Soulshine

“Is it the facts you want about my daughter, or Lisa’s fancies? Charlotte was a late child. There were three boys and then, after a long time, this girl. A child of my old age, I’ve always called her… my ugly duckling. Of course it’s true that all late children are marked.” Mrs. Vale, Now Voyager (1942) Sometimes a child is negatively marked or branded by a parent. Sometimes a mom, who has always felt ugly, sees too many of her own hated physical features in a particular daughter; or sometimes a dad, who has always felt stupid, sees too many of his personality traits in a particular son. These parents project their own self-loathing onto their children. Mom brands the daughter who looks like her “my ugly duckling” and dad brands the son who just can’t seem to get a math equation right “you stupid numbskull!” If these children then accept these labels (lies) as valid, they will brand themselves with them. Every time the daughter looks in the mirror she will repea...

“Look, I’m not the one with the problem. It’s the world that seems to have a problem with me. People take one look at me and go ‘a big stupid ugly ogre.’ They judge me before they even know me. That’s why I’m better off alone,” says Shrek. To which Donkey replies “When we met, I didn’t think you were a big stupid ugly ogre.” Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy, Shrek It’s true that people often judge us before they know us. But it’s equally true that we often judge ourselves before we even really know us. Codependents rarely know the person who exists inside of them. Oh, we think we know who we really are because we’ve believed the negative things about ourselves that we’ve heard playing through our heads since childhood. Parents and others told us we were “big stupid ugly ogre(s)” and we believed it. We simply accepted what we were told at face-value without ever challenging it and we’ve lived what we have believed about ourselves to this very day. We are often lik...

“Are my lips unkissable? Are my eyes unlookable? Is my skin untouchable? Am I unlovable?” Darren Hayes, Unlovable Darren Hayes was part of the wildly successful 1990s band Savage Garden, which produced massive hit singles like “Truly, Madly, Deeply” and “I Always Knew I Loved You.” In 2000, he left the band to start a solo career that hasn’t been quite as successful. “Unlovable” is a favorite song of mine from his 2004 album The Tension and The Spark . Some days I feel very unlovable. I still struggle with the terrible acne scarring that ravaged my face when I was 14. As I get older and sagging areas further emphasize the scars, I feel very ugly. And I know it’s not going to get better. Time isn’t on my side. So I look in the mirror and I feel unlovable and sad. Lotions can only do so much, and I’m tired of people to this very day asking me “What happened to your face?” All it does is remind me that my face, my skin, isn’t the norm—that it’s somehow unlookable, unkis...