As you are
Let the world know you as you are, not as you think you should be, because sooner or later if you are posing, you will forget the pose, and then where are you?
Fanny Brice
We all pretend to be something we’re not. Whether we’re projecting an ideal self on Facebook or trying to align better with the expectations of loved ones, we create something that’s not quite true. It’s somewhere between reality and the truth.
This quote about letting the world know me as I am struck me fair in the gut.
For me, it means letting people know how I really, honestly feel.
That’s scary as hell.
I can be deeply private about my real feelings. I manage them very closely and try to be cool.
I like to believe I’m awesomely okay with everything, no matter how it turns out. I’m a calm, intelligent, rational person. I can see the bigger picture. I can privately own whatever maelstrom is going on inside me.
I strive not to let the integrity of my behaviour be influenced by other people’s actions. So, why do I let the integrity of my emotions depend so entirely on how I think they feel?
Why am I timidly playing this game of I’ll show you mine if you show me yours?
I am not Switzerland. I am not Teflon. I am not invisible. I am not a spectator.
I will be brave. I’ll show you who I am.
Muchness 
We seem to be living in a paradox, all of us. The world is smaller than it’s ever been. Our cultures collide to make the most beautiful, colourful marble pattern, and few are those who are out of reach of our ability to observe, to understand, and to appreciate. Yet here we are, at war with each other. Human against human, and for what? Closer to home, we’re driven by marketing and consumerism to compare and contrast ourselves with others for the sole purpose of identifying imperfections so that we can buy things that further our status as individuals.
In all this, I think there are two traits that are as valuable as they are rare: vulnerability and trust. It’s bravery to be who you are, free of concerns over judgement and condemnation. It’s courageous to trust, believing in the inherent goodness of others, worn as it is over time by outside influences and behavioural indulgences.
So what about exposure to harm? Isn’t it unwise to risk the damage that so often occurs when we open ourselves to the world? When we let down our guard and sing? When we dance in front of a full moon on a clear night, and howl?
I’d answer that with a question. Where is your core? Where do you position your sense of ‘who you are’? Do you know what it is? In each of us is a flicker of something that was born at the start of all things. Existing in the sky, the sun, the lush meadow, the raging seas, in everything we can see. Our roots are in the cosmos and all that is. All life is a manifestation of that flicker. To root ourselves in something so magnificent is to re-position our core, and re-contextualise that which may otherwise affect us.
Now we see not harsh words, gossip, judgement or condemnation, but little flickers, each wonderful, inspiring and beautiful in their own right. Some have become damaged, as if disguised by the overwhelming nature of the culture we’ve created, and that can seek to overwhelm our own. But by remembering, and coming back regularly to our own place in the universe and beyond, we can constantly position ourselves in a way that empower us and inspires others.
It’s funny, I have no problem telling people what I think. I don’t care about judgement, since I hold all ideas lightly. I take a position but I’m unfraid, even excited to be proved wrong because it’s an opportunity to explore all the facets of a different and better idea.
Feelings though – they’re far more anchored and real. I can change my mind in an instant, but changing the heart is a slow task. At least, it is for me. I know there are other ways of being. Emotional people let their feelings come and go, run hot with passion and cold with anger. They feel as fiercely but lightly as I describe thinking. Neither is right or wrong, but different ways of being.
What I think is immaterial but what I feel is sacred – so I tend to be deeply private about it.
You’ve made me wonder now … what is it exactly that I fear? It’s not gossip or judgement. I have pretty clear and solid your issues/my issues boundaries.
I think it’s more like writing in pencil versus permanent ink. What I feel for people is tattooed on my heart, so it’s an active choice I make and I tend to scope it out cautiously first.
That’s not to say I wouldn’t benefit from a couple of awkward, random dolphin and butterfly tattooes from stories of drunken nights travelling in Thailand. It’s just not the first instinct.
The challenge for me is to take a position emotionally and push its agenda, much as I would with ideas. To find out an idea is misplaced is easy to fix. To find out an emotion is misplaced is, well, harder and I can definitely be braver.