88. If You Really Knew Me – Noor Tagouri
When I do this exercise with a room full of people, inevitably it leads to vulnerability, then to strength through connection.
I have known I wanted to tell stories since the age of three, and for years now, I’ve toured the world, speaking about breaking barriers through storytelling. One way I do this is with an exercise called “if you really knew me.”
I first did this activity in South Dakota at an event where I was told — upon my arrival —that I’d been booked as a speaker because there was a “white supremacy problem on campus,” and the students were hoping my speech could “help fix it.” [*nervous laugh*] When I walked into the room of 600 people, I could feel the energy of mistrust and fear—and I was also projecting my own. I didn’t know how I would connect with them. But I later realized that most of the audience was feeling the same thing, for other reasons.
They said things like:
“If you really knew me, you’d know I still collect stuffed animals to feel less alone.”
“If you really knew me, you’d know I was sexually assaulted at 15 and told to shut up about it when I spoke up.”
“If you really knew me, you’d know I never feel good enough and I don’t deserve the position I have at work.”
When I do this exercise with a room full of people, inevitably it leads to vulnerability, then to strength through connection. The story of “if you really knew me” has become the story of every paused breath in an interview. Every time people have poured their hearts out to me in person or in a letter from thousands of miles away. It’s the story of all of us. It’s the reminder and the constant. The foundation of it all. It’s where I have found myself over and over again and have found light in others when it barely flickered.
– Noor Tagouri
Prompt:
Complete the sentence: “If you really knew me...” You can write one or many of these statements. Then sit with them. Ask yourself: What would your life be like if people knew these things about you? How would your circle of friends change? What about your job?
When you are known and lean into yourself, people have no power over you. And chances are, they will find comfort—because more often than you realize, they’re going through things too. So much love and peace to you all.
Anonymous
If you really knew me, you’d know that I am scared and anxious, nervous as a cat at almost all times. A hold over from growing up in an abusive home…(bet you didn’t know that either). My dad verbally abused all of us, especially my mom and my brothers, but we all got that. The beatings were reserved for mom and my older brother…little brother got some of that too but only when he got old enough to try to defend mom.
I was strong. Stronger than my brothers, my mom…I wish he had hit me instead of them…I could have taken it better…I challenged him to hit me once, but he wouldn’t. The literature / evidence says it’s just as bad to be the one who observed it all. Still, I feel shame, like I don’t have the right to be broken. Because broken I am, my foundations are cracked.
Mom was so busy trying to survive that she forgot about me and worse yet, she resented me, because my father loved me. Little girls need their mamas to hold them, to look into their eyes and tell them they are special, they are loved. She didn’t have it to give me. She loved me, resented me, was jealous of me at the same time. She fed me so well, clothed me beautifully…but I felt it…or rather didn’t feel it, still don’t really.
So, if you knew this maybe you would assume my father was a complete asshole, but he wasn’t… He was a good provider, charming, had a quick wit, was excellent at his work, a respected businessman, church leader. We had a cottage, he played golf at a country club. He used to race me home from church, he would hug me, tell me funny stories, give me little gifts…I hate him…but I love him too.
Never let anyone know…the terrors at home, never feeling completely safe. Hearing my mother’s cries, begging him to stop. A 5-year-old sitting on the stairs, holding hands with my brother – too scared to sleep, to breathe.
I jump when my own dear loving husband comes around the corner unannounced, …I’ll bet you didn’t know that…because as my beautiful daughter describes me…I’m a dynamic, resourceful, Ted talk-giving, brownie-baking, and all around kickass lady. I have a successful career, I live in a beautiful home, have beautiful children…it’s all so perfect, that’s what I let you see.
I’ve let some of you in, but it’s not the kind of thing you just bring up. And I’m not sure some of you really want to know. Would you pity me, would you have your own story to tell? Because if you really knew me, you’d see that I’m scared most of the time, I’m exhausted…it’s why I don’t answer the phone, why I disappear sometimes…but I also want to hear your story too.
