It feels like I've spent my whole life constructing a papier-mâché human, on top of a [something] core. [something] has shifted over the years. The core has at times seemed rotten, monstrous, disgusting, hideous, unlikeable, unloveable, need-to-keep-it-hidden-or-else, lacking substance, lacking anything of value. The core doesn't have anything useful to add to the situation, nothing good to say. It's intuitions are all wrong, and will lead me, lead us, down paths not worth walking down. It'll make a fool of itself. Its wants are mistaken, misguided. Its natural reactions, incorrect. It isn't pretty. It's gnarly, and often mean. It says and thinks weird things. It's often annoyed at you. It's a ton of TNT waiting to blow up whatever situation we're in. Do I really want to let it out? Do you really want to hear what it has to say?
So I deprecated it.
I found some bright yellow warning tape, cordoned it off, and started building anew. I think I started this project sometime in high school, but it's likely the seeds were planted much earlier. In high school, I remember devouring books on conversation, body language, and behavior. Everything I was doing was wrong, and I had to install the right/good/correct(/perfect?) behavior. My smile wasn't quite right, so I had to learn how to smile at the right times and in the right ways. I even remember asking a "cool" friend Freshman year of college if he could teach me how to walk (!!). I thought the way I walked was funny, weird, bad. That it would incur the wrath and dislike of onlookers and people I wanted to impress. Yikes.... There was loads more of this stuff, too. I learned how to smalltalk to please others. I learned to hold my head at a slight upward angle when I walked to seem "high status". I learned that if someone calls my name and I ignore them the first time but respond the second time, I'll seem aloof and cool.
[And it hurts to think about all this. I know that this version of me was in so much pain. And I know that this pain is still alive in me, but I just don't know how to touch it, access it, or hold it at the moment. I'm writing about it from a distance now. But I'll hold you, eventually ...]
And since then, I've evolved. But the papier-mâché human hasn't disappeared, it too has evolved. So much of the stuff I thought about "coolness" I now think is so stupid and oh-so-totally missing the point. But even as my understanding what is good changed to “better” things, my attitude hadn't: it still deeply felt (feels?) as though there was a singular correct/perfect/good/right way to be. And so I took all these new things I was learning about goodness, and simply refashioned/rejiggered the suit. Instead of being "cool", I came to believe I needed to be "loving". Instead of being "aloof", I needed to be "warm". And these really are deep values of mind. But there's a way in which my enactment of them at-times isn't real or isn't authentic, it isn't emanating from the core (even if I often desperately want it to be).
I tell you "it's all good", but it's not. I tell you “it doesn't matter to me” but it does. I say “I love you” but ... :( :( :( And I really really really really really really do want to feel all these things at times ... but what am I to do when that's not my experience? The papier-mâché human arose in the very first place out of a deep shame of the delta between the person I am and the person I want to be. That hasn't disappeared, even as the person I want to be has evolved into something more human(e).
And so bit by bit, corrective by corrective, over all these years, I fashioned a fully functioning papier-mâché human together. I built it to be good and correct, to say the right things, to not upset anyone, to behave in the right ways, and more. All evolving as my sense of good, correct, and right evolved. And here lies the fatal flaw: it's only as "good" as my understanding of “good” is "good." And so of course, it's terrible 💩How often I learn how short-sighted my "good"s are. Or how traumatized they are. Or how much about the world and others I'm mistaken about. And so on ...
I operate from the papier-mâché layer more often than not. So often, my experience of myself and the world (and my sharing of it with you), is being mediated by this layer, and by its sense of what is good/bad/correct/right. Words, feelings, and experiences bubble up from the core, but then get filtered and edited to death by the papier-mâché layer. By the time they leave my mouth, they're lifeless.
Like, I'll be in conversation, and there’s a way in which I'm skating the surface, playing it safe, not sharing or doing the real thing. And I usually only realize it way later (although I'm starting to catch it earlier and earlier...). The sense of operating from this layer is so distinct too: it's heady, consistent, rational, and makes sense. I'm sharing my prettiest, smartest, most rehearsed, most well thought out, most endorsed ideas and "what I want to be true"s with you. And this isn't bad perse. But what do you/I lose in the process? What are the ways in which we miss each other? Or just experience a shallow facsimile of connection? What are the ways that the thing we're doing lacks my full participation? Lacks aliveness? We're not dancing with each other. I'm not sharing my experience with you. I'm not sharing the me-est me with you.
