Translator: Mopelola Adeseye Reviewer: Hélène Vernet
Like many, many of you,
I am Wonder Woman, Mrs. Perfect.
Yes, that's me here. (Laughter)
Mrs Perfect is actually the Goddess Shiva,
one who carries a baby bottle in one hand, a carton of milk in the other,
a computer, a mobile phone, the written speech of her boss,
the tickets for the show - "Don’t forget, sweetie!" -
and also slightly soggy cookies
that her kids have kindly left in her coat pocket.
And, of course, Mrs Perfect has one foot in a plane,
and the other in her Louboutin stiletto heels.
She lives at 500 km/h. She is successful in everything she does.
And ... her pantyhose does not get torn!
(Laughter) Yes!
In 2010 - I really wished to tell you this story -
I was working for an international company,
and I had a boss, in Madrid, who was known for his Homeric fits of anger.
When I say "Homeric," I mean there was blood on the walls!
Each of us had a monthly update meeting with him,
and, like the others, I would go.
I'd say first ''Hello'' and then next, ''I had to say such and such.''
He'd reply ''No.''
''Well, I must insist, you need to understand such and such."
He'd say ''No.''
''For the last time, let me tell you such and such.''
And he'd say "yes" or "no"
but in any case, there was no drama, we remained both calm.
Then, when this man went back to his country,
he told me goodbye and said, ''I must ask you something.
Why are you not afraid?''
This concerned me because honestly, I had no answer,
so I said something silly like, ''Well, we're not in Narcos movie.
You're not going to shoot me the next minute!''
(Laughter)
Then, somehow the question stuck with me and, the other day,
while I was thinking about you and Wonder woman,
I thought "Why is Wonder woman Wonder woman ?"
Well, it's because she does not listen to her fear.
Okay, but you know what? She doesn't listen to herself either.
What about you? Are you listening right now?
So, we all came into this life one day, that's the way it is.
I was born in the sixties -
please do not calculate my age.
I am a woman, until proven otherwise,
and I was born in Paris to a family that was not ideal.
By the way, if you know the ideal family, please inform me.
Anyway, I was in a family,
but it was so far from being ideal that at birth, I got an extra card.
This card was a 50% chance of ending up in a bin,
and that actually happened to my twin brother.
And I must say, when you draw such a card at the beginning of your life,
it gives you a certain perspective on things and an acute sense of survival.
So the beliefs on which I structured and built myself, were:
''I don't feel pain,"
"Nothing can hurt me,"
"I am all-powerful."
Now, you see, beliefs are a little bit like crutches during our early life.
They enable us to find our balance, and then one day, we no longer need them.
I do not have crutches anymore.
Well, I still have this one, but let's speak about this later.
In short, it is with these beliefs that I framed my role as Wonder woman.
And you know what? It was the perfect time
because my professional life started in the eighties,
the glamour years, the money years.
So back then, being a Wonder woman was really trendy.
Therefore, I jumped immediately at full speed in my professional life.
At the beginning of my career, I got the most prestigious jobs,
the most charismatic managers, the most staggering budgets,
the greatest products and brands, etc.
Yeah, all that.
Indeed, I did understand the movie quite a bit.
I knew there were two keys to what I called "happiness".
The first was financial independence.
Believe me, it worked for me, and this enabled me to leave my family.
The second was conformity to social and professional model
because to succeed, you must please, and to please, what do you need?
Well, you must give up your dreams
because teenage dreams,
the most audacious and adventurous dreams -
such as, among others, my dream of being a writer -
honestly, they are not going to keep a woman fed.
So, they are brushed under the carpet.
Then there is something else we all share.
You know, this little voice inside you?
The one inside there that tells you,
''Are you happy with what you do?
Do you really love yourself?
Are you really satisfied?
What happened to your dream of becoming a writer?''
Ah! This one, frankly, got on my nerves.
I replied, ''You shut up. I don't want to listen to you, silence!''
And as a matter of fact, I didn't hear it for a number of years.
So, here I was in the eighties ...
Oops! I've forgotten something!
I've just forgotten one tiny detail.
In my teens, in this family that ... - well, it would take forever! -
I had a scoliosis that had not been treated.
