No. 1 - Touch Sense in Action
Vaness Henry: 0:15
Okay, I um was getting my nails done today and hymn- and- hawing hymn-and-hawing over what fucking design to do? Not that I do a design. Okay, like I'm at this point where I'm so basic and I'm just embracing that I either get a French manicure, because that's what I remember my mom doing when I was a little kid and she was like that was like she was so elegant to me when I was a kid and I was like, oh my God, I love her beautiful hands. I remember thinking my mom had beautiful hands and she would like give herself manicures a lot because she worked, she was an esthetician, hairstylist, and so she had her own salon and so that was so. That was just the world I was in and I was this little nail biter. I'm going to kick again.
Vaness Henry: 0:55
I just like had the grossest little hands, okay, and I was embarrassed about it, cause I was always I was, I was like gnawing on it but I was also picking, I was just you know. And anyways, I'm trying to decide whether I want to get my nineties matte red nail again, which I loved, or go back to my French that I love, cause I don't want, I don't want my nails to distract me or something I don't know. Like, I see these people who treat their manicures and they it's like art. I'm like gosh, those people are so cool. I just need a basic fucking nail and it makes me so happy, you know. Okay, so I'm in. I'm in this era of embracing that I am basic, cause that used to be like a bad thing I was. It was like it made me feel bad. So I was like that's basic, she's so basic. And I was like, okay, well, what if I am, and why is that so bad? Pumpkin spice shit. I had this pumpkin cream chai thing that's at Starbucks right now. Let me tell you it is sending me and I'm just like, yep, I'm just going to be that character and you know what? It is so fun, but there's this like judgment that comes from the other when you are that way.
Vaness Henry: 2:04
Uh, anyway, when I had lost a bunch of weight during my kind of radical experimentation, I needed to rebuild my wardrobe and it I like didn't want to invest in really like high quality, expensive pieces because I was, I really had no idea what my shape was and I had made a bunch of mistakes and had regretted it. So I was trying to like learn from my mistakes and I really just had to build a wardrobe on basics and just to have something to wear. Like when you even have to like buy new underwear, it's like, you know it's it's really weird. It's like, wow, what kind of underwear do I? Like? I got to go on a little bit of a journey here, a panty journey. Anyway, back to my nails. So I decided to go with a French.
Vaness Henry: 2:46
You know can't get away from it, because I know I'm going to be doing a lot of filming and I need to be on camera and there's a certain way I like things to look classic and like they're going to age well and timeless. Like it's almost like if I'm too trendy, it feels off. It's also like when I have to physically dress super feminine, something feels off for me and that was like a real point's. Also like when I have to physically dress super feminine, something feels off for me and that was like a real point of contention. When I got married, I wore my trench coat because I just really didn't like I'm not above wearing a dress or anything, but I don't know something about when my my body's been so sexualized in my youth that when I have to be hyper feminine, if it's not coming from a place of I want to do that but I feel like I should it's just really hard for me to hold in my body and I bring up my, bring up my wedding, because this whole hand journey I've been on and taking care of my nails and taking care of my hands really amplified once I had a wedding ring. So as someone who's been a really intense nail biter, as someone who's been a really intense nail biter, I am starting to see that that was my nervous energy.
Vaness Henry: 3:48
I am somebody who has a relaxed environment style I'm sure is artificial. I'm supposed to really be set at ease in the environment and I happen to have touch sense in my environment. So you even notice I'll talk with my hands. You know this is this is like that touch sense kind of coming alive. I noticed touch sense singers will, like their hands, will do things when they're singing, you know, or they they play the notes that they're singing with their hands in some kind of way. And I fall in this category and I started to see that the state of my hand health was really a reflection of my emotional landscape as a kid, being this chronic nail biter, plugged into all these emotional generators in my home, and then having these supreme traumas, I was so fried, like, it was like and that's like my.
