Masks, Projections, and Affiliations.
Face it, we all have things we would rather NOT have the world see. The things we hide to get along in polite society but is the society so polite anymore? When you get down to brass tacks on the subject, who are you placating? What affiliations are you seeking? What projections are you making to fit in with a subset or mindset you wish to attain? What piece of yourself are you selling to fit someone else's construct of you?
When we are born, we are born into a subset called a family, this subset comes with rules, with regulations and with alas, baggage. Ancestral behaviors that have served previous generations well, but now may hinder our progress forward with limited and limiting beliefs in an age when anything, literally, is possible.
As we grow up, ideas are reinforced, do this, don’t do that. Some are basic as to be nice, which I think we can all agree on as a general rule. Then there is the golden rule, which many alter to their own needs, treat others as you wish to be treated, which dovetails generally, with the be nice rule. So we have the actual basis of a moral code, be nice, treat others well, followed by doing no harm.
In the home I was raised, do no harm was not one of the tenets taught, as my monster sought only to do maximum harm to others to attain their own needs, wants and goals, everyone else, be damned. I learned to Do No Harm from the rest of our subset and in reaction to the monster’s endless campaigns for Mo’ Money.
So to date we have, be nice; treat others well; do no harm, which leads to leaving it better than you found it, Thank You Girl Scouts. It is a good motto to have, seriously, because how many people cannot be bothered to police their own trash? And if you are like me, does it not spark a wee bit of ire on your part when you see someone being so careless with our planet and resources? (Okay, note, rightly twists my undies into a bunch with clenched fists and usually a smart-mouthed comment if the perpetrator is in sight, I will call you on it and I will shame you into picking it up. I don’t care what you think of me for doing it, and hopefully, you will remember this and NOT repeat it.)
The list is: be nice; treat others well; do no harm; leave it better than you found it. A nice solid list to start, right? What else is there? Table manners, respect for elders, politeness (be nice), no swearing (yeah, whatever, works great when you are a child, adult, well...), be as invisible as possible, don’t bother me for anything, you are not important, you are stupid, you are the worst mistake I ever made, I hate you, you are just like your father, patience is a virtue (which was actually not my issue, as it was the one assigning it to me.), you will never be anything, I nearly died (insert whatever here), I can make you disappear and you will never see anyone you love again, oh and make your own food (from 2 years on). Yeah, that is my childhood list right there, thanks, Mother.
So to recap, we have the good rules, and we have some fairly unhealthy rules in there, care to guess which ones I ignored? That is right, all the ones designed to hold me in place and under her power, those, which were NOT reinforced outside the hell (home it never was), easy peasy right? Well, hold on, programming takes time to overcome, it also digs itself deep into your psyche and you have to dig it out, like digging out errant flowers like Lilies of the Valley, you have to dig down, pull them out and do whatever with them, but you have to find them or they will come back harder and run amok in your garden beds, obliterating everything else in about a season or two if left unchecked.
As a self-defense measure, you adopt a mask, create a projection and you live in constant state of flight or fight. You have to know which way the wind blows, what the temperature is and how stable is the ground you are standing on? You need to roll hard and fast with the punches or limp if being tossed across a room and into a wall, that works best, trust me. Hurts less? No, but you will not hurt as long afterward. You create a tentative affiliation with the very monster who seeks to destroy you, for your own survival, because you understand that no one is coming for you and if you do anything wrong, they will make everyone disappear forever.
The first mask is the hardest, after that, they become effortless for the most part. You play parts for the roles assigned you, oh today I am being trotted out to show what a good parent you are, we wear this mask. Today you hate everything, we wear this mask and the invisibility cloak to avoid being seen at all and live in our room. These are just a few for demonstration sake, but you get a general idea. Sound familiar? Well, you are not alone.
Everyone has varying degrees of masks, work masks, home masks, school masks, shopping masks, driving masks (road rage for some folks), the trick is to not need the masks, to be one integrated present individual at all times. To live a cohesive existence and be happy in your existence, because you understand yourself fully, have worked and are working on healing yourself from your upbringing and traumas life has put forward for you to work on. We all play parts, but can we just be ourselves and live with the projections of others?