Seriously, confidently, scoliosis is nothing.
If I were to ask you to raise your hand,
25% of you in this room would say they have a little scoliosis,
It's a curvature of the spine.
The other 25% would have a cold.
Actually, scoliosis is to the vertebrae what the common cold is to the nose,
meaning nothing at all.
So I had no time for that,
meaning no time for me, no time to listen to myself,
no time for Mrs. Perfect,
Mrs. Demanding of herself and much of others,
but still funny after all.
I tell you, I did party like crazy.
(Laughter)
But what about the body?
(Sigh)
Well, it had merely to follow.
Then came midlife,
the love of my life,
maternity,
three magnificent girls.
And, I kept on working.
Yeah, they are gorgeous, thank you!
(Applause)
Really, that's the most perfect achievement!
Then I went on with the job, the travels, the buddies and friends,
and everything was like this, forever.
And as a matter of fact, it was perfect.
I was in my bubble, my comfort zone, my cocoon.
Nothing could happen to me. Everything was for granted.
Nothing could hurt me.
Except that fate - you know, "fatum" in latin -
was thinking there, in a corner,
''It's time for this girl to understand she has to do something of her life.''
So it knocked a first time, I didn't hear anything.
It knocked a second time, and I didn't hear, so it got upset.
It got angry because what we resist, persists.
Therefore it punched, punched, punched until I eventually was knocked out.
In reality, it knocked me out.
My body reminded me of its presence in 2013.
My body, I had negated it, denied it, and disavowed it.
At that point, it reminded me it was there and not in a gentle manner.
My teenage scoliosis had transformed into a double curve
up to 73 degrees.
It is huge!
To give you an idea, it's similar to those old ladies you see walking,
bended almost horizontally, their nose on the pavement, forever.
I was so good at denying that none of my family or my girlfriends,
nobody noticed my condition.
In fact, I just collapsed physically,
and let's be frank, I was the only one responsible for it.
So I knew I needed to do something. I had no choice.
I tried very creatively all the bad solutions,
until only one was left.
The solution I had to accept, I warn you, is not going to be appealing to you.
It is called an "arthrodesis".
Here is it. It's pretty, it's my back.
It is an arthrodesis of the spine,
a ten-hour operation in which they open your spine
from cervicals to lumbars,
insert two titanium rods,
and straighten whatever vertebrae they can.
Now don't ask me how! I don't know and don't want to know.
Next, they screw everything back together
And hup! I found myself as straight as the letter "I".
(Applause)... But!
Well, that was a wrong move, folks,
because yes, my friends were saying I'll look like Madonna
while I was saying "like Frida Kahlo," but the surgeon was telling me,
''Your torso will be slightly rigid, you won't dance the Zumba very much,
but you will have good legs"
and "Don't worry! I do surgeries like yours every week.
You'll be back to normal life in two months."
Well, I had already doubts about my normal life.
I had no choice, so on October 14th, 2014,
I entered the hospital with my two legs.
They woke me up in the intensive care unit on October 15th, 2014.
I don’t know why there are dates we don't forget!
And they were all there at the foot of my bed,
in white and blue, a solemn expression on their faces.
Was it a jury or verdict? I wasn't sure.
But the whole medical team was there, and they told me,
"Miss, your bone marrow has been damaged.
You will never walk again.
You are paraplegic.''
I was stunned.
By "stunned" I don't mean surprised, but dumbfounded.
Because my life had been crushed.
From being the actor of my life, I was now its spectator.
From being independent, I found myself in dependency.
From being hyperactive, Wonder woman,
I became incapable of even reading or writing.
My body and I were treated as objects
that were given injections, washed,
that were probed, auscultated, and pinched.
From my hospital bed, I had only access to what my hands could reach.
It was not much.
Then for nine months, I was no longer anybody.
I was nothing: no longer a mum, no longer a woman,
no longer a lover, no longer a manager,
no longer anything!
So one day, my body had become my master.
For example, it was my body that decided
what I could do and when I could do it.
One day, I came home to my family and I discovered -
or rather "they" discovered -
that Wonder woman had become a burden.
