The Variegated Theme

daniel jacob self
Jun 15, 2023
3 min read

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❣️ Are you a current client? First time here?

I'm self conscious

I want to take a moment to talk about what you're going to hear here.

This is a place where, through the medium of heightened, poetic prose music, and sometimes even dance, everything from the minutia of day to day neuroses — so often written off as petty or melodramatic — to the depths of isolation and despair — so often obfuscated, lest it show us to be weak or sick or incapable — can be given voice without judgment.

Many of us silence these parts of ourselves, but especially, ironically, those of us who facilitate healing for others.

All of the philosophies and practices I share in my writing and my facilitation are the fruits of my own lifelong healing journey. The wisdom that I've been gifted by mentors and family and friends. The community around me and the community within me. All the parts of me: the angry, the hurt, the joyful, the resilient, the despairing.

So much of what I'm able to offer to those I work with comes from some initial moment of pain or discomfort in me that has led me to seek out greater wholeness. Which I'm then able to share with you: my community and my clients.

So often we see the fruits of a healing journey, but don't get any insights into the labor: the twists and turns along the way.

We see the shiny outcomes, but not the pain that often motivated us to seek the healing out in the first place, or keeps us committed to the work of collective healing.

So Self Conscious is, in essence, the place where I honor my 'uglier' sides. The parts of me, that in my journey of learning to care for them, have proven that old Leonard Cohen quote so very true.

"Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."

Self Conscious is also the place where I honor my inner angsty teen and, let's be real, my inner angsty adult! I hope it might speak to yours as well.

However, please know that the monologues in Self Conscious, while based on my own experiences, are works of artistic expression.

Some of them come from different parts of my life. Some of them were written when I was much younger or are about experiences when I was much younger. Some of them are amalgamations of different moments in time, sometimes told with different details for the sake of the heart of the artistic expression of each piece.

As Pablo Picasso once said,

"We all know that art is not truth. Art is a lie. That makes us realize the truth. At least the truth that is given to us to understand."

So my only request in breaking with the norms that would encourage me to keep this form of artistic expression very separate from the rest of my work in this world is this:

If you are someone I work with in a coaching, therapeutic, or facilitating capacity, please take a moment to discern for yourself if you would like to hear these more vulnerable parts of my journey.

For some, it can be radically humanizing and affirming to hear being able to see the humanity and vulnerability of someone who holds space for us and offers guidance. For some, it can feel off putting or distracting: taking away from our experience of having a place we're able to go that can be wholly and fully about our experience without the complexities that can come from the awareness of another person's struggles, feelings, differences, and similarities.

So I ask you to give yourself the gift of discerning for yourself.

What would be most in alignment with your own healing journey right now?

And to remember that what you do here will not necessarily be current time, literal truth, but artistic expression: drawn from experiences across my lifetime— some of it expanded or shifted for artistic purposes.

All that being said... if you decide, you'd like to listen. I hope you enjoy.

I encourage you to listen with the parts of yourself that perhaps have always felt too melodramatic, or too much, too sensitive, or all alone in parts of your pain.

I hope you can laugh with me at the neuroses and perhaps cry with me at the moments of hopelessness. Some perhaps relatable and some perhaps very different to your unique travels through this sometimes beautiful, sometimes painful journey of life.

If you do proceed, thank you for receiving these vulnerable parts of me.

If you decide not to proceed, thank you for honoring what feels right to you right now.

If you do proceed, I hope if nothing else, these pieces resonate with and help certain vulnerable parts of you feel they deserve expression. No matter how small or how large.

And as always, please join in by commenting below.

I'd love to hear what you connect to, what you feel moved by, and what comes up for you as you listen.

Because ultimately...

I don't know.

What do you think?

I'm self conscious

So here I am again.... Again.

The nature of this seemingly inescapable, cyclical way of growing is as disheartening as it is infuriating... and I suppose —from time to time— comforting in its familiarity.

"Didn't we already learn this lesson?" is the petulant inquiry of this wholly incensed part of me convinced we should only ever have to go through something once in order to fully experience, internalize, contextualize, deconstruct, understand, tend to, apply the lessons from, break the habitual patterns of, reprogram... and thus blissfully move on to the next best way of being.

Yet somehow the frustratingly smug Sage of Lived Experience seems to entirely disagree with this preconceived notion... over and over again... very convincingly.

Theme and Variation.

That seems to be the way... Like music theory.

We start out hearing a melody: something memorable, clear, distinct — we'll probably be humming it later — and then it fades into a swell of orchestration, harmonies, and accompaniment... only to resurface: but this time in a new way, in a new context with different instruments alongside it; or different phrases, interwoven throughout it again and again— never boring because it's never the same... but always distinctly itself.

Swelling theme amongst variation.

Ebbing and bobbing back up just in time to be recognized in a way we've never known it before.

Someone once said to me,

"We don't ever actually work things out... We just work them through. Through to a new layer. To a new level. A new variation. Same theme... all lifelong."

So here I am again... Again.

And yet it's not quite the same — recognizable enough to bring in the frustration, shame, and annoyance born of the grim recognition of repeated repetition — yet distinct enough... well... For me to find myself here... Again.

It feels like I'm swimming in the ocean, but not the ocean off the beach — sand and swell and castles and crabs— no.

The ocean off an island's edge:

Open sea sweeping me out on one side and rough black rock on the other— ready to teach me how truly vulnerably soft this beloved body of mine really is.

And every time I jump in and swim... The tide goes out... the tide comes in.

And I ride it.

And you know what? Every time I do get better at swimming. Every time I find new strokes, new eddies of ripple and tide...

And then... every time... at some point... inevitably...

The rocks: the pain, the reminder of who's in charge here— or rather, who isn't. The keyword, there, being: me.

The carefully controlled panic as I realize I'm on the edge of real danger here— perhaps already over it. Hard to tell in the moment.

" I'm all right." I say, "I've got this. This is still... fun."

And the scramble back to shore: to safety...

Somehow, crawling gratefully back onto sand.

Feeling wiser: knowing of an exhilaration others don't. And somewhat ashamed: feeling the fresh wounds from the rocks atop the faintly healing scars from the time before.

And eventually, often far too quickly, I tell everyone what I've learned: with self-effacing, humorous humility and earnest intent.

Then I dry in the sun, breathing in lungfuls of gratitude for the soft, forgiving warmth beneath my shaken frame. Thinking on what I know of my tussle with the ocean's ferocity...

And... As I peacefully ponder — the sun baking, the sand cradling me... I hear the crash of the waves.

At first, distant and menacing: as the water slaps the rock: reminiscent of my own corporeal punishment of late.

Then a bit closer: somehow a bit more comforting, they sound now. Thinking about the swell and flow and remembering the adventures I've been on...

And finally: loud and close and insistent and alluring— and I feel too dry. My skin shrunken around my body from the alchemy of salt and sun...

And I look back toward the sea and I see a new way in. A new opening amidst the impenetrable surf and spray— different than the times before — eddying and flowing enigmatically. Awe inspiring as always. And the sun gleams off the spray. And I remember how cool the water will feel. Nothing to fear... Here... Again...

A new swell of a familiar theme, varied just enough.

And suddenly I'm diving back in.

Keen eyed, inspired, relieved to return.

Sure of what's to come.