We project labels onto everything, do not deny it, it is part of being human, we label, we categorize things to save time in our brains (or so we think) and lump things together for sorting and understanding. Sadly, we also pigeonhole people into neat little boxes which they do not neatly fit into as we perceive. Point of View (POV) is great until we harm someone else with our projections of who they are, what they can do and how valuable they are to the world as a whole, based on a look.
Having grown up and understood the value of masks, I also understood and valued the role of observer, to observe what is going on, because when you are checking for weather, temp, wind speed, ground stability, you are in observer mode, you don’t realize it, but you are doing all these things from a place of habit and second nature. You see more, you hear more, you understand things others miss because you are observing, paying attention, instead of only paying attention to the fact whether or not you are gaining attention, by not seeking attention, you are attentive, you are what they call, present.
Being present, you are a human being, not a doing, you are still, you are focused on what you can observe, what you know is true and you can, therefore, control your controllables. If you observe things to be this way, you can do the things necessary to interact with them in the way that causes less harm, less disruption, fewer ripples in the water. If you just blindly forge ahead because this is how we’ve always done it, you have huge waves crashing on the shore and you are causing harm and major disruption and then you wonder why people react to you the way they do. You are not a cat walking on a mantel without knocking off the priceless glass, you are a bull in the china shop and people are not pleased at all.
Look inside yourselves, look and see what masks you wear, look to where you created those masks. Now ask yourselves, do these still serve me? Is there what I want to be known for? Is this mine or am I carrying someone else's steamer trunks? Is it time for a change? A re-evaluation? A reinvention? A rethink?
What projections are put upon you? What are the things people always say to you? You are (fill in the blank). Are these things, projections (masks) what you want people to see? Is this who you are? Are you okay with their projections, or do you try to appease them into seeing you how you want to be seen? Why does it matter what they think? What would just letting them think whatever do to you, in the grand scheme of life? Is there opinion of you really your concern? If so, why? Why are you seeking to please them? Check your masks.
Affiliations, oh this one is about belonging, why do you want to belong? What will being affiliated with X, Y, and Z bring you? What do you hope to gain? What is your goal? Is this who you are? Is this who you aspire to be? What piece of yourself are you willing to sell to be what you seek? Where is your integrity in all of this?
At the end of the day, can you live with the person in the mirror staring back at you, or have you stopped looking yourself in the eye long ago, when you started selling your soul off in bits in pieces to belong? What vision do you see when you think of yourself? What do you want to see?
I used to bristle at being viewed as a victim, because it was not my mindset nor mentality, even in the midst of the worst abuse, I would not surrender to it. No, not going to, it is just not in the DNA, I come from a long line of strong people, I can take this, I can overcome this, I can do this. Guess what, I did, but I also had to make peace with the idea that yeah, I was a victim of abuse, it is part of who I was and who I am today. Yes my mother was a complete and total bitch that 9 out of 10 people would like to kill (not even kidding, most common question asked after I tell my story, can I kill your mother? WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE??) and yet, I still love her, because that is WHO I AM, I Love the very person who tried to kill me, destroy me and used me as a bludgeon against other family members for their own gain. Why, because I love people, I cannot help it, seriously.
Does that make me weak, no, it makes me invincible, because I know I can survive anything and have. It has made me one invincible parent and compassionate human being because I know what it is like to live with hate, hate for no reason other than hate. Seeing someone in a constant state of fear and striking out at everyone, because that is who they are and watching how it destroyed them from the inside out. I have seen what hate does, I know how it feels to be hated for just being who you are, for the luck of your birth to the wrong person, who could never see the value of anything beyond monetary.
I survived my psychopath and I thank them for it because it has made me into who I am. I have survived indifference, hate, prejudice, ignorance, greed, violence and loss, yet I still stand, because I know the cycle will end, it ends with me.
Does this make me perfect? Far from it, but it does make me human and alive and able to feel, hope and dream. I dream of a time when we can stop having these discussions when small talk is replaced with real talk. When we learn to respect one another for who we are inside, not just what I can do for you. I look forward to a brighter, happier and more loving future, where we stop being afraid of our shadows and live fully in the light of day and see it for what it is, and not just how it benefits us monetarily, but as a people, all people, loving and accepting each other as one. I did not survive all that shit to get here and be like, um, no, that is too hard. I survived the hard to show it can be done and must be done in order for our species to survive beyond this planet and into other worlds for generations to come. -Namaste
originally posted 05032018