As for me, I discovered that my loved and loving ones had become my helpers.
It wasn't that great a discovery.
And there was also a new life for me.
I found out all that was now impossible for me to do
such as walking alone on the street, getting out unexpectedly,
or going to the shop ... in short, living like them,
living like you.
My family was shattered.
I'm saying this because a family is a system,
and all of us, both I and they had to morn a loss -
I, the loss of my former self,
and they, the loss of the mother and the woman they knew.
And mourning is extremely important in adversity.
Morning is synonymous of anger,
of sadness,
of denial,
of negotiation.
And we know that these are phases we go through time and again,
until we finally accept.
Acceptance is neither abandonment nor flight.
It means that you need to accept, accept, accept for the transformation to occur.
But you don't need to become paraplegic to transform.
Come on, take a nice breath!
In fact, whatever ordeal you are confronted with,
whether it be a divorce, unemployment, a frustration, a death, or an illness,
you must respect it.
It is important that you respect it as well as yourself.
What is essential in adversity is that the only benchmark
is the individual, how he or she deals with it and feels,
but above all, what he or she makes of it - meaning you and also me.
Now let me still speak to you about my ordeal with kindness
because it ended up being an initiation actually.
It was my third birth,
a regeneration,
and for two reasons.
The first is my damned character.
That is, I never believed I will not walk again, never.
Therefore, the very first or second day after the surgery,
I partnered with my body and, at its pace, we began the verticalization protocol
until I reached the point I could stand straight
after spending many weeks working with a verbalization table,
without vomiting or fainting, which was cool!
Following that, I was hooked to parallel bars.
And then, I learned how to get by obstacles.
Next, I wobbled around using a walking aid, and later walking canes.
So it was my regeneration for this reason,
and because I reached a point where I thought,
''Nope. That's not possible!
I can’t let my life be stolen again."
And this time, I could hear my voice.
I listened to my little voice saying,
'' You had your life stolen at birth and during your teenage years.
Later on, you stole it from yourself. Enough is enough!"
As I was hearing and listening and respecting this voice,
at that moment, my limiting beliefs ceased to be limiting.
This is because, you see, beliefs are really simple.
Your beliefs or your identity, call it whatever you want, is like a medallion,
and this medallion has two sides: the yin and yang, etc.
On the flip side, you give your beliefs power over your life,
Don't blame yourself, we can't do otherwise during childhood.
And they delight.
They become limiting, blocking and enslaving.
They just become odious!
It was my feeling of being all-powerful, my stubbornness,
my fear of life, and my fear of dying too.
Then came the day,
the day I gave myself love,
respect, tenderness,
time, attention, light ...
That day, turning the other side of the medallion,
those same beliefs exploded in all their splendor!
They became strength, desire for life, creativity, wholeness, femininity.
They became all of this!
And all became possible.
They opened the entire field of possibilities, my possibilities,
by way of embodiment,
by aligning heart, body and spirit vertically,
physically, emotionally and intellectually.
Nothing happens to us by accident.
My heart had to surrender for me to find myself.
My body had to surrender.
And since dreaming was not forbidden,
actually ...
... I allowed myself to live the dream I had when I was 18.
Today,
I am a writer,
as I wanted to be.
(Applause)
I wrote my first book called,
"Le roseau penchant, histoire d'une merveilleuse opération"
meaning "The bent reed", you know, the one that bends down?
Yet it never breaks!
So you have it, but wait! Get ready for this:
it came out exactly three years, day for day, after my surgery.
Now you may not believe in destiny, but l really do.
And I won't need an arthrodesis to write my second book.
Whoever you are, whatever the ordeal,
we all have the ability to transmute it.
Today, I have within me my first, tough and rich 59 years of existence:
my romances, my friends,
my hardships, my joys, my mistakes,
my wake-up call while I was kept prisoner at the hospital.
I am not the victim of anything or anyone.
I have a disability that is today nearly invisible but still major.
But I am not my disability, absolutely not.
Life is slower,
different,
less warlike
but more battle-hardened.
I convey and I share, as I am doing it tonight.
You decide.
Your beliefs' solar phase, would you not like to go and see it?
That's it.
(Applause)