“How do I do that?”
“For a start, continue to do what we’ve been doing up to now: feeling good about yourself, taking care of yourself, recentering yourself on your good qualities and attributes, rediscovering your needs and core values. In other words, flourishing from within. You shouldn’t make your husband feel he is the only one responsible for your happiness. He should be more like the cherry on the cake in your life.”
I got a weird mental image of Sebastien’s head stuck on top of a huge cake oozing cream. Scary.
“You think I expect too much of him?”
“It’s not for me to answer that question. I’m simply saying that you need to know how to live at a proper distance. It’s like an elastic band: if it’s too tight, it’s restrictive; if it’s too loose, everything falls apart. You need it to have the right tension. But we also need to untangle all the knots tying us to the past.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning in your case that you need to understand how the relationships you had as a child continue to influence your life today.”
“I don’t see how something that happened in the past can influence my life now.”
“Oh, but you can’t imagine how much it does! Didn’t you tell me that your father left your mother before you were two?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“It’s possible that certain situations in your present life reawaken those wounds and—despite yourself—unleash an emotional reaction out of all proportion to what’s caused it. That’s what I mean by ‘elastic bands.’ Tonight, unconsciously, you stretched things so far that your partner was driven to say that you would end up divorcing. Without being aware of it, you have reinforced an old negative pattern, one that terrified you as a child: being abandoned by the man you love.”
“But that’s terrible! I honestly didn’t realize . . .”
By now I was completely frozen, and so I went into a bar that was still open and ordered a hot chocolate. My mobile was warm in my hands: I had been talking to Claude for a good half hour, and he was still coaching with the same enthusiasm as always. He must have lived through all this himself at some point, surely: it came out so naturally. And I didn’t want to miss a word of it.
“Becoming aware is an excellent first step to cutting those ties to the past. After that, by continuing to work on yourself and by embracing positive change you’ll be able to banish those old demons once and for all. You’re no longer the helpless little girl you were when your father walked out. You’re a responsible, autonomous adult, able to face up to whatever life throws at you. Even so, it’s important to reassure that part of you that is frightened and that suffered in the past. If you do, you’ll become reconciled to that important piece of yourself.”
“So how do you reassure the little girl inside you?” I asked, blowing on my steaming hot chocolate.
“You sit down quietly in a corner and talk to her gently, the way you do with your own child. You can tell her you love her, that you’ll always be there, that she can rely on you . . . But to get over that childhood wound completely, you’ll have to go through the forgiveness stage.”
“Which is?”
“You’ll have to forgive your father.”
I was so stunned I didn’t know what to say.
Claude must have sensed my difficulty, because he went on, trying to soften the blow. “You can do that when the moment comes, when you’re ready for it. For now, concentrate on your relationship with your husband: make it work, give more!”
“Doesn’t that take us back to square one? Why do I always have to be the one to make an effort? Why not him?”
“Because your positive input into the relationship will reap rich rewards. Doing good to others is enlightened self-interest, according to Aristotle. Besides, don’t forget that, for now, you are ahead of him in terms of personal development. So you have to show him the way. Maybe it’s a fact, also, that it comes more naturally to you to take the initiative? You’ll know instinctively how to strike the spark to rekindle the fire . . . Don’t you agree it’s better to stop fighting over ‘who did what’? To stop trying to make out which one of the two of you is more deserving?”
Yes, of course. He was right. A hundred times over.
“Start from the principle that the other person is trying to give as much as he can at any given moment in a relationship. Then concentrate on what he is bringing that is positive, rather than focusing on what disappoints you because it doesn’t completely live up to your expectations. You reap what you sow: that old adage makes sense. If you sow criticism, you reap resentment and disillusionment. Sow love and appreciation, and you’ll reap tenderness and gratitude.”
“Mmm . . . I can see that, but what drives me mad is how lukewarm he is. Our love life is so . . . so uninspiring now! No passion or . . . or romantic gestures. I miss those . . .”
“Well, you have to find a middle way there too: no unattainable fantasies, but no lowering of your sights either. You’re right to want to improve your love life—so long as you don’t have unrealistic expectations. You have to respect and accept your partner’s basic character and not expect from him things he can’t give you. Love is like a plant that demands lots of care and grows best when it’s watered. Appreciate your husband for everything he does well, show him how grateful you are, demonstrate your admiration. He’ll flourish and will probably be much more receptive to your advances. So, smiles, support, tenderness: those are your three watchwords.”
Another ping.
“That’s Sebastien again.”
“All right, answer him, Camille—what are you waiting for?”
“Claude?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
* * *
—
SEBASTIEN AND I EXCHANGED a few words, enough to relieve the tension. And to add a touch of humor to our reconciliation, when I got home I waved a white handkerchief in the doorway. Peace was sealed with a kiss.
Adrien took advantage to rush out of his hiding place and hug us.
“So you’re not going to get a divorce?” he asked anxiously.
Sebastien and I searched each other’s faces, looking for reassurance. And in his eyes I saw . . . yes . . . a glimmer of affection that comforted me.
