7. Cool Girls (Looking Good vs. Feeling Good)
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Overview:
Have you ever envied the Cool Girls? Or wanted to be a Cool Girl? Do the Cool People have a different experience than the rest of us? And is there really such a thing as the Cool Crowd. Today's episode explores looking good vs. feeling good. Which one "is" your priority? And which one do you "want" to be your priority.
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Hey creatives, I’m C. Jordan Blaquera, and welcome to the Whispering Worth to the World Podcast.
I’m a Master-Certified Life and Artist Coach who specializes in working with creatives. This is where I share what I would tell my younger self, if I could, what I’ve learned about the art of being human, about our inherent divine equality, and how it all relates to navigating our creative expression in the world.
COOL GIRLSHi artists, creatives, and humans who are consciously creating your lives.
In today’s track, you’ll hear me reference the word “sub-spicious,” and I want to share where that comes from.
When I worked in a private community art school in Los Angeles as the Director of Administration over 10 years ago, we would have exhibits of student work around the school and in the lobby, and at one point we were having a kid’s exhibit that included work from the cartooning class. So, there were many pieces with characters, and stories and plots, and timelines. And just outside of my office, there was a piece that was about a thief, and there was a story about a robbery. And there was a line drawing of the thief’s face which also had a mask, like the Lone Ranger with holes where the eyes are.
And at some point in the story line, underneath the thief’s face, were the words “….very sub-spicious” – meaning that whatever this character had done was highly suspect and suspicious, but the artist wrote “sub-spicious.” And it was probably done by someone who was you know 11, 12, 13 years old, and we on the staff loved this phrase, “very sub-spicious” and so this quote/unquote “typo,” that this student artist had made, we loved it, we took it, we ran with it. And I have used this word often since that time.
I like using the word when I talk about the mind and all of its very sub-spicious malarkey, about how it likes to perseverate on the worst-case scenario, and remind you of all the things that could go wrong. Right? Very sub-spicious. Or when we interpret the look on someone’s face when there are viewing our artwork, or listening to our art or tasting our art. And we make a whole story about what they thought about it and what that squint of their eye meant or their body language or what they said or didn’t say or the length of the silence before they spoke, and how they gave the feedback and how “excited” they were, or how not excited they were. So, all of that that the brain kicks up can be very sub-spicious interpretations by the mind.
So, that’s the backstory on the word “sub-spicious.”
And now…onto today’s track.
COOL GIRLS
Have you ever wanted to be a cool girl? Or the cool guy or part of the cool crowd. #RememberHighSchool
In this track, I will use Cool Girl to stand in for being considered part of that golden group that is considered the Cool Crowd, which is made up of those people that seem to stand out from the rest and somehow be better than others. While I will mostly use the female gender, the more I work with artists, creators, people, I find this to be a common theme among all humans, and all the genders.
So often we’re striving to be a version of a Cool Girl and that is even if we are 30, 40, 50, 60 or even older. We want to be seen as one who looks confident, calm, cool and collected. We want to be seen as one who is desired, admired, and looked upon as being at the top of the pack, as one who stands out in the crowd and is special in some way.
And I think the unconscious belief is that if we are seen as a Cool Girl, we will feel like what we think a Cool Girl feels like. Confident. Desirable. Admired. Worthy. And that is a highly sub-spicious belief.
So how things look does not necessarily translate to how things feel. And if we manage to pull off being seen as a Cool Girl, we’re probably fighting like mad to stay one or praying to God people don’t realize that we aren’t really one on the inside. And that’s not necessarily what we thought it would feel like to be a Cool Girl.
I once worked with a client who thought she quote/unquote “shouldn’t be sad.” The sadness she felt was in her words “Boy Sadness” because she thought her dating life with a particular guy was over.
She didn’t want to feel her sadness. Instead, she wanted to be like the Cool Girls. Yes, those were the exact words she used. She wanted to be like the Cool Girls. Because Cool Girls, she thought, don’t let men have any effect on their happiness and are immune to “Boy Sadness.” Cool Girls aren’t worried about a man not liking them or being judged by men. Cool Girls don’t let things like that bother them.
It was at that point in the conversation when I had to wonder…do such Cool Girls actually walk the earth? Is there anyone alive who is immune to sadness? I don’t think so. There isn’t a single person on the planet who gets a pass from having the full human experience, sadness and all. At least, that’s what I like believing. That belief allows me to think I'm the same as everyone else. It allows me to believe that I’m not a freak of nature. I’m normal. Me, with my sadness and all the other feels. Just like everyone else. And sadness itself and all the other feels are normal as well.
So, back to my client who wants to be a Cool Girl. To make matters worse, she didn’t feel like she had social permission to allow her feelings. So, she tried to pretend the sadness wasn’t there.
