|
I was once lucky enough to have lunch with the
mother of Chris Burke, the actor who has appeared
regularly on TV shows such as Life Goes On
and Touched by an Angel and who happens to
have Down's syndrome. I also have a son with
Down's syndrome, and Chris's success has been a
source of hope and happiness in my family for a long
time. His mom is an absolutely lovely woman,
very kind and funny. Over lunch, she told me
about Chris's career: He's booked solid for
speaking and acting jobs more than two years in
advance, travels constantly to keep up with his
engagements, and is mobbed by well-wishers and
autograph seekers wherever he goes.
Naturally, hearing this made me practically
effervesce with admiration. "At the
moment the doctors came in and told you Chris has
Down's syndrome," I asked Mrs. Burke,
"would you ever have dreamed he was going to be
a famous TV star?" I thought this
question was rhetorical; naturally, she would have
been completely unable to believe that her poor
retarded baby would ever make good. But Mrs.
Burke didn't bat an eye.
"Of course," she said, a bit
quizzically. "Why not?"
I could tell this wasn't revisionist history.
From the moment he was born, Chris Burke's family
really had seen the truth of his talent and
potential.
|
|
I have no doubt that his generalized other is based on this
limitless, optimistic, and clear-eyed love. Does this mean
Chris has suffered no failures, disappointments, or
humiliations? Of course not. Does it mean everybody,
literally everybody, loves and admires him? No again--a
lot of people while away their pathetic little lives pelting
people like Chris with rocks and insults. But his
benevolent Everybody does mean that Chris Burke feels, and
projects, enormous faith in himself and complete acceptance of
others. It means he handles criticism thoughtfully and
well. And it means that he lives in a virtual ocean of
positive feedback, coming from literally millions of
people. He firmly believes every one of the positive
statements above applies to him and that Everybody can see it's
true.
One reason I can see my clients the way Mrs. Burke sees Chris is
that my essential self tends to come out when I'm doing life
design. As this occurs, it becomes impossible for me to
see the false, social-self version of the person sitting across
from me. The more you integrate your essential self, the
more you will perceive both yourself and others in this
way. When the curtain of social judgment pulls back, it
reveals the most amazing beauty.
I first became aware of this phenomenon when I was a college art
student. Every few weeks, I'd join this or that group of
artists, and we'd all pitch in a few bucks to rent a studio and
hire a model. Most of the people we got to pose were
college students with bodies that matched the social
ideal--slender, fit, perfectly proportioned. (After all,
who else would risk standing naked in a room full of
strangers?) And then, one day, we got somebody really
different.
She looked well over sixty, with a deeply lined face and a body
that was probably fifty pounds heavier than her doctors would
have liked. She'd had a few doctors, too, judging from her
scars. Shining purple welts from a cesarean section and
knee surgery cut deep rifts in the rippled adipose fat of her
lower body. Another scar ran across one side of her chest,
where her left breast had once been. When she first limped
onto the dais to pose, I felt so much pity and unease that I
physically flinched. But we were there to draw her, so I
picked up a pencil.
The thing about drawing is that you can't do it well with your
social self. You have to bring out your essential self,
which doesn't know anything about social stereotypes. And
so, as I began to draw this maimed old woman, the most amazing
thing happened. Within five minutes, she became a person
of absolutely wondrous beauty. She didn't look like a
supermodel; she didn't have to. Her body, in and of
itself, was as beautiful as a piece of polished driftwood, or a
wind-carved rock, or a waterfall. My essential self didn't
know that I was supposed to compare the woman to various movie
stars, any more than it would have evaluated the Andes Mountains
by judging how much they looked like an Iowa cornfield. It
simply saw her as she was: an exquisite sculptural form.
When this perceptual shift happened, I was so surprised that I
stopped drawing and simply stared. The model seemed to
notice this, and without turning her head, looked straight into
my eyes. Then I saw the ghost of a smile flicker across
her face, and I realized something else: She knew she
was beautiful. She knew it, and she knew that I'd seen
it. Maybe that's why she had consented to pose nude in the
first place. Knowing that a roomful of artists couldn't
draw her without seeing her--I mean really seeing
her--she may have decided to give us a gentle education about
our perceptions.
If you feel a bit isolated or scared, and your faith in yourself
isn't exactly earthquake-proof, you must learn to do what Chris
Burke and my Mystery Model seemed to do naturally: replace
your hypercritical, limiting, lying Everybody with an Everybody
who sees you as you really are. Once again, find yourself
a pencil and prepare to do a little work. You're about to
learn what it feels like to search for your own North Star with
Everybody on your side.
|
|
more
on perspective
|
|
