Betrayal of the Authentic Self

"The need to be normal is the predominant anxiety disorder in modern life." -Thomas Moore

I had a client today who expressed his experience in our last therapy session. He explained that he had been describing something to me that he very much wanted me to understand. He had felt that I wasn't understanding and so he began to get frustrated, panick, and raise his voice. He explained, (paraphrased) "when I realized I was reacting this way, I thought that this is how I usually respond when I feel misunderstood. At this point I began to feel badly about myself, and I felt shame and embarassment the rest of the session."

As we explored the patterns and the process of this experience, he talked about what it was like for him to feel misunderstood. He illustrated with a visual: "When I feel misunderstood it is as if there is a mass of people coming towards me. As they get to where I am I begin to try to keep up with them, to keep their pace. I fear that if I don't, they will run me over." "So the fear is death, or at least getting a good squash?" I questioned. "I guess so," he replied, "and then I feel that my true self is back where it originally stood, now an empty shell and there's nothing within it to hold it together."

Feeling misunderstood is not what creates the great distress. Abandoning our truth, our authentic self (or at least doubting our truth or our ability to know our truth) is the great betrayal, and when it happens we are left with the feeling of an empty shell, in which pain we often experience doubts and blame which are frequently turned inward (this is where we begin to experience the shame).

Being true to ourself when we feel misunderstood is difficult in a world that so rarely is emotionally safe. If we do express that we feel misunderstood, we are often met with defensiveness, annoyance, frustration, etc. of another. This is hugely frightening and invalidating, and is one of the reasons I so appreciated my client's visual (the fear of getting RUN OVER by the mass). So...as we continue to practice being true to our intuition, our gut, the spirit, our higher power, may we first accept the reasons we often abandon our truth. In doing this, we can offer ourselves understanding: "no wonder I sometimes abandon my truth...there is a fear of emotional death or at least being emotionally injured."

I studied business, marketing for my first college degree. When I finished school I began working. I ended up having seven jobs my first year out of college. I'd get a job...feel disconnected from my work and quit, then get another. People in my life began to worry about me, I began to worry about me. The messages I received (from others and my own mind) were things like:
-"you know, work's just work. You can't expect it to be perfect."
-"you've got the personality for this, if you quit you're not going to find something you like more."
-"maybe the problem is that you like to play too much."

...and so on. I felt the strong sense to continue searching for my line of work was misunderstood (even by my own self). Most of the messages reflected the idea that something was "wrong" with me, that feeling disconnected from my work, and the push to continue searching had to do with some problem, or defect, I had. and, for a good year I bought into these messages to a large degree. Often feeling self-doubt, and wondering what was wrong with me.

Discerning between our personal truths and mission, and our "mortal" desires- including the desire to be understood and normal (or abnormal...same plane, different angle), which are manifested in unbridled emotions and behaviors that don't connect us with our higher self, is a lifelong practice for most of us. As we practice attunement with our physical & emotional bodies we can better read the messages coming from our authentic self, allowing us greater courage to give up the need to be normal (to whatever we are accultured to), and instead rest within greater connectedness to our original self.

Best wishes to us all in our practicing!