On Vanity and Vulnerability
What’s Love Got to Do With it?
While recently looking into the round makeup mirror on the shelf in my closet, I noticed the emergence of vertical lines on my upper lip.
I don’t think they’re necessarily new, but my attention on them certainly is.
I started researching serums, creams, lotions and everything else I could do to remedy them.
Every time I looked in the mirror, they were the first, and nearly only thing I noticed.
On a recent walk in the woods, rather than seeing the evergreen on the trees and the brightness of the snow, I realized I was thinking about the lines on my upper lip.
It reminded me of a fixation I’d had years ago after my daughter’s premature birth.
One evening after yoga class, I stayed on and opened up about it to my teacher.
While we rolled up and put away yoga mats, I stood up and held my lower belly with both hands. “Hey, any thoughts on this post-baby pooch I can’t seem to get rid of?”
She stood up and faced me. “Absolutely,” she said.
I braced myself for a recommendation of intense power yoga or something along those lines.
Instead, she said, “Just love it.”
“What?” I said, thinking I hadn’t heard her correctly.
“Just love it,” she said again.
I put my hands back on my round belly.
Just love it?
As I continued on my walk, remembering how that approach all those years ago had actually worked, I thought of the recent addition to my daily practice, Panache Desai’s Call to Calm Morning Meditation. During a recent meditation, I’d once again heard that familiar refrain of “Just love it.”
“Stop making your problems your enemy, Man. Just love them instead,” Panache said in one of our morning sessions.
I’d been dealing with a persistent wrist injury from a ski fall last season that, in spite of doctor visits and physical therapy, just didn’t want to heal.
So, I decided to just love it.
I began each day and ended each night by telling my wrist how much I love it, going as far to actually give it a little kiss along with my words of kindness.
And get this, my wrist finally feels like it’s healing!
So there I was, back out on my walk in the woods, when I decided that I needed to love those lines on my upper lip.
“I love you, upper lip lines,” I said out loud to myself, the trees and my dog.
Which made me break out into a big, happy smile.
Which in turn reminded me, that when I look in the mirror and smile, I don’t see those lip lines.
Smiling makes them disappear.
Hmmm. Perhaps along with loving them, I also need to smile more?
Indeed, I believe I do.
Don’t we all?