an introduction to the "dear john" project and its following seven essays
Our relationships with our bodies vary in meaning depending on the body we are born into and how that body is perceived by the collective culture. Some people don’t have any complex awarenesses surrounding their bodies; for others, their relationship with the body is mythic and metaphorical. This collection was initially intended to heal my relationship with my body. I have carried this wound with me for several years; I finally made it a point to question it and open up a conversation. When something stays with you for that long and has such a potent impact on your life, chances are the source of the wound isn’t what you think it is. Instead, it is something much more profound.
Practicing healing ourselves is one of the most powerful things we can do. Let me be clear: I am not invalidating the benefits of therapy or seeking professional help. I have been fortunate to have very proficient, seasoned, and caring teachers. How else do we learn and grow if not by observing and interacting with one another? Healing ourselves does not mean that we do it alone. We all leverage diverse relationships, whether a therapist, teachers, or loved ones, to heal.
It can be challenging to see the shadows or unintegrated parts of ourselves, let alone objectively. One of the most beautiful parts of being human is that we aren’t alone in our experiences. More often than not, the people around us have experienced, are experiencing, or will experience many of the same archetypal dimensions of humanity as us in our lifetimes. We all reflect one another. If we are open, everyone around us is our teacher. We may learn from people by observing them, engaging in conversations, etc.; there are infinite ways to learn. As humans, we are more interconnected than we can perceive. Everyone has their way of coming home to the idea that we are all connected; my way is through The Mirror.
Relationships are some of the most powerful mirrors we have. When I want to see, heal, and integrate unseen parts of myself, I often look to the people closest to me. Seeing parts of ourselves that we often overlook, i.e., our blindspots isn’t always easy. Relationships, especially our closest ones, offer an objective mirror into those disregarded and disowned parts of ourselves. How many times have we told a friend to do XYZ but needed that advice for ourselves? How many times have we looked at our loved ones and seen more parts of ourselves in them than we care to admit? The more we know ourselves, the more we see ourselves in others and vice versa. Relationships are not only mirrors for discrete qualities but also for how we interact with the world. I.e., someone may not be an exact mirror for our personality traits, but how they upset or inspire us is an informational compass for how we can grow.
Each of the following seven essays focuses on a relationship that had an extraordinary impact on me at some point in time. Every relationship revealed the depth and intricacy of this wound in its own unexpected and remarkable way. If I had a major “character flaw,” it would be that I easily show grace and compassion to everyone else before myself, which is one of the reasons healing my relationship with my body and my relationship with that relationship has been so convoluted. Examining these relationships has allowed me to trace the wound to its origins. They revealed unknown aspects of the story to create a clearer, fuller picture, ultimately allowing for closure and renewal.
This project began to explore the deeper nuances between my relationships with my body and our collective cognition of beauty. Every personal wound is simultaneously impersonal and vice versa; this is one of the most beautiful parts of humanity. You may not identify as a black woman, but I am confident you will be able to find yourself somewhere in one of these essays. As I mentioned, our deepest wounds are never what they seem to be on the surface. Unearthing the unseen dimensions of my relationship with my body revealed an archetypal sentiment we can all relate to.
with love, katie
preface: on redefining beauty
Beauty is far more multidimensional and profound than what the mainstream media and collective cultural ideals present to us.
As a twenty-something who is constantly pondering and questioning the meaning behind my experience of Earth, there aren’t too many things that I am sure about in my life. This is no surprise as I have heard self-assurance and embodied direction generally come in your thirties. The only thing I have ever known for sure is that I want to be a mother. I can’t explain why, but this desire has always been within me. I have struggled in the past with what I want to do career-wise and accomplish in this lifetime, but I have always been sure about you.
I can feel you hovering around me. You have a very powerful presence that will manifest in a special way whenever you land earthside. I don’t imagine what you will look like or how you will present yourself because those aspects of The Self are fluid. However, I do imagine all of the beautiful things you will teach me and the love you will bring into my life. You have already brought me so much clarity surrounding my visions for myself and what I want to give. I can’t wait to see how we continuously guide one another.
I know I will not be the “perfect” mom because that doesn’t exist. Nonetheless, in a way, I will be your perfect mom because all mothers are perfectly imperfect. Still, a part of me feels it is important to be aware of my shadows because they will impact you. We all have shadows, and trying to control them or make them disappear is futile and a shadow within itself. Shadows can easily highlight where we feel inspired to bring more change or peace to ourselves, our loved ones, and the collective.
My relationship with my body is the one shadow I have had such a challenging time healing. Sometimes it isn’t easy to put into words because consciously, we all know that the beauty standards imposed upon us aren’t real; we are all equally beautiful in our own way, and so on. I mean, yes, that is all true, but hearing other people say that didn’t help me, especially when our culture says something else entirely. It also didn’t help that in my mind that I always felt that it was ridiculous for me to have an eating disorder in the first place. I know, I know… it’s the opposite of self-affirming and made it worse. Seriously, it didn’t make any sense to me. I am tall and have always been relatively thin (although the standard of thin has tightened so much, I guess that is subjective). I am an active and relatively healthy person (we all have our forms of kryptonite). Thus in my mind, there was no “real” reason for me to have this issue. My body changed after college, which makes sense. I’m twenty-six now as I write this, so it doesn’t make sense for my body to look the same as it did when I started college at eighteen or even when I graduated at twenty-two—even knowing that I continued to beat myself up, not only for how my body looked but also for my relationship with my body. It was only within the past year I understood that if I was experiencing this when I was at my smallest and now post-change, it didn’t matter what my body looked like and never would; this was a much deeper issue.