“Of course not,” I told Adrien, ruffling his mop of hair.
“Hey, Mom!” he protested, quickly smoothing his locks.
For some months now, he had been very concerned about his “look.” Woe betide anyone touching his carefully gelled hairstyle! Then, quick to take advantage of the general air of reconciliation, the cunning little guy returned to the attack: “Now that I’ve finished all my homework, could I have some time on my tablet, Mommy?” looking up at me with his huge doe eyes.
I had no idea what profession he would end up in, but I wasn’t too worried about him. He had a real talent for making people do what he wanted them to. It was impossible to be cross with him for long, or to resist his charm offensive . . .
As soon as Adrien was busy with his tablet like a veteran gamer, I turned my attention to Sebastien. I was still upset about the argument, so I was struggling to be affectionate. And while he poured us the remains of a bottle of white, I realized how much work we were going to have to do to restore our love life to its former glory. Rebuilding Shangri-La was a long way off!
Fortunately, when it came to ways and means, it seemed Claude was aware of quite a few.
fourteen
For my next well-being lesson, Claude had asked me to meet him in the children’s amusement park at the Jardin d’Acclimatation. It was ages since I’d been there. I was like an overexcited child myself when I saw the carousel spinning round and the toffee apples being crunched. I would gladly have sinned with some chocolate doughnuts but, thank god, Claude arrived in the nick of time to save me from temptation. First of
all he took me for tea at Angelina’s, where I allowed myself a single treat: a slice of lemon tart—and given how stoic I was in resisting the displays of delicious cakes, that’s worth pointing out. After that, Claude led me to the Hall of Mirrors.
“What do you see, Camille?”
“Oh my god! Myself even fatter and more grotesque,” I said with a laugh.
“And is that a true image of you?”
“No, thank goodness! I’m not that fat.”
“And you’re not fat in real life either, Camille. Most of the time you see yourself in a funhouse mirror because all your negative thoughts distort reality. Your mind plays tricks on you. It tells you lies, and you end up believing them! Remember, though: you have the power to halt those thoughts, even to change them. Look at me, Camille: Who tells you what to think?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Me?”
“Of course. Nobody but you! Most of the time we’re very poor judges of ourselves. You’re convinced you are too fat because of those extra ten pounds, but it’s only inside your head that this is such a huge problem. Ten pounds is no big deal, I can assure you!”
I glanced at him, recalling the man in the photo he kept in his desk. Was that someone close to him? Or perhaps it was him? I didn’t dare ask him directly, so I tried a roundabout approach.
“I get the impression you know a lot about the subject . . .”
I saw his brow crease and a look of surprise flit across his face. He cleared his throat as if trying to gain time because my question embarrassed him. He looked away, and his reply was evasive: “Yes, I do know a lot about it.”
“Because you’ve experienced it yourself?”
I could tell from his expression that my questions were bothering him.
“Possibly. But we’re not here to talk about me.”
That’s a shame, I thought. I would really have liked to know more about his life but sensed that this was not the moment.
He led me back to the first mirror in the building: a normal one.
“So now, Camille, take a good look at yourself and tell me what you most like about your appearance.”
I studied my reflection.
“Well, I quite like my eyes; they are lively and a nice color . . .”
“Great! Carry on.”
I looked a bit lower to see what I thought of my body.
“My chest isn’t bad either—I’ve got a decent cleavage. I like my ankles as well. My legs are slim below the knee!”
“That’s perfect, Camille. Now you need to do all you can to focus your attention on your good points rather than on your tiny flaws, which no one really notices anyway. Never forget those women who weren’t particularly pretty and yet were hugely sought after. Like Édith Piaf, for example; she had loads of lovers, and they were all really handsome. Or even Marilyn Monroe, who wasn’t exactly skinny! What’s most important—and I know you know this—is what comes from within. Self-confidence is your greatest asset. Shine and you’ll be irresistible. If you’re filled with beauty, you will be attractive—goodness and kindness sparkle far more than jewels. What’s inside you is immediately obvious from the outside.”
I felt like asking if this was what had happened in his case, but there was a veil of mystery hanging over his life that I didn’t yet dare raise. I made do with a joke: “That sounds a bit like a yogurt ad, but I get the general idea.”
“You need to work hard every day to become a better person. If you give off positive vibes, you’ll soon see how successful you can be.”
“What if I can’t do it, Claude? What if despite everything I still think I’m fat and ugly?”
“Shhh! Stop ‘feeding your rats,’ Camille. By your rats I mean your fears, complexes, misconceptions, all that side of you that likes to complain and play the victim. Do you understand what’s going on in your head when you do that?”
“Mmm . . . Maybe if I’m ugly I won’t attract much attention, and so I won’t run the risk of disappointing anyone. Or of being disappointed. That way at least people won’t expect too much of me and leave me in peace.”
“And what would be the risk in attracting attention?”
“If you attract more attention, you get commented on more, you’re judged, and so you’re more likely to get hurt.”
