The Balance Within
By Alecs Kakon
Photos by Jenni Fellegi
We have our interior being as well as our exterior self, and we live both of these experiences simultaneously. To make matters more complex, we are, for the most part, conscious of the whole process. I’ve self-scanned and traced back to my youngest memory. I can attest to a dissonance between what is felt on the inside and what is shown on the outside. I believe this to be true of all of us; as people, even the most self-actualized, we have limited awareness of our external being in relation to the world, as well as finite knowledge of how others perceive us. I was a wild, extroverted, and outspoken child. Concurrently, I was a sad, lonely, and shy person. Unlike a mirror that would portray a true reflection of my inner self, my material body unintentionally acted as a stone wall, blocking out the possibility of anyone truly knowing my internal world. Throw perception of others into the mix, and everything gets fuddled. If my life story were confined to my actions, the real me would be long-left by the wayside. That’s why I believe confidence to be a blockbuster emotion. It has this powerful connotation in society of being a true reflection of how we feel about ourselves and how we allow that self to be shown to the world. If we unpack the concept of confidence, seriously chip away at what it signifies—how we create it, how we are endowed with it, how it is related, how it is perceived—we’ll learn that confidence is sometimes a show we perform, a way of being that we practice until it resonates as true as it bridges the outer and inner self. Developing self-confidence asks that we constantly self-check, reassess, and realign. It’s an iterative process, a slow layering. Sitting down with Lauren Wise, we touched on her drive to constantly create, her entry into the public world, and the pivotal moments that made her into the person she is.
Lauren has long-worked in the creative field. Whether it was behind-the-scenes production, writing for various comedy acts, or the Contemporary Dance degree she earned in University, Lauren’s world has always been touched and coloured by the arts. Reminiscing about her younger years as a writer, Lauren remembers writing episodes for Dawson’s Creek: “I used to write up full episodes and send them in. I would watch the show waiting for my story to come on, but it never did. I didn’t know that it didn’t quite work that way!” Lauren did eventually catch her break as a writer, and for a while, watched celebrity names churn out her scripts. But when Lauren finally decided that writing lines for other people was no longer feeding her soul, she tapped into the elements that were missing for her. “I had no connection to my audience,” she says. “I didn’t need the recognition, but I didn’t want to feel invisible anymore.” The decision was made to throw herself into her work, and one isolating year later, Lauren emerged from her home, book in tow. Through pitches, rejections, re-writes, and finally a Del Ciotto 3-part novel later, Lauren had created something reflective of her talent as an artist, skill as a storywriter, and gift for understanding the inner-workings of relationships. With cunning wit, Swap Club, the series, was written from a deep desire to explore the creator that lives within her, and what came of it was only matched by its positive public reception. Attaining tangible success incarnated in her books, Lauren’s outer world was transformed as she became the hot topic of events, tours, and parties, but the creator within continued to struggle with confidence and how people would perceive her. “What if I’m the girl who wrote a book, and then never creates anything else?” Lauren asks. A rhetorical question every true artist is wrought with, but to Lauren, the self-doubt felt more personal. Lauren’s creative self deals with the worry that she’s told every story she has to tell, but the truth is, the mere consciousness of the limits of creation has been enough to propel her into her next big project.
Always constructing a narrative around the happenings of her life, from creating a daughter to creating a family, Lauren sees the world in storylines. However, we only have access to the whole story, once the moment has passed. Once it has been absorbed and processed, it can be manipulated and indexed into our memory, made sense of and given context. That is precisely what happened to Lauren when she was 30 years old and woke up from a seething migraine forcing one eye closed and her face to feel droopy. With a misdiagnosed “migraine” and a few scans later, Lauren was told that they had found something on her brain. “It was the longest seven hours, sitting and waiting to be told if it’s cancer,” Lauren remembers. “I had my 9-month-old girl at home, and all I could think of was that I might die.” Things can change in a minute, and for Lauren, the transformative instant occurred when the neurosurgeon looked at her and announced that she was going to be fine. Lauren learned that the tumour they had found was non-cancerous and that a simple, 6-minute procedure called proton radio-surgery could shrink it. “Those were the longest seven hours of my life. I realized that whatever it is I’m going to do with my life, I’m doing it. I became a ‘yes’ person.” If a moment can most accurately depict her character, this would be it. Lauren’s new outlook on life was forward-looking and this motto continues to carry her through many of life’s encounters.
Once Lauren’s life had become the subject of public judgment and scrutiny, control over how the story went was out of her hands. Should Lauren have let the possible negative side effects of successful novel impede her from stepping out of the background and onto the stage, her creative self would have remained latent inside of her. That propellant to overcome possible hardship for potential happiness and success, alongside the interminable support her husband provides, have been a recipe for Lauren to continue producing and creating whatever her mind so fancies. However, dealing with the misgivings of public perception is paralleled only by her own battle with self-consciousness. “I’m a bit of a control freak, because I suffer from a lot of anxiety,” Lauren explains. “I need to be in control and I need to micromanage everything.” Although she could have never anticipated just how successful her books were going to be, thrusting herself into the public eye merely moments after a year of utter isolation, was a complete body shock. “When I wrote my first book, I spent the entire year in isolation. When it was out, I was in the public eye. It was a stark contrast and definitely hard to navigate. When I had to market the book a lot of anxiety came out.” Lauren explains. “If I’m at a party filled with women I know, I become so self-conscious. I become aware of everything. It’s funny though, throw me into a room full of strangers and I’m the expert. I’m a lot more comfortable.” From the outside, Lauren exudes a woman in control of her fate with full confidence to manifest her dreams, but if we zipped her open, an anxious and self-proclaimed socially awkward, diffident woman would be revealed.
Like all of us, perception is what allows Lauren the insight as to what she sees and what people see. However, it is her capacity to interpret the outside, that rebounding self-judgment, that lets her see what other’s see of her as well as what she lets them see. It’s a convoluted process we all undertake, consciously or otherwise, however, it is only those constantly faced with public scrutiny who are forced to deal with the issue head on or be forced into hiding. Finding a balance between the two, Lauren’s resounding happiness emanates whenever she hears generous conversation about her work or even more intimately, takes inventory of the abundant love she has cultivated in her home. Lauren has overcome physical challenges as well as mental health issues; she has dealt with feelings of anonymity, as well as a constant need to create and contribute. However, social and personal misperception aside, Lauren pauses with summative self-reflection and says: “I’m flawed, I’m damaged, but I’m ultimately a very fortunate and happy person.”
