Is Cinderella my story?

What follows is an email I sent to my therapist this morning, names changed to protect the adorable.

Dear PhD Coachy,

1. The prince had a really nice voice. He gave SuperheroPrincess a great hug after the show.
2. The fairy godmothers were indeed wonderful, beautiful, fun to watch and, yeah, kinda fat. The stepsisters and the fairy godmothers had the most fun roles.
3. I still don’t think Cinderella is my story, but talking about it did make me question the assumption that it couldn’t be because I wasn’t “beautiful to start with.” I’m think that my own fairy tale has to do with allowing myself to fall in love with myself, and sweep myself off of my own feet. That sounds so silly — but when I think of it in terms of a dance, it’s a nice concept. I also don’t think “beauty” is my “thing” — I think that flow back and forth of giving and receiving and growth, and my frustrations come in when there’s something that gets in the way of that, whether it’s what I look like or the interferences of age, gender, race, class, sexual orientation, etc. So for me, the idea that “peace begins with me” is true, for sure, confronting my own fears, taking risks, allowing failures and learning from them in a proportionate way. I guess Cinderella is about that, too, in terms of class — at least the version I saw last night — the prince is able to see Cinderella as worthy of love, regardless of her “station,” but it does take Cinderella pushing past obstacles to be in the right place at the right time.
I found myself thinking about the idea of being swept off of one’s feet last night. Sure, I want that, and when Mr. Rounded and I first met, I did have that feeling. Maybe he did too. We have pictures of him literally being carried by me (and one of me being carried by him, when I was not that much smaller than I am now, and before he had back pain issues). But I have had that feeling of open, generous, relaxed expansiveness and being “carried away” while dancing. On Thursday night when dancing, it was a fairly small group and we definitely gave to and took from each other, energy wise. There was the sense of being delighted and delightful.
The part of our work together that feels a little less like therapy and a little bit more like coaching (not in a bad way) is when it feels like you are encouraging me to explore how to be more “public” — to take on a larger role in the world. And that is good to hear, and definitely where I would like to go, but I’m not sure exactly how to get there. The therapy part is when you allow me to realize that maybe the idea that I haven’t always been beautiful (I’ll use that as a stand-in for all of the powerful things about me) isn’t real, as much as an artifact of crappy things that happened to me as a kid, and the sexism and weightism and other crap that exists.
If SuperheroPrincess were to believe that she wasn’t beautiful at some point, I know I would want to remind her that she is, will be, and always has been beautiful. Right now, when someone tells her she’s beautiful, she says “yeah.” (I encourage her to say, “Thank You.”) I know there will be times that she question this, as life has a tendency to do that, but her vitality, her creativity, her desire to decorate herself and things around her, her affection, curiosity, humor, all will serve her well. I’m so proud that she’s so fully herself at this age, and I hope to continue to help her navigate the world in a way that allows her to maintain her self and her power.
So, thank you for the recommendation to see the play. Thank you for the coaching and the therapy. Thank you for believing in my power.
–WRT2
P.S. I’m going to post a version of this on my blog, with names changed.