“That’s right, except that you can only be hurt if you’re vulnerable. The more confidence you have in who you are, the less other people can hurt you. Once you have rebuilt your self-esteem, when you have a life project that properly suits your personality and beliefs, you’ll no longer be afraid. Your positive attitude will buoy you; you’ll be aligned, in harmony with yourself and the world.”
“When you put it like that, it makes me want to try. I hope I can sort myself out soon.”
“That depends entirely on you, Camille.”
“So how do I improve my own self-image?”
Claude led me to a slimming mirror.
“For a start, every morning in front of your mirror you are going to change your ‘inner dialogue.’ You are to repeat words of encouragement. You are beautiful, attractive; you like your body; you have lovely eyes; you are a remarkable woman who achieves whatever she sets out to do, et cetera.”
“Isn’t that going a bit far?”
“No, it’s barely the start!” Claude teased me. “After that, you need to learn the ‘art of modeling yourself.’”
“What’s that?”
“Which woman do you most admire, and why?”
“I don’t know . . . Oh yes, I adore Audrey Hepburn. I think she had such charm and poise.”
“Good. So you should study Audrey Hepburn, her demeanor, the way she walked, smiled . . . Learn to reproduce her gestures. Close your eyes. Visualize yourself walking down the street as if you were Audrey Hepburn. How do you feel?”
“Beautiful, sure of myself, grounded . . .”
“And how do the people around you react?”
“They look at me, admire me . . .”
“Does that feel good?”
“Very good!”
“Fantastic! Keep those feelings in your mind, and don’t hesitate to do it for real. Get into the skin of one of your role models!”
“OK, I’ll try. It could be fun.”
“While we’re talking of role models . . . whom do you most admire? What are their good qualities? What’s their recipe for success? Study their lives, read their biographies. Make a collage of images using photos of them. Can you do that in the next two weeks?”
“Mmm . . . I’ll give it a try.”
In fact, I felt a bit like Adrien given too much homework by his teacher, but Claude had warned me those little inner monsters are always lying in wait: laziness, tiredness, discouragement . . . I had to apply myself, even if I thought that everything was moving too fast and I wasn’t yet comfortable as the “new me.”
fifteen
I arrived home exhausted. All this new information was whirling around in my head. So many changes to make in such a short time! I needed a good bath to relax. I put in a ton of bubbles and slipped into the scalding water to play with the foam like I used to when I was a child: wonderful!
For once I had the time: the previous evening, rather than watch TV, I had gotten supper ready for tonight. All we had to do was sit down and eat.
The meal was a real treat and earned me a chorus of oohs and aahs of delight from my men’s satisfied taste buds.
“It’s wicked, Mom! You should go on MasterChef!”
I laughed to myself when I saw my son serving himself a third helping of the tart, in which I had slipped some silky tofu and zucchini with olives and slices of goat’s cheese.
He’s eating zucchini . . . He’s eating zucchini . . .
It’s true that it made a change from frozen food.
After supper Adrien often asked me to play a board game with him, but I never felt up to it. Besides, wasn’t I a bit old? When this time I said yes, his jaw dropped. The gleam of joy in his eyes, that unadulterated joy only children feel, swept away any remaining doubts.
Again, this was something Claude had suggested. To stop being too adult. To let myself go more in sharing moments with my son. “The secret is to join in,” he had said, winking in complicity. So there I was trying to reconnect with my inner child, that playful, creative side of myself too often held in check by the adult, party-pooper side of my character. Against all expectations, I enjoyed myself. And my son’s radiant face made it all worthwhile. With his need for play and for company fully satisfied, he went to bed without any fuss. Bingo!
“Come and have a cuddle,” said Sebastien from the sofa when I rejoined him in the living room.
“A bit later,” I replied gently. “I’ve got work to do.”
He seemed surprised, even slightly taken aback. Maybe because it was usually me wanting physical contact. For once, the roles were reversed. Could it be I had found the right tension on our elastic band?
I sat at the table in the dining room with my laptop and some paper and pencils. I began with the simplest task: to make a list of the famous people I wanted to be like.
I wrote in a rush:
I’d like to have the wisdom of a Gandhi, the calm of a Buddha, the grace of an Audrey Hepburn, the business acumen of a Rockefeller, the willpower and self-denial of a Mother Teresa, the courage of a Martin Luther King Jr., the deductive skill of a Sherlock Holmes, the creative genius of a Picasso, the inventiveness of a Steve Jobs, the visionary imagination of a Leonardo da Vinci, the emotive power of a Chaplin, and finally the composure and good nature of my grandfather!
Pleased with my brainstorming, I searched for and then printed photos of all these people to create the collage of my role models. I had not been expecting to feel so good doing this exercise: all those faces inspired and revitalized me. Looking at them, I tried to understand—as far as I could—the secret of their talent, to learn just a little of the lesson of their success. I found that this small exercise allowed me to highlight some of my own good qualities and to focus more keenly on what kind of person I wished to become.
Your Second Life Begins When You Realize You Only Have One Page 7