100 Day Project - Day Three

I’m really squirmy in front of a camera. Properly uncomfortable, bordering on phobic. And I’m really uncomfortable looking at photographs of myself. I know there are many who can relate to this and many who don’t get it at all. It’s hard to explain. It’s more than just the fact that I inherited my Dad’s skinny calves and funny knees and wonky teeth and that I don’t enjoy seeing the ravages of too much sun and the march of time on my skin. I don’t hate myself. I just really dislike having a lens turned on me. The scrutiny, even momentary, is excruciating for me.

When I was younger, I’d go out of my way to avoid having my photograph taken but, in the same way as I challenge my viscerally unpleasant reaction to heights, I’ve actively worked on this because I know it’s not rational. Not at all rational. And I believe there’s everything to be learnt in exploring these places of discomfort within ourselves.

I try to avoid standing on chairs or climbing ladders (my body doesn’t distinguish between 6 inches, 6 or 600 feet, in its reaction) but I love an aerial view, so I deal with my height phobia by confronting it and pushing through the dizzying fear and the roiling nausea to get up high. Often, I get help to guide me up or to distract me as I go so that I can make it to the top of a tower or scale the treetops without freezing or passing out. Sometimes I just can’t do it. But, when I can, when I make it up whatever it is and I’m able to avoid looking directly down, I enjoy the view. So worth it. Every time I do this, every time, it makes me feel a little stronger, a little braver. It doesn’t stop the physical discomfort, the mild panic going up or the fierce anxiety coming down, but I do learn about my boundaries every time and I do get to do and see the sort of things I would definitely regret if I didn’t try.

One of the most amazing height-related experiences recently was zip-lining through the Costa Rican cloud forests. The zip-lines themselves were a doddle. I loved the sensation of flying through the air once I was launched into space but climbing the platform towers and moving around on tiny shelves built into the tallest of trees almost made me faint and puke. Literally. Was it terrifying? Yes. Was it uncomfortable? Yes. Am I glad I did it? For sure. It was magical.

So, back to photographs. The fear of heights is far more understandable than the fear of being photographed or looking at images of myself. I don’t believe it sucks my soul and I love seeing photographs of other people and even having evidence that I was amongst them. So, I wondered what it was that made me turn away and experience an almost uncontrollable urge to run at the prospect of being photographed. I don’t think it was like that all my life but certainly in my late teens and early twenties, I remember feeling this acutely.

After some contemplation, I came to the conclusion that it’s not the act of being photographed that’s the problem. It doesn’t hurt and I don’t feel unsafe. It’s not even that I can’t bear what I look like when I see myself from outside. I have odd toes but only one head and most people would consider me quite normal-looking. I concluded that I dislike it not because of how I look but how I feel. And, having someone else pause to look explicitly too, whilst taking the photograph, intensifies that feeling.

I realised that I am almost always uncomfortable in my skin. Uncomfortable. Rarely in pain, seldom comfortable.

Don’t mistake me. My body functions well and is healthy, for which I’m so thankful. I don’t love living in a cold, grey climate but I have warm clothes - yay for thermal fabrics and layering. I found a lot of help with this when I discovered Ayurvedic approaches to health and understood my dosha’s needs better. I appreciate my senses and I enjoy what they offer. I practice being present through my senses and I revel in that. But still, I feel a distance between ‘me’ and the world I inhabit. My body creates a veil. For the most part I feel that it separates me from how I experience the world, rather than connects me directly to it. Like a filter I can’t pass through. Except in very rare moments. Very rare moments; the number of which, in my lifetime to date, I can count with only my fingers & toes. It’s weird, I know. But there it is.

I am much better about having my photograph taken now. I seldom run away. As long as it’s quick, I can hold my breath and it’s done. I invite myself to be more appreciative of the unremarkable ten-toes-one-headedness of myself when I see it and, sometimes, I even enjoy looking at one now. Usually because of how I felt when it was taken and how it reminds me of that.

This is a picture my sister took when we were swimming in the Pacific Ocean off Costa Rica and despite all the above-mentioned things that make me squirm, I love this picture.

I love it because of the memories it triggers of that magical day and the people I shared it with. I love it because we were having fun playing with some waterproof covers for our phones (witness air-bubble in bottom corner) and taking pictures in the water; a different perspective. I love it because we were bobbing out there for ages, chatting and laughing, and not once did I think of anything but being there. I love it because I didn’t know she was taking it and so I didn’t have the run-away feeling. But mostly I love it because, in that moment, I was completely IN the moment. In that moment, I was utterly happy in my skin. In that moment, I felt both unaware of my body and perfectly comfortable in it. I couldn’t tell where I ended and the water and air began. Weightless and warm. Connected and free. This is a state I very rarely experience and for me, and my out-of-whack Vata dosha, it’s bliss.

When I look at this photograph it conjures an echo of that moment and other moments like it. It also confronts me with the fact that what I experience every day is a low-level but deeply resonant hum of yearning for this. That is something I need to address.