I'm sharing a version of myself that a much younger me devised a plan to create. A version of me that is sanitized and has no rough edges. Is edited and straight-jacketed. It probably won't upset you, but it probably won't delight you either. It probably won't say anything wrong or stupid, and so it also probably won't say anything that doesn't make sense either (and ya know, some of the most beautiful things make no freaking sense). And it won't surprise either of us. And this all hurts. It hurts that I keep so much to myself. And maybe even more, it hurts that I don't have access to so much of myself in the first place. Because in a way, I only have access to what feels safe to share: my inner world is policed by what feels allowed in my outer world.
I had a coaching session the other day, where the coach pointed to a moment where I had shared something absolutely disgusting (to me): I wanted their pity. But surprisingly (to me), they weren‘t disgusted. They shared that this was the most connected to me that they had felt the whole time, like I had finally shown them the me-est me. And when they shared this, I teared up. I knew exactly what they were talking about. And I was sad because this type of sharing might be the thing I want the most in the world, and at the same time, is a thing that I struggle so much to bring into the world. A montage of memories of interactions played through my mind: where I had in each of those interactions peeled layer after layer off (over the course of minutes to hours), until I was finally able to know and share the me-est me with others. To share my actual experience. And how beautiful that’s been. And how badly I want to do just that thing, over and over again. And every time I do it, how it's so obviously worth all the lead-up to it, and all the scratches and bruises that may follow. How often I'm holding onto this thing, worried that the world will explode as soon as I put it on the table in front of others, how I'll lose everyone and everything, how everyone will run away, for good. And in fact, how usually, when I share from this place, it's magical. We make contact. Our souls touch. There might be friction, conflict, and clash, sure. But it's alive. We're alive, together. We're dancing.
"For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect.''
"Tantra is unique in combining spaciousness and passion. When those are brought together—when skillful manipulation of energy unites with open-ended wonder—life becomes magical play.
Ok, so where to go from here? This is the journey I am on at this very moment, and I'll have so much more to say about this soon.
Wants, desire, shadow, velleities, urges, hunches, passion, intuitions (especially the ones that don't make sense), creative impulses, urges to self express, what I find disgusting, what I feel not allowed to do. These are all instances, flickers, clues where it feels as though the core is piercing through the veil, the armor, the papier-mâché layer, and extending me an invitation to bring it forth into the world. Will I be brave enough to let it out? Do I trust you enough for it to feel safe to come out? Or really, do I trust myself enough to be ok with whatever happens next? Do I have faith? Will I surrender? Surrender my notions of good and bad, of what thing “needs” to happen? I lose safety, security, and knowing. But I gain magic, freedom, and potency. Easier said than done, of course, and every day there are a million opportunities to lean into this where I flinch and bail. But it's slowwwwlllllyyyy getting easier. Even writing these words right now, I can feel it poking through.
And of course, how am I intellectualizing, right fucking now? How are these words doing the thing, skating the surface? What's real, and true, and good, right now? What do I want, right now? I'm fired up. I think I want to go to a park. Maybe I'm even being a little performative right now as I write. Probably actually, hehe. I think that's fine, even good. I think that's the real thing, anyhow. And I think owning that is what I want. And I think that's what you want (from me) too? Sometimes performative, sometimes self-obsessed, sometimes maniacal, weird, and nasty. It's all there. There's some good stuff there, too :)
So yeah. I'm game. I want to share the me-est me with myself and with you. I want to touch the real, plumb the depths of my soul, and see what happens next. And I'm ready to shit my pants a million times in the process. I take responsibility for all of this, and at the same time, I welcome your invitations, beckonings, and calls-to-adventures. And I invite you to let me know when you can't feel me (because I want you to feel me). Let’s do this?
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