The Ideal

I can remember being fresh out of grad school and sitting in a room with five other female therapists. They were all significantly older and wiser than me. They all talked slowly and softly. They referenced books I hadn’t read. They seemed to exude peace. They drank tea and wore Birkenstocks.

I drove back to my office, plagued with thoughts of how different I felt from the picture they presented. I speak fast and sometimes loud. I was on my fourth cup of coffee of the day. At that moment, I most certainly was not exuding peace.

It sounds ridiculous to admit, but that afternoon I sat with my clients and tried to channel those wise women. I tried to speak more slowly and softly. I tried to exude peace. I thought to myself, “What would Wise Experienced Therapist” say in this moment?

For as long as I can remember I have had these ideas in my head of who I am supposed to be. Of what kind of professional, wife, mother, and all around person I am supposed to be. Of what I am supposed to look like, dress like, act like. These ideas were not always clearly articulated in my mind, but they have been there, under the surface, and they directed my behaviors.

These ideas were shaped and formed by many different sources. Somehow, unconsciously, I put together an ideal, drawn from my parents, mentors, friends, supervisors, books, movies, and the culture around me. I attended a small Christian college and then a large southern university. I went to church. I regularly watched tv and read books and magazines. All of these forces melded together into this picture that I internalized as what I was supposed to be like.

This is a fairly universal phenomenon. We create these templates, these ideals, that underlie our sense of who are supposed to be. They morph and change as we grow and the stages and roles of our life unfold. But the templates are there, under the surface, telling us who we are supposed to be, how we are supposed to feel, how we are supposed to look, and how we are supposed to behave.

If you doubt me, trust that the entire field of advertising is built on the idea that one’s ideal self is influenced and shaped by external sources. We live in a society that talks about people’s “brands” and “image,” a society dominated by social media, perfectly staged candid photos, and scripted reality television.

I've concluded that you never really finish the work of growing up, and as I grow, I am learning that I don’t want to be that template anymore. I don’t want my behavior to be guided by questions about what someone else would do in that situation. I don’t want to model my life after a picture of who I am supposed to be. I want to be who I was made to be. I want to learn from others, but I want to be myself. I want to embrace the contradictions, grow in areas of weakness, and celebrate areas of strength.

I see so many people struggling with these same issues. Struggling with ways that they are too much or not enough, ways that they do not measure up to society’s ideals or their own. These struggles play out in how we feel about our bodies, how we spend our time, how we spend our money, and what we lay awake in bed worrying about at night.

Breaking free from this struggle is hard work, I won’t lie. It's a long process. It requires knowing yourself. It requires hearing your inner voice and actually listening to it. It requires time and energy and thought and emotion.

But it is such good work. Because people do this work, we have real and authentic voices to speak into our culture. We have healers who are working on their own brokenness and watching healthy change unfold in themselves and in others. We have therapists who drink tea and wear Birkenstocks and therapists who drink coffee and wear heels. It’s a good thing.

Today, I challenge you to be a little bit less the ideal template, and a little bit more you. It’s not an original challenge, but it’s an important one.

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