During our session, instead of pushing down the sadness with a plate of her favorite comfort food which she had done the day before, our work was to have her sink into her sadness. To allow it.
And there it was in her body waiting for her. In the back of her throat quivering, in the pressure behind her eyes, and in her “butterfly” stomach. As Karla McLaren wrote in her book, The Language of Emotions, Sadness raises the question: What must be released?
My client finds her answer to that question:
What must be released are my expectations of other people to do everything I want them to, for example, wanting that “boy” she was so sad about to do everything she wants him to. And what also needed to be released is the pressure to figure everything out right now.
How genius is Sadness, right? There Sadness was, as outlined in Rumi’s Guest House poem, “clearing her out for some new delight.”
Eventually my client also realizes this Truth:
Rather than thinking “I shouldn’t be sad,” she can acknowledge:
I am sad.
And immediately, when she does that, she feels more accepting of herself.
Being a make-up artist in Los Angeles, my client had seen many “alleged” Cool Girls (for example, actresses) on set. And we discussed one particular actress, the star of a Fox TV show, who had been mean to the crew.
My client imagines the star is insecure and probably thinks the following things in the privacy of her own mind:
I’m not sure I look good enough. #BeenThere
I’m not sure my work is good enough. #DoneThat
I’m not sure I am good enough. #DoneThatToo
Now what if we consider this…
What if we didn’t separate ourselves from the Cool Girls?
What if we didn’t try so hard to become a Cool Girl?
What if we didn’t worry about whether others thought we were a Cool Girl or not and realized that…
We are all: Just. Girls. Period. Or Just women, humans, boys or men. Period.
What if I am not a Good Girl. A Bad Girl. A Cool Girl. An Un-Cool Girl.
What if I am simply…
A Girl.
A Girl with a myriad of emotions that come and go -- each with a specific message of its own, as Karla McLaren offers in The Language of Emotions. Or each emotion sent “as a guide from beyond” to “clear us out for some new delight” as the poet Rumi describes in his poem, The Guest House.
My client felt some ease in the idea that she could simply be…a girl. It took the pressure off.
I am a Girl. Period.
It opened the way for her to become an Authentic Girl.
And I think what so many of us really want is to become that Girl. An Authentic Girl.
It’s the same idea that I share in another track from this podcast called The Most Important Person in the World, where I talk about the suffering I created by believing, I was a bad daughter.
When I can move from “I am a bad daughter” to simply “I am a daughter,” there is so much relief. That statement is absolutely true: I. Am. A. Daughter. And my brain can stop measuring, criticizing and arguing about whether I’m a good daughter or a bad daughter and simply let go and accept and sink into…I am just a daughter.
It releases so much shame caused by measuring my every move, being so self-critical, and concluding that I am a monster of a daughter. I can stop clawing my way to trying to be a good daughter and desperately guarding against being a bad one.
There is just a very simple truth:
I am a daughter. Period.
Releasing the judgment allowed me to stop creating my feelings of shame that created so much emotional suffering. And a daughter or any man, woman or person without shame is a very good thing. So good for humankind. So good for the planet. I could just show up and be more of my authentic, daughter self. All of it. Sometimes impatient. Sometimes generous and caring. Sometimes resentful. Sometimes loving and kind. Yes, all of it. My authentic, daughter self. Without the former debilitating shame.
I’ve known and helped mothers, as well, who benefited from this same idea.
When a woman releases the neediness of being a good mother as well as the resistance to perceiving themselves as or being perceived as a bad mother, and they simply believe: I am a mother -- period, life gets infinitely easier and less painful.
What if we stopped categorizing girls, women, people, boys and men, as cool or not, strong and confident or not, selfless and generous or not, loving or not,…good enough or not?
What if none of us needed to be a Cool Girl or a Cool Guy or part of the Cool Crowd or a Perfect Parent?
What if we could simply be: A girl. A woman. A man. A person. A parent?
What if we could simply accept that emotions like sadness come and go? As do all of the emotions. And when they come, they come carrying gifts. And what if all of this was perfectly normal and natural. As the poet Rumi said in The Guest House, each emotional quote/unquote “guest” that arrives has been sent as a guide from beyond.
And as Karla McLaren says in The Language of Emotions, “We each carry all human traits inside of us.” And I don’t personally think that anyone escapes this, but man, do we try to escape our humanity. We also carry the potential for any of the emotions to arise at any time. And again, no one escapes this, but haven’t we all tried so hard to avoid our fundamentally natural human experience which includes emotions that come and go?
So, what if we allow ourselves to simply be…fully human? Sadness and all. Emotions and all.
How cool would that be?
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