self image, faces, hands and feet

over a week ago, i got tagged by one of my new blogger friends, damien at riley central, to talk about “the face behind the hands” (the blogging hands, one presumes).

well, you guys get to see my face with every blog post, so i’m not going to add yet another one. but you’ve probably never seen my hands, so here’s a picture of my hands … no, wait, that one is on my husband’s computer. isabella-feet.jpghow about feet, then? here you have a particularly attractive picture: from a few weeks ago, in latest-fashion green scrubs, on stand-by for my daughter’s caesarean, beautifully accessorized by my black sandals! smashing, no?

now how am i going to get this to segue over to what i wanted to talk about a propos “face” … hmmm …

ok, i’m just going to come right out. when i got damien’s tag, i immediately thought of a topic that has always fascinated me: self-image. don’t really know why i haven’t written about this yet here. there’s just so many interesting things to talk about!

so – let’s lead our scattered brains to this idea (i presume i’m not the only one with a scattered brain): self-image is the picture, idea or concept that we have of ourselves. it’s the story we tell ourselves about ourselves, and the story that we hope everyone will believe and tell about us.

unfortunately, much about this is terribly unrealistic. especially this last part – it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that different people will tell and believe different things about us, and that there isn’t much we can do about that. we can try really hard (and lord knows, we often do) but really, there isn’t much we can make another person do or think.

what about what we think of ourselves? how do you see yourself? quite literally, who do you think you are? that’s where it gets a bit tricky. here’s a few words that richard d. carson, author of taming your gremlin, has to say about this:

i meet people frequently who are unhappy because they are not living up to their concept of who they are or of who they imagine they are supposed to be … this is a sure-fire way to become miserable … at the point an individual becomes excited about who he or she actually is rather than who he wants to convince himself he is, enjoyment becomes much more attainable.

enjoying yourself has more to do with actualizing your self than with actualizing your concept of who you imagine you are supposed to be.

so let me see if i can bring this back to the meme. i honestly work hard at showing you who i am here, at showing you my true face. of course there are times when i fall behind that ideal. also, who i am changes, and who and what i feel myself to be is a bit different from day to day. i mean, i’m sure glad i’m not the same person i was when i was seventeen! how boring would that be?

but you know, i honestly work on not putting too much of an act here and portraying who i am:

thoughtful, a little scatter-brained, compassionate, casual, full of never-ending interest in things psychological, always ready to laugh, quirky, lower-case-lettered, a bit of a brainiac, somewhat chaotic, a poet, a bookworm, not a geek but an IT enthusiast, always ready to ask yet another question, and, as i said a few days ago, someone who screws up every day and always returns to the path.

so – who’s next? who else would like to show their face (or their hands, hearts or feet)? let’s try carol at alphablogs, david at loud murmurs, diogenes at the fine art of blogging; OCD on a stick, emi at emi’s universe, gledwood at gledwood2 and matt at decisionvelocity.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver

p.s. here are a few people who have already shown their faces:

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