fourteen

For my next well-being lesson, Claude had asked me to meet him in the children’s amusement park at the Jardin d’Acclimatation. It was ages since I’d been there. I was like an overexcited child myself when I saw the carousel spinning round and the toffee apples being crunched. I would gladly have sinned with some chocolate doughnuts but, thank god, Claude arrived in the nick of time to save me from temptation. First of all he took me for tea at Angelina’s, where I allowed myself a single treat: a slice of lemon tart—and given how stoic I was in resisting the displays of delicious cakes, that’s worth pointing out. After that, Claude led me to the Hall of Mirrors.

“What do you see, Camille?”

“Oh my god! Myself even fatter and more grotesque,” I said with a laugh.

“And is that a true image of you?”

“No, thank goodness! I’m not that fat.”

“And you’re not fat in real life either, Camille. Most of the time you see yourself in a funhouse mirror because all your negative thoughts distort reality. Your mind plays tricks on you. It tells you lies, and you end up believing them! Remember, though: you have the power to halt those thoughts, even to change them. Look at me, Camille: Who tells you what to think?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Me?”

“Of course. Nobody but you! Most of the time we’re very poor judges of ourselves. You’re convinced you are too fat because of those extra ten pounds, but it’s only inside your head that this is such a huge problem. Ten pounds is no big deal, I can assure you!”

I glanced at him, recalling the man in the photo he kept in his desk. Was that someone close to him? Or perhaps it was him? I didn’t dare ask him directly, so I tried a roundabout approach.

“I get the impression you know a lot about the subject . . .”

I saw his brow crease and a look of surprise flit across his face. He cleared his throat as if trying to gain time because my question embarrassed him. He looked away, and his reply was evasive: “Yes, I do know a lot about it.”

“Because you’ve experienced it yourself?”

I could tell from his expression that my questions were bothering him.

“Possibly. But we’re not here to talk about me.”

That’s a shame, I thought. I would really have liked to know more about his life but sensed that this was not the moment.

He led me back to the first mirror in the building: a normal one.

“So now, Camille, take a good look at yourself and tell me what you most like about your appearance.”

I studied my reflection.

“Well, I quite like my eyes; they are lively and a nice color . . .”

“Great! Carry on.”

I looked a bit lower to see what I thought of my body.

“My chest isn’t bad either—I’ve got a decent cleavage. I like my ankles as well. My legs are slim below the knee!”

“That’s perfect, Camille. Now you need to do all you can to focus your attention on your good points rather than on your tiny flaws, which no one really notices anyway. Never forget those women who weren’t particularly pretty and yet were hugely sought after. Like Édith Piaf, for example; she had loads of lovers, and they were all really handsome. Or even Marilyn Monroe, who wasn’t exactly skinny! What’s most important—and I know you know this—is what comes from within. Self-confidence is your greatest asset. Shine and you’ll be irresistible. If you’re filled with beauty, you will be attractive—goodness and kindness sparkle far more than jewels. What’s inside you is immediately obvious from the outside.”

I felt like asking if this was what had happened in his case, but there was a veil of mystery hanging over his life that I didn’t yet dare raise. I made do with a joke: “That sounds a bit like a yogurt ad, but I get the general idea.”

“You need to work hard every day to become a better person. If you give off positive vibes, you’ll soon see how successful you can be.”

“What if I can’t do it, Claude? What if despite everything I still think I’m fat and ugly?”

“Shhh! Stop ‘feeding your rats,’ Camille. By your rats I mean your fears, complexes, misconceptions, all that side of you that likes to complain and play the victim. Do you understand what’s going on in your head when you do that?”

“Mmm . . . Maybe if I’m ugly I won’t attract much attention, and so I won’t run the risk of disappointing anyone. Or of being disappointed. That way at least people won’t expect too much of me and leave me in peace.”

“And what would be the risk in attracting attention?”

“If you attract more attention, you get commented on more, you’re judged, and so you’re more likely to get hurt.”

“That’s right, except that you can only be hurt if you’re vulnerable. The more confidence you have in who you are, the less other people can hurt you. Once you have rebuilt your self-esteem, when you have a life project that properly suits your personality and beliefs, you’ll no longer be afraid. Your positive attitude will buoy you; you’ll be aligned, in harmony with yourself and the world.”

“When you put it like that, it makes me want to try. I hope I can sort myself out soon.”

“That depends entirely on you, Camille.”

“So how do I improve my own self-image?”

Claude led me to a slimming mirror.

“For a start, every morning in front of your mirror you are going to change your ‘inner dialogue.’ You are to repeat words of encouragement. You are beautiful, attractive; you like your body; you have lovely eyes; you are a remarkable woman who achieves whatever she sets out to do, et cetera.”

“Isn’t that going a bit far?”

“No, it’s barely the start!” Claude teased me. “After that, you need to learn the ‘art of modeling yourself.’”

“What’s that?”

“Which woman do you most admire, and why?”

“I don’t know . . . Oh yes, I adore Audrey Hepburn. I think she had such charm and poise.”

“Good. So you should study Audrey Hepburn, her demeanor, the way she walked, smiled . . . Learn to reproduce her gestures. Close your eyes. Visualize yourself walking down the street as if you were Audrey Hepburn. How do you feel?”

“Beautiful, sure of myself, grounded . . .”

“And how do the people around you react?”

“They look at me, admire me . . .”

“Does that feel good?”

“Very good!”

“Fantastic! Keep those feelings in your mind, and don’t hesitate to do it for real. Get into the skin of one of your role models!”

“OK, I’ll try. It could be fun.”

“While we’re talking of role models . . . whom do you most admire? What are their good qualities? What’s their recipe for success? Study their lives, read their biographies. Make a collage of images using photos of them. Can you do that in the next two weeks?”

“Mmm . . . I’ll give it a try.”

In fact, I felt a bit like Adrien given too much homework by his teacher, but Claude had warned me those little inner monsters are always lying in wait: laziness, tiredness, discouragement . . . I had to apply myself, even if I thought that everything was moving too fast and I wasn’t yet comfortable as the “new me.”