Tuesday 18 September 2018

“Wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door”

I am not sure what the Beatles meant with this famous lyric, but for me, it has very specific and significantly meaningful. I used to have several faces in the jar by the door. I still have a few, some dusty and some very well used. Over the last several years I have been working very hard to lay them to rest, too not need them as must as I used to.

I think there might be a few of you who would be able to relate, almost painfully familiar.
I used to use these different faces of myself so often and intensely that at some point I almost completely forgot what I looked like.

Why did I do it? Because the me, I thought I was, was definitely not good enough to sent out into the big bad world. I invented different personas, I don't think I did it consciously or deliberately but definitely out of necessity. And these personas evolved and got a life of their own, with stories and expectations and all the rest. I don't think I could have been diagnosed with multiple personalities, but I had the next best thing that was still vaguely acceptable in "normal" company. But it boiled down to the same thing. I was giving the people out there what I thought they wanted to see from me. I was showing the world the face I thought would be acceptable.

It is very hard work but I played the game very well. Until one day when I couldn’t do it anymore.
In our modern day civilization, there are so many rules, regulations and preconceived ideas about who and what we need to do and be. And there is nothing wrong or right with it. The madness starts when we buy into it and start to construct our lives accordingly.
The Original Dream Teachings

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