Vaness Henry: 4:33
I had skin issues and I also think the skincare is an extension of touch sense in the body, touch sense and touch cognition, whether it's in the determination or the environment. Um, the skincare ritual becomes really important, and the hands are also really important, and I was always so drawn to my mother's beautiful hands, so much so that I replicate her manicures now in my own adulthood. And I actually had phobias with my boyfriends when I was young. If they had unattractive hands, like I couldn't be with them. Like how weird and specific, you know. Um, and once I got married I was, I started having.
Vaness Henry: 5:13
There was this beautiful piece of jewelry on my finger. I bought it myself. It was a powerful stone that I resonated with. I loved everything about it. I wanted to look at my hand and I liked how that looked better when my hands were well cared for and my nails started growing longer, you know, but they were paper thin and so they would always break, because I've just been a nail biter my whole life. But I would get into these phases where I noticed, when I was really emotionally clear and healthy, my nails were long and then, sure enough, as my experimentation continued, I was getting a little bit fried, my nails would break and I had these little paws. I felt like I sometimes had little paws and then sometimes I felt like I had these regal hands, like that word, like I don't know, I don't know. And when I got a piece of jewelry on my finger and and that's it, I don't want any more, just the one, just the one. And the nice manicure and the lotion is fresh and I can't, there is a, I feel healthy. And when I look down other times and I have these pause, it's like it's. It's with being emotionally fried, and so I really think about this, with having touch sense in the environment and how the state of our skin or the state of our hands can really show us a lot of of our health, our emotional state.
Vaness Henry: 6:30
Um, earlier times in my life, when I was, you know, I hadn't done my big radical experiment of putting my body out of its site of origin and in somewhere new. I hadn't done that yet and I was in environment studies and I was studying shores, figuring out shores, figuring out shores. But I had never left the site. You know, I never left that place. It was hard to connect to. So when I was kind of like gearing up to do that, my skin I was really struggling with my skin. I had met with like endocrinologists just to keep track of my hormones because just from the radiation I had to my ovaries it's something that I'm always trying to be aware of because there's there's real imbalances there I never really had a regular menstrual cycle, and so it was hard for me to connect to some of the female experience in these classic ways, cause my experience wasn't a classic example and so, as I was learning more about my hormones, they were wondering if I had PCOS. Um, her suited her, her suitism or her suitism, her suitism. So that's a hard word.
Vaness Henry: 7:34
Excessive hair growth. I would have excessive hair growth all around my jawline. This I was really self-conscious of this, like when I was younger, before I got sick, I had really thick, long hair and like this little baby face and then it felt like I got sick. I got these treatment. All my hair fell out, it came in, not the same hair, super thin, super fine, and all this new hair in these places. I never had hair before and it was real.
Vaness Henry: 7:57
It became this real body dysmorphia for me. You know, I really felt like I had a sort of hard to describe. But when, when I got sick and it was bald and sallow skinned and staring at myself in the mirror, it was really disorienting. It was like stripped bare, like I had none of my like accessories of life. You know, like my haircut wasn't there. I didn't have like a strong brow shape, because there was no, there's no brow hair. So just like that bone, no eyelashes. You know, it was just a very different look and it was upsetting to me and a lot of my identity had been in my long black hair because I'm I don't know. I had gotten a lot of attention for it. You know, I had been recognized for it in a way, so I associated with it and so to lose that was really just upsetting, created this body dysmorphia and that's when, um, and the body was going through a trauma and stuff too, right, but yeah, that's when.
Vaness Henry: 8:57
That's when a lot of like just the concept of the body changed, the state of the body changed. I was always a nail biter, but I didn't always have bad skin, you know, and after kind of going some through some hormonal shifts, you know, stopping my cycle with certain medications, uh, and then going through treatment and then kind of now coming out of that experience Okay, trying birth control what is this about? Okay, getting pregnant oh my gosh, what is this? And getting out of that, and then just that whole shift of hormones in there that a lot of people go through, um, I really went through intense skin changes and in that, excess hair on the jawline, there was excessive acne on the jawline as well, and this really, and I'm seeing now is like such a reflection of just where I was at that time and you know, young parent, really stressed, young baby figuring life out, really angry still on some levels and, yeah, surviving right, just like living life.