No matter who I have you with, you will be black. It’s just not easy being a black person in this country (this is an immense oversimplification, but I can only focus on one thing at a time). I was privileged enough to grow up in an affluent town, although there was almost no one who looked like me. I only had my sister and one friend to compare myself to, which I am sure was harmful somehow. I always thought this was okay because it was all I knew. I never considered while living there how this could be detrimental. I was lucky not to have been bullied (although, let’s face it, I would have been an easy target). I did well in school, was a captain of one of my sports teams, and had an easily likable demeanor. I experienced some rough patches here and there (high school can get a bit messy, which isn’t a big deal), but overall I had a pretty good time. I wasn’t extraordinarily loved or hated. I was pretty quiet and had a good group of friends, so everything was pretty normal on the outside. Over a year ago, when I was moving and sorting through my childhood belongings, I uncovered a journal from middle school. I seldom reread my journal unless I am looking for something specific. I flipped to a random page and found an entry about an encounter on the school bus. My best friend, a boy I thought was cute at the time, and I rode this bus together daily. (I don’t know how crushes work when you’re that young. It’s funny to think about who you thought was attractive at that age. I’m sure we were all cute kids.) I wrote in my journal that one day he said something like, “You should only date within your own race.” It would be silly to hold a child accountable to those words because he presumably didn’t develop those ideas on his own. My best friend then jumped in immediately and said, “That’s stupid.” (She never tolerated any b.s. at any point in her life.) I could tell from the journal entry that I felt hurt, embarrassed, and othered. I don’t know if it was for the first time, but it’s one of my clearer memories. You may forget what people say but not how they make you feel. I didn’t think about it then (we were at most eleven years old), but I carried that consciousness with me throughout high school, college, and now. Even though my experience in school was fine on the surface, I continuously felt I was less beautiful, desirable, and valuable than everyone else.
Despite this, I would always get compliments on how tall and thin I was. Nothing else. Consciously, I realized that the standard of beauty was based on being white and thin. I couldn’t control that. Subconsciously, I knew that there was nothing I could do about being black. I couldn’t control that either. Consciously, I did everything I could to remain thin. Now that was something I could actually do something about. I don’t want this for you.
As I write this at one of my favorite flower coffee shops in the East Village, I am reminded of what I naturally find beautiful. In front of me is a large array of flowers, precisely what I come here for. I see vibrant yellow sunflowers; soft white roses with a hint of green; magical light pink hydrangeas; bold orange and yellow ranunculus; rich green hydrangeas; pretty pink gerbera daisies; mystical-looking blue hydrangeas, and so on. When I see flowers, hummingbirds, or a spectacular moonrise, I am in awe; I fall in love. It’s so simple and yet somehow underrated. Every aspect of nature is a portal or gateway for someone to fall in love. I am in love with The Forest, while some find more solace in The Ocean. Not everyone falls in love with the same things, but nature has enough multidimensionality, diversity, and multiplicity that there is something for everyone. I heard once that no one needs to be taught how to be in awe and thus how to see (1) beauty (2). When we experience awe, we witness beauty and fall in love.
Beauty is far more multidimensional and profound than what the mainstream media and collective cultural ideals present to us. Like many, I have internalized the third-dimensional standards of beauty that we have all been subject to for decades, if not centuries. It is embedded deeply in the ancestral collective consciousness. Still, so is the capacity to be in awe. You don’t need to teach anyone to experience awe or true, natural beauty. This experience unites everyone, no matter who you are, how you identify, or what circumstances you were born into. Our comprehension of beauty is so important because it is the fabric of everything. Beauty is universal; it is within all things. Love is the experience of seeing everything for its beauty (3).
I don’t know for sure that this notion is an invulnerable way of healing the way we understand beauty for everyone. I’m still experimenting with the theory and putting it into practice. I think it has strong potential because it is rooted in the truth that we are all a part of nature and everything in nature is effortlessly beautiful. I know that it couldn’t hurt to have a more grounded, inclusive, and universal definition of beauty. My vision for myself (and anyone else that finds truth in it) is to someday see and feel the same awe, the same beauty, and thus the same love whenever I gaze at a flower or anything in nature when I look at myself in the mirror. I want this for you, too.
with love, your original soulmate
(1) When I write “see beauty,” it is not to exclude anyone who does not experience vision in the same way I do. I also experience beauty via cycles and synchronicity, e.g., the moon, sun, and seasonal cycles that we all have access to. That’s just one example of a felt experience. Beauty and awe can be experienced via any of the five plus senses.
(2) Disclaimer: I first heard this idea from Zach Bush, M.D., who received it from a colleague. I don’t know Zach’s work extensively and thus do not claim to agree with all of his ideas, but I want to give credit where credit is due.
(3) See the above footnote.