I Am Not the Tiny Sloth
And other thoughts on self-image.
There’s a decent chance you’ve seen the hilarious renderings of viral account Things I Have Drawn, where a dad turns his son’s drawings into realistic renderings. The creatures are charming (and sometimes a bit creepy), with bizarre proportions and exaggerated features that almost get it right.
Last weekend, I came across it for maybe the dozenth time, and as I scrolled through the images they struck me differently than ever before. I didn’t just see a horse with the silhouette of a warthog or a swan with a neck like a thumb. I saw…myself.
Drawing skills aside (decidedly not my gift) my own self-portrait would be just as skewed. Some features would be exaggerated while others went ignored. It’d likely appear more caricature than portrait, more biography than its surface might belie.
While the inaccuracies in a first grader’s scrawl are downright enchanting, an adult who paints themself as “too this” or “too that” in as many ways is decidedly less so. Yet find me a person who sees themself clearly. I’ll wait.
As I gazed at a fish with a grin like The Joker, I pondered my own distortions. When I examine my perceived shortcomings, exaggerations, hang-ups, etc., one thing becomes clear: I was not the original artist. These views were often handed to me by someone else.
The elementary school classmate who declared I was “furry.”
The teacher who said I was gifted in one subject, but bad at another.
The ex who called me lazy — “a sloth” — because I didn’t jump out of bed at 5 A.M. and run marathons like he did.
The ex who spent years deeming me “quiet, so quiet” because my communication style was not as outwardly demonstrative as his.
The bosses who called me things too offensive to repeat here, or who lobbed judgments I didn’t ask for but will never forget.
The many humans, past and present, who made a fuss — positive, negative, or otherwise — about my short stature.
There are more, of course, from close connections and relative strangers. Communicated in words, expressions, gestures…
For years, it never occurred to me that these hot takes were not mine to hold, never mind that they might not be accurate.
“The things people say about you can really get stuck in there,” said a friend, on a recent walk. “And they can really change the way you see yourself.” Like many of us, this person carries some unhealthy, not to mention wildly inaccurate, views gifted unto them by family members.
I don’t have a magic fix for how to shed such impressions — I would be so successful if I did! — but I do know that as with many things, awareness is a good first step. I call it cleaning out the proverbial backpack. (Or purse, or tote, or whatever sounds right to you.) Every so often, I’ll try to take stock of all the things rattling around in there, the emotional equivalent of crumpled tissues and Cheeto dust littering the bottom of a bag after a long trip.
Invariably, I’ll find feedback I didn’t ask for and opinions I didn’t welcome and a few worries that aren’t mine to hold. And always, the stress of outside expectations. This act of virtual unpacking helps cast my everyday experiences in a different light.
Yesterday, when I picked up my actual, physical tote bag, it felt curiously heavy. And sure enough it, too, was full of shit I did not need. I often carry a bunch of makeup with me, not because it’s a “fun mode of expression” or any of the joyful reasons I sometimes enjoy wearing it. It’s there, quite literally weighing me down, because I’d been told I needed it. But like so much of what I carry, I’ve come to accept that maybe I don’t.
Awareness. It may be small at first, but it adds up over time. Just like all those judgments.
A friend has the cutest baby ever (fact) and sends me photos and videos of her throughout the week. I delight in the wonder she finds in shapes and colors, or how one silly move can make her laugh and laugh. She is still forming her view of the world around her, beautiful and undistorted.
It’s hard to believe that when I entered this lifetime, I also saw life through a similar lens. But by now, it’s become like one of those drawings, shifting over and over through time. It makes me wonder about all the people whose self-portraits I’ve impacted, playing the role of willful or unintentional collaborator.
We’re like pinballs, moving around the world, ricocheting off one another, our trajectories determined by so much that we cannot control. My favorite moments are the ones where it all falls away, glimpses that visit as I’m falling asleep or sometimes just before waking. Or mid-run when my thoughts become quiet. Or staring out the window of a train.
For one blissful instant, I cannot see the form I occupy, only feel it. I can almost grasp the vastness of the universe and the minute stature of my role within it. These are the times when I am most myself — not a person so much as motion, energy, potential. Pure and whole and free.
