want you to like me. I want you to like me.

I wasn’t always aware I had this desire to be liked, of just how hard I’d try to fit into the form others wanted or needed me to be in, of just how much of myself I was willing to squash for the semblance of someone else’s approval or acceptance or smile. I wasn’t always aware of how badly I wanted to be liked, how badly I wanted to be accepted by every person I met or saw, how badly I wanted to do whatever I could to avoid judgment, criticism, contempt, jealousy, hate, belittlement, abandonment.

And while I’ve cultivated a depth of awareness around this perceived sense of safety found in the idea of being liked by everyone, I’ve done enough inner exploration and healing to know that a) it isn’t possible, b) it isn’t my job, and c) it’s out of my control.

I’ve also cultivated enough awareness to know that no matter how hard I try, how much I contort, and how little of my true self I bring forward, there will be people who judge me. There will be people who misunderstand me. There will be people who assume the worst about me. There will be people who want me to fail, who wish I was different, who hate the way I write and act and be. There will be people who don’t like me. And performing, contorting, and molding for approval never brings the embodied sense of belonging we so hope it does.

Choosing to show up and share anyway — even when not everyone will like or understand it — has been one of the biggest gifts to myself. Choosing to say what is real for me while knowing it won’t land for everyone has been a gift. Choosing to embrace the risk for the sake of my own wholeness has been a gift. Choosing to put myself, my writing, my work, and my heart out there while knowing there is most likely someone reading this right now who doesn’t actually like me feels like an act of devotion to self. Every time I feel the desire, the urge to morph, the pull to perform, and I choose to pivot back toward myself, it feels a little less scary.

The desires to mold and shape-shift are still there. The longing to figure out how I can make myself invisible to judgment or criticism or dislike is still in my bones. The ‘will they like it?’ voice still lulls me away from myself at times. The hope that everyone will like me still lingers. It probably always will — it’s all tied to my deepest core wound, the one that is usually first to get poked in moments of vulnerability. It may not ever get transcended.

Yet I’ve learned how to tend to those fears with compassion and continue on anyway. I’ve learned to practice doing what is aligned and true for me regardless. I’ve learned to feel the burn of disapproval or dislike and keep showing up in spite of it. I’ve learned to tend to myself when I feel it, or when I fear it, or when I’m wound up in the story that it’s even possible for me to figure out my way to the 100% approval rate. I’ve learned what is and isn’t my responsibility. I’ve learned I don’t need to fix all my fears in order to live beyond them. I’ve learned to let myself be human and let the fears remain and slowly remember how not to let them stop me from showing up to my life. And, perhaps most importantly, I’ve learned to forgive myself in the moments I forget all this, the moments I catch myself mid-performance, the moments I lose track of myself.

I show up for all the versions of me who didn’t yet know she was okay.

There is so much we’ll never transcend or fully heal. There is so much that may remain open, unresolved, un-figured out. There is so much that will forever be a wound we contend with in our hearts, in our bones. There is so much we’ll spiral back to after thinking it was finished. There is so much we’ll have to confront over and over. And god, it has been the deepest felt sense of relief to trust how okay this is — to let go of assuming it means something is wrong and to trust transcending and fully healing all of it was never the point.

The point is to notice our soft, tender places and choose to turn toward them with a loving hand, a warm welcome, a quiet hum saying “you’re okay.”
The point is to recognize when those harsh voices arise within us and remember the difference between hearing them and believing them.
The point is to feel into our wounds when they get poked and know the raw, exposed tenderness will thicken again — that it won’t destroy us.
The point is to remind ourselves it’s safe to be disliked.
The point is to breath into those fears instead of letting them strangle us.
The point is to remind ourselves, over and over, how okay it is to be a person, to be an animal, to not be in control of it all, to make living our task instead of assuming healing and fixing everything should always be at the center, to trust we can move with the ebbs and flows, even when we feel like they’re one second away from overtaking us entirely. We can wade. We can float. We can swim. And we can reach for the life rafts when moving with the waves is just too much to do on our own.

When we know our own urges, our own dark spots, our own still-open wounds, our own perceived safety zones that don’t actually create safety, our own narratives, our own fears, our own flaws, our own tendencies, our own whole selves, we can lean on the parts of us that know what’s true when other parts forget.

When we’re willing to be honest about our misplaced longings and our impossible desires, we can practice the art of self-kindness. When we trust it’s okay to just be human, we can wade from and return to these truths again and again, for a lifetime, no transcending needed.

△ Pema, one of my greatest teachers of all, on transforming your emotions

△ One of my favorite songs of the year, from Madi Diaz:

△ Text Your Friends. It Matters More Than You Think

△ The companies that are killing creativity

△ This illuminating episode from one of my current teachers, Chela Davison:

△“There’s nothing inherently wrong about an attempt to focus on the concept of beauty,” Chambers clarifies. “We love to look at a beautiful landscape or beautiful artwork, right?” The problem, she claims, is that what Western culture calls physical beauty could more accurately be described as coerced modification. “Our culture is constantly telling us that our bodies are never good enough,” she says. “Shame about our bodies is something we absorb from the media, from commercial interests, and from each other.” Unrelenting shame begets unrelenting body modification: dieting and dyeing our grays, shaving our legs and shaping our brows, applying foundation and injecting fillers. “I do it for me!,” the modern feminist cries — but in Intact, Chambers argues that these behaviors aren’t merely personal choices. Rather, they’re “part of the political fabric.”

△(Very) slowly working on the outline and proposal for book #2.

The space that holds me while my work takes shape.

△ Choosing courage over confidence

△ I rarely share things to buy because a) it’s just not my thing to share, and b) I try to limit any urge to give into consumption/shopping culture. But because I get asked for recommendations so often, or for links to things I’ve shared photos of at one point or another, I thought I’d share a few of my favorite things that create nourishment in some way and feel like a true treat, all from small businesses:
. This olive oil
. This ceramic cup .
. This deck & this deck & this deck & this deck
. This 12 month workbook
. This turmeric
. These herbal tinctures
. This art
. This sticker
. This notebook
. This everyday bowl
. This journal
. This sweater
. This record
. This block print
. This bookshop
. This cacao
. This everyday oil
. This book
. This lunar calendar

May the things we buy, own, and give create more meaning, more connection, more intention, more pleasure, more presence, and more love — not less — for ourselves and for others. Feel free to share one of your recent favorite things below, if you’re called. Thanks, as always, for being here.

With care,
Lisa