Vaness Henry: 9:57
To look back and like seeing I was also trying to take care of my hands. I was going for manicures. I at the time really worked with crystals and so a lot of my Instagram was like photos of crystals, my hands manicured with crystals. It was just like a whole culture and I loved it and I was a little bit braver. I would like sometimes have cool things on my fingers. I was being more of a third line, like cool designs. I mean, I never had designs like, but just like, basically, different colors. Okay, different, different colors, still simple, but different colors Anyway.
Vaness Henry: 10:27
Uh, once, once I was looking at that time in my life, I was seeing, wow, I was really trying to take care of myself, but I wasn't actually, um, in a good state, but I was trying. I see where I learned that? So now to be in this place where I'm like, looking down at my hands, fussing over, like, do I get this manicure, that manicure? Cause I go see my guy tomorrow. I have this professional who takes care of my hands. Now, by the way, I love that. I love when, um, I have a certain style and a certain taste. I like with things, but I don't always know what's best for me specifically, and I love to go invest in a professional to, like, get to know me, like. So, let's say, I want to have a brow person and I want them to get to know my face, or get to know my hair, get to know my whatever. Or then I have a facial person. I want them to get to know my skin, get to see the changes in my skin, or someone for my hair. Like I like to have the professional um take care of me and put my trust in them that they're giving they know my hands are caring for that, or they know my body they're doing my massages, or they know my insides they're my naturopath or whatever you know. I really like to develop a relationship with and give full trust to that person taking care of me.
Vaness Henry: 11:40
Uh, that's kind of followed me, like when I was in my financial career. That was really a big part of my message. I was a columnist, a financial columnist for a while, and um, one of the messages in there was like invest in your professionals. Like who's your accountant, who's your financial planner? Like these key people you need to have in your life when you're a young professional, invest in them. Don't be doing these things yourself. Like invest in the professional. And so I kind of carry that teaching on now into my life.
Vaness Henry: 12:02
When it comes to taking care of me, like what? Like my my husband has a chiropractor he regularly goes to. I don't do that. That's not particularly for me, but he really needs that. It's really important to him. I really noticed, as a second line, he's a very sensitive body. Like he can hurt his body physically a lot. Now he's much more physical than me, so that makes sense, but I don't get injured the way he does. I'm more like sensitive to energy and he's more like he physically gets hurt. You know, um, but we're both second lines, are both six twos. We both have that vulnerability in the body.
Vaness Henry: 12:32
So, as I'm like reflecting on my hand health and I'm really seeing it as a deep teaching for the state of my touch, sense and how healthy I am in my environment, my, the, the state my hands have been into, like look that I have, like these long nails now, and I'm like, oh my God, this is a beautiful hand. This was like my mom's hand. I loved my mom's hand. You know undefined G center things and um, that's where I am now. Wow, look, I'm really and I feel that on an emotional level, like I F I was saying to my husband the other day, I do feel like I'm now in this new place of self-assuredness and confidence because I have moved away from um or healed perhaps, uh, something that used to ache before, and now that I'm not holding that ache, I'm not carrying it with me, it seems to be much easier to just carry myself right and to just be myself then.
Vaness Henry: 13:20
So there's something that has healed, that allows me to feel more, um, be, just be more of myself, and all that came from manicure. It's that fun, like what a superficial, silly little thing and it's like, no, I love. It Makes me feel so taken care of. So, if you're listening to this, what? Um would be something that you could do. That would make you feel like you deeply took care of yourself or are deeply taking care of yourself, cause it's an active, it's a present act, something that's ongoing. Is it getting a manicure? Is it having a regular rotation of a certain haircut, a regular rotation of a certain massage or massage style? Uh, is it a regular brunch date? What is it? What is the thing that makes you feel really taken care of, like you're taking care of yourself? Go do that for yourself.
