When my daughter was in school, I listened for any possible thing my very introverted daughter might be interested in or inspired by, to get her out of her room and into the world. But she preferred to be alone with her pens, pencils, paints and piles of paper, solitary, making art and making up her face, and listening to music in the beautiful world inside her own mind.
As for myself as a child, I was taught you need to ‘GET OUT THERE’…and that came more naturally for me. I grew up in a mad dash, running from class to class- ballet, tap, jazz, orchestra, marching band, art class, roller skating, busy on stages everywhere, trying to be seen.
After much prodding she finally got a summer job doing tech and ushering for a stage production. She loved facilitating the magical experience from behind the scenes and even got inspired to study theater in college. When acting classes appeared on her schedule, she froze.
I tried all the ‘what if’s’ – what if you tried?, what if you can? And I explained the benefits of doing ‘something that scares you’ and the benefits of ‘facing your fears’, but I could hear in her tone the paralyzing anger she felt for being judged for something she had no interest in doing. She stopped going to class and we were at an impasse.
As I have the words ‘to thine own self be true’ tattooed to my arm…I had to reckon with myself. What if there is a different path for her? What if her anxiety is tied to her frustration with being pushed in directions she doesn’t want to go? What if the specific design of her body and mind are built for something else? And with that, I woke up.
I asked her what she truly wanted. She wanted off of the stage and out of the spotlight. And I told her what I wanted, which was for her to be proud of herself. And I allowed her to leave school on the one condition that she choose something that truly interests her and learn about it.
Considering the hours she spent with paint and paper, we threw out the idea of art school? No, she said, I don’t want to kill my joy by having to do it for a grade. And what about the art of hair and makeup? She caught a spark and took a huge step in exercising agency over her own story.
After her first live client, she called me and said, “Why must they speak? Why can’t I just do their hair in silence?”
I laughed and said “What if you can?” What if you said, “Hi, I’m Victoria and I don’t like to chat except for what pertains to your hair. I do my best work quietly and I want to give you my best.” I said I don’t care if you ever cut someone’s hair out in the world. I care that you feel good about yourself. I care that you are proud and proud does not have to mean loud.
It took me a long time to realize that I had been inadvertently pushing her to be inauthentic and to recognize that there are many paths.
It’s funny, we are taught that in order to get ahead we need to be BOLD, we need to be LOUD and stand our ground. And we are taught to take up as little space as possible and not to rock the boat.It seems like we were taught to do a lot of things that contradict each other. What if we were told this above all, to thine own self be true, and then it shall follow, as the night the day, that thou canst then be false to any other.
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