Anonymous
If you really knew me, you’d know my mother and my friend had cancer at the same time. My friend died; my mother lived. I was in kindergarten. I watched how care-free my classmates were on the playground, but I was not.
When my mother was sick in the hospital, I missed her so much. I ached for her. I smelled the soap she used to wash her face in the soap dish. I wrapped myself in her clothes in her closet. I did not talk.
My mother came home from the hospital, and my friend did not. When he left for the hospital, I never knew I would never see him again. Losing him, I cried until there were no more tears because my body was depleted. I was dehydrated with a high fever and ended up in the hospital. I missed kindergarten graduation. The dress my aunt made for me was never worn.
Once my mother was able to read me bedtime stories and poems underneath the freshly- laundered sheets back at home, I could breathe again. Everything would not be perfect, but everything would be okay.
If you really knew me, you’d know I was in a terrible car accident in high school. It was a hit and run. My neck was broken. The kindness of strangers helped me out of the window of the car because none of the doors would open. The one closest to me was smashed. I was lucky to be alive.
If you really knew me, you’d know after the accident, I never saw life the same again. It changed me profoundly in ways I didn’t understand then and ways I still don’t understand to this day. But I know it has shaped me and will continue to shape me the rest of my life.
Laura Burford
‘I just don’t like the way they shove it down your throat’
And here I am shoving your meal down mine
Flavoured with your prejudices
Quietly
Wondering if I’ll ever say
If you really knew me
For grandma that is me
It is at their family table I sit
The ones you despise
Push aside
Like the meal on your plate
‘I cant finish it’
Cannot stomach the difference
And I choke on the words I am trying to say
I’m
Swallowing instead
It is I who is having words shoved
Down my throat
Eyes fixed to floor
Wondering if there will come a day when
I am not welcome to eat at this table
Anymore
Paola Piccioli
Location: Los Angeles, CA
About: These prompts have been one of the rituals that kept me grounded and loved during this pandemic, and I thank you immensely for giving me an outlet to cry out loud, and a beloved certainty, again, a ritual. The most common inspiration are the people I love. I have been blessed with many of them filling my life with chaos and joy.
Age: 32
If you really knew me, you’d know I’m bisexual. You would ask me awkward questions that I wish I didn’t have to answer. And yet I would answer, hoping that you would see me in my wholeness, with the joy of knowing I will not have to omit a date anymore, a heartbreak, a new beloved face, a new beloved name. I would love to invite you into my home filled with light, and show you proudly all the joys and pains you don’t know about.
If you really knew me, you’d know how much I’ve hated myself. You would understand why I sometimes cannot answer or talk or see you or be of any help. We could sit together in silence, and there would be no need for explanations, ever again.
If you really knew me, you’d know how much violent it feels to be here as an immigrant. The violence I feel when a person I love doesn’t understand the fear and rage of never being in control of my stay, how it’s not just the issue of a dream, but of life aand death, the difference between having a life and having none. How none of the two cultures is mine anymore; how divided I am in between realities. I wish you’d understand how I am two different people depending on the language I am speaking, because the sound of them, and the structure of their grammar, and the reason why I use them, create a different way of perceiving reality. I wish I could make you feel how weird and funny it is to not be able to think the numbers in English, or to count directly in English, even though when I think in words, I do think in English. I wish I could make you understand why I got so mad when that lady at the restaurant told me I had such a thick accent when I said MY name in MY own language. How high and might I get when somebody ask me in a patronizing tone if I know the meaning of a word – because it is a Latin word and I use it every day in my own native language. I feel guilty about my rage and yet I wish so desperately to make you understand the depth of the uprooting, the sense of betrayal when a new bill passes against immigrants – as if my own adoptive mother was locking me out of the home where I thought I was welcomed. I wish I could bring you with me in this world to show you my soul and hold you until we could whisper in the same language.