BEING INSECURE AND UNSURE of ourselves when interacting with the social world, the world of business, the world of human relations, we tend to put on costumes that hide our true identities. Fearing rejection, we pretend to be someone else, so as to be accepted by others.
A costume is something that is not natural to you. The ordinary clothes that we have on now, this is our natural clothing. But a costume is something that's artificial, that you put on for the purpose of trying to act like someone that you think other people expect you to be, instead of being true to ourselves.
Not only that, when in a crowd, we’ve become adept at acting out multiple roles, all at the same time. By becoming aware of this, our unconscious interactions with others is raised up to the conscious level. Even if our mind is telling us that we are being genuine, we will become aware that we are acting out different roles, none of which is who we really are.
We’ll realize that pretending to be nice, caring, loving, compassionate, is very stressful. It’s a difficult job to keep up a false front just to look good in someone else’s eyes. It’s not to say that we are not kind and considerate, but when these niceties are forced, then it’s a sham, and deep inside we know it.
"Your inner self knows exactly how to be real when in the company of others,
so what a great opportunity, all you need to do is take notice!"
We don’t have to 'do' anything... in fact we can’t! If we try to be ourselves, we won’t succeed, it will be just another charade, another costume. When we use effort and try to act naturally, even though we may think it’s the real you at the time, it will only be another pretence at being someone we’re not.
Being aware of the roles we are playing means we are learning about ourselves. Our task is to liberate ourselves from the bondage and pretence of the false self. We may continue to act out roles, but with self-awareness we’ll catch ourselves out every time. Our pretending won’t be unconscious anymore...
Dan’s Quote: “We are so busy wearing masks that we’ve forgotten who we really are.”
Header: ‘Coolum Beach’ on the