I, however, am not an onion. Like so many things, this has been tumbling around in my mind for a while now. The first time I heard that something, or someone, was "like an onion: you have to go layer by layer," I thought it a clever analogy. Perhaps I've heard it one too many times. Here's the thing, when my therapist and I are working on developing a strategy for dealing with a patterned behavioral response, I get that the situation is, indeed, like an onion. We do peel back layer after layer of the problem: the trigger, the emotional response, the physical response (if there is one), the different perspectives of a memory or a recent event. In the end, though the response may be modified, the situation is still what it is. It is still an onion.
No matter how many layers one peels off an onion, at the center, one will find nothing but an onion.
One day at work, an office mate mentioned how much she hates going to conferences and having a facilitator ask, "Please introduce yourself with your name, your favorite flower, and how it describes you." We agreed it's the on the spot thinking about how a flower describes a person that annoyed us. [I knew then that I loved this woman especially because of her dislike of stupid ice breakers.] A few days later, I was thinking about that discussion while I spent ten hours in the car travelling to Georgia. I wondered what flower I would say was my favorite. I know full well what flower is my favorite. but what would I say when put on the spot? Lilacs are my favorite, simply because I like the way they smell, but that certainly has nothing to do with me as a person! I don't always like the way I smell, know what I mean?
As I drove, I thought that I would likely say something like "Azalea -- or better, rhododendron -- (because it was the first one I thought of) because I'm not sure how to spell it," and then feel like an idiot for the rest of the conference, missing much of the content of what I went there to hear or learn.* Then I wondered why. Why would I feel like an idiot? Why does the reason have to make sense if the question doesn't in the first place? What would have happened had I answered honestly all those times in school, instead of giving the response I thought I was supposed to? Who would I be today?
Somewhere along the line, it occurred to me that an artichoke is a flower. Most people think of it as a vegetable, but it's really a flower. And not an onion. Being prepared to answer a question that makes no sense in the first place is a really important skill, right? If nothing else, it gave me something to think about on my drive.
I am not an onion, I am an artichoke. When you take the time to patiently and painstakingly peel off the layers of spiny bracts of the artichoke, you come to something else: the heart. If you take the time to peel back the layers of me, the prickly, stiff, protective layers of me, you will find a soft and very sensitive heart. But even the heart of the artichoke has some bristles on the top when you first get there - the choke. My heart is the same -- unless you work for it, you may never get past that one last protective layer on my heart, my choke. I am not an onion. Past all those layers, you will not find a smaller version of what you started with. Instead, you will find compassion, generosity, unbridled joy, and a fierce loyalty - the real me. If you find that, and then behave badly, though, I will bloom into the thistle of which the artichoke is a bud.
My name is Stephanie, and I would say I'm an artichoke because I have many layers. I am not an onion, although I love them.
http://www.gardenbetty.com/2013/06/anatomy-of-an-artichoke/
*It occurs to me just now that perhaps such distraction is the reason for this kind of question in the first place. Maybe everyone spends the rest of the time second-guessing their choice and reason, so the content needn't be quite up to snuff. hmmmmm.....
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