Nearly one year ago, I approached a lone woman sitting at a table in the restaurant where I work as a waiter. She was waiting for a few friends to join her, and I offered to bring her some water. There was a profound, quiet beauty to this woman that shook me. I felt something far beyond a mere physical attraction to her - I felt some kind of energy radiating from her that might be best described as a pure, quiet, dignified grace.
She was understated, humble, and elegant in our brief interaction, which I walked away from in a state of dizzying euphoria. It is a rare thing for me to feel so moved by a woman’s presence.
What was perhaps even more noteworthy than my instant, full-on infatuation with this attractive stranger, however, was my awareness that everything I was feeling seemed suspicious. Maybe all those months of isolation and introspection had given rise to a new self-awareness, because although I’d felt this kind of reaction in response to women before, I’d never noticed how terrible it felt.
On the one hand, I was feeling an extraordinarily euphoric attraction. It felt like being high, it was a rush, and it was very compelling. And at the same time, I recognized much of what was going on in me - shallow, difficult breathing; a tingling feeling in my extremities; difficulty balancing (something quite noticeable when trying to carry a tray of drinks through a busy restaurant) - as a kind of trauma response. It felt like my body was going crazy - my nervous system was overwhelmed and shorting out due to excessive stress and anxiety.
I felt completely out of my power as a person, as though this woman had reduced me to a clumsy boy whose fragile emotional body was as unstable as a leaf blowing in the wind of her grace and power. This euphoria/terror response in me was quite the rush, but I had to admit that it felt very unhealthy.
I needed to calm down and center myself if I wanted to regain my ability to balance a tray or even stand up straight. I did some deep breathing and resolved that I would treat this woman as a stranger and a guest in a restaurant, nothing more. I let go of the idea of connecting with her in a personal way and successfully managed to serve her and her friends cleanly and clearly.
I came away from this experience with a clearer view of something very fascinating that I’ve done throughout my life: Impulsively shut down, close off, and freak out when I cross paths with a person, opportunity, or experience that I feel deeply drawn to. What a fascinating phenomenon it is, when the things we think we want the most, make us automatically recoil, freeze, or run.
In the weeks that followed, I had the opportunity to watch this same dynamic play out with a couple of other women. Again, these were women who possessed some quality that I felt deeply drawn to, and my immediate response to this felt like a systemic contraction or tension. My breathing got constricted. My heart itself felt like it was tightening up. I would avert my eyes - and it felt like my entire being wanted to do the same thing, to look away, to not be seen.
Because I’d begun paying attention to this counterintuitive response, I started to play with it. I would notice my immediate, habitual rush to close off, contract, tighten up, become unnatural and tense. Then, noticing that, I would play around with relaxing. I would pay attention to the little thoughts, feelings, and beliefs present with my fear response.
One of the feelings or ideas I noticed was a strong sense of inferiority triggered by a certain kind of feminine beauty. When a very profound, sacred beauty crossed my path, instead of opening up and celebrating the extraordinary phenomenon before me, my most intense shame and self-loathing would come up. A feeling of worthlessness and ugliness would subsume me, causing me to feel separate from and less than the beautiful other.
My adult self knew that this was all based on a misconception. There is no hierarchy of beauty - everyone is sacred and beautiful beyond measure or comprehension, including you and me. The part of me triggered into self-loathing by the beauty of these women, however, was not connected to its own sense of sacred beauty.
So, when I noticed that part of me recoiling and shutting down in the presence of a beautiful woman, I began to try to connect with my own sense of sacred beauty (instead of doing the opposite). The beauty or energy that I was attracted to in that woman - a beauty or energy that part of me was out of touch with - became something that I would aggressively attempt to access within myself. This became a kind of active meditation, and one that words may fail to capture fully. But the essence of it is simple: Instead of letting the presence of a beautiful person close me off and trigger my shame, I would notice what was happening, pause that habitual response, and reach for something else. Often I would reach for a feeling of profound beauty inside of myself. Once I made contact with that and had it on tap, my experience with the person who was triggering me in the first place would be completely different.
This is a dance I’m continuing to learn. I share these words today to normalize this experience more than anything else. One thing I will say in closing today is that when we feel a trauma or fear response to beauty/opportunity/love, we are standing at the doorway to a vast reservoir of power, love, and beauty. And the most amazing thing is, it’s a reservoir that is right inside of us.
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