Layer upon layer
02.15.06 (7:34 am) [edit] When I was young, or let us say younger, I naively thought that I knew myself pretty well. Now that I am moving on in years I am just beginning to understand that I don’t know very much about myself at all. I am beginning to think of myself as an onion, with an endless layer of skins, each covering up a certain amount of clarity about myself; with enough skins I guess you could say that I am quite blind to myself. I suppose what is obvious to others, may just be impossible for me to see. I remember a few years back I was in a group, and the leader of the group was a professional counselor. During one of the meetings he became a tad frustrated with me because he and the group were trying to bring something to my attention, and I had no idea what they were trying to do. As the meeting progressed I stated that I am just as amazed as they are about my not perceiving what they were trying to enlightened me about. I did not feel defensive in any way, I felt nothing, so I guess what they were seeing about me was a deeply ingrained blind spot, something that I don’t know what to do with, and seemingly impossible for me to see. After I said this, the leader of the group calmed down and understood what was going on and dropped the point. To this day I have no idea what was being brought up. I suppose I have any number of these blind spots, and perhaps will never be able to uncover them I think my blind spots whatever they are, cover up some aspects of psyche that is very threatening to my to my fragile self image, something that I am not ready to accept about myself, and perhaps never will. So I transpose that when I am dealing with my friends, when I am trying to get them so see something about themselves. I don’t push it, a waste of time, and what if I succeed in showing them what I see, before they are ready? Is it worth it? Well no it is not…… Repression is not always bad, it can be helpful, protecting the one repressing from falling apart by being exposed too early to things about themselves that would be harmful even crippling. I suppose becoming defensive is a way of protecting me from some truth about me that I would rather not look at. However being defensive, at least in my opinion, means that I know that what is being said to me is true; I just don’t want to hear it. There is a lot of emotion trying to block the information, a sure sign that it is not really a blind spot of the kind I was speaking of above. Others see me in ways that I certainly don’t see myself, and I mean this in both the negative and positive aspect of my personality. I have to live inside, while others can only see and judge me by my actions and words; my intentions are hidden from them, and perhaps from me also at times. I think it is when my intentions are hidden from me that they leak out to others, perhaps that is where some of my blind spots come from. What I am aware of stays with me, what I am not conscious leaks out all over the place. It is like being around someone who has a lot of repressed anger, it is obvious to others, but the one having the unconscious anger may not be aware of the control it is having over his life. Unless the anger can be named then it stays hidden until the time when the man or woman is strong enough to admit their anger issues….when that arises, it becomes theirs and not something for everyone else to experience. For instance I know that anger is an issue with me, because of this many of my friends don’t know that I have this struggle since I am aware of it, this can’t be said for hidden issues that I am not aware of however. Sometimes I feel together, at others chaotic, and lost, just trying to get thru the day. As I get older this inner dynamic is becoming clearer, but I don’t know what to do with it; perhaps nothing, it is just life, part of the journey. Inner conflict, inner peace, joy, sorrow, pleasure pain, chaos, balance are part of the interplay of life and I can’t be apart from it, not if I want to live a fully human life. Or perhaps the journey to becoming more fully human makes this struggle necessary and inevitable. |