Good luck drawing that.
Card of the Week
Here is this week’s card for the collective, as well as some thoughts to carry into the days ahead. As most modern readers will tell you, the tarot is not about fortunetelling, nor is it about neat, definitive answers. The cards are simply one path to reflection, a way of better knowing ourselves and others through universal themes. If this reading resonates with you, great! And if not, no worries. Take whatever may be helpful and leave the rest.
Once upon the aughts — 2008, maybe — I joined a yoga studio. The space was gorgeous, with big, arched windows and heated bamboo floors. The air smelled perpetually of lavender.
I had no business being there. I had hardly done yoga and could barely follow the prompts. The membership was wildly out of my editorial assistant budget, and I stuck out amidst the posh and polished clientele. But it quickly became my favorite part of the week.
More than the architecture or creature comforts, what I loved about that space was the exchange of energy that transpired there, the shift in my emotional weight. The heaviness of the worries I brought, and the solace my practice provided.
When I pulled The Hierophant as this week’s card, that’s what came to mind. We often expect change to come from the outside, but it actually happens within.
Seemingly everywhere I go, I’m confronted with merch with the word “manifestation” printed on it. I’ll see crystal and goddess and witch-themed goods on the tables at big box stores, next to shelves of crackers and diapers and body wash. We’ve commodified so many aspects of the search for meaning, marketing them as meaning itself.
All too often, we search for an answer. We ask friends, advisors, books, tarot cards. We want to know, definitively, if something will happen. If something is the right course of action. Yet all too often, the answer proves elusive. Maybe we’d do better searching for belief.
Some early decks called this card Le Pape, or “The Pope.” In contemporary decks, it is sometimes given a new name, like “The Mystic” or “The Seer” or “The Teacher.” The name only matters insofar as it resonates.
The Hierophant doesn’t have to be some exalted being. I’d argue it’s more powerful when it’s not. I love how The Golden Girls Tarot casts the Hierophant as Sophia Petrillo, a character who was never short on philosophy (or stories to go along with it). Because that is exactly it: One needn’t be ordained to access wisdom. Teachers are everywhere.
Whatever you call it, the message for this week is about guidance. Faith. Trust. Something to believe in. The point is, we can find this in many ways, in as many places as we seek. The trick is discovering — or creating — what’s in alignment for you.
We often turn to art and spirituality in times of need. The poem, the prayer, the painting. The yoga studio. The connection to someone or something beyond ourselves. The Hierophant encourages us to cultivate an ongoing relationship with such things, in the everyday, no matter our circumstances. It doesn’t have to be major — you can start with a saying, a personal ritual, a photograph. It’s about the peace that comes from having something to believe in. No matter what that something is.
Whatever it is you seek — answers, enlightenment, mysteries, miracles — this card says you can find them. But it may look different than you expect. It might not come in a package or encased in a flash of insight. It may be a discovery you make in your own way, in your own company, within your own self.
Our society wants us to believe that the answers exist somewhere outside us. What better way to sell a product, a book, a message, a class? And while much can be gleaned from others, it is all worthless until we can access our own inner guidance, to marry what we are handed with what we know to be right.
The Tao Te Ching says: When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.
Traditional interpretations of The Hierophant say to expect a teacher to come into your life. It could be a professor, instructor, spiritual leader, coach, or mentor. It could be a friend or loved one. It could be a lecture, a piece of art or writing, a book, a podcast, a sacred text.
But as any self-help manual or motivational poster already knows: It could very well be you.
In the days ahead, The Hierophant offers us this meditation:
Learning happens as we move through the world. Knowing happens inside us.
“For years, it never occurred to me that these hot takes were not mine to hold, never mind that they might not be accurate.” Yes. This. All of it! Always love how your words reach me Caroline, thanks for putting these thoughts out there!
"Like many of us, this person carries some unhealthy, not to mention wildly inaccurate, views gifted unto them by family members." Caroline, please stop writing such on-the-nose sentences! :D Seriously, I fight this all the time...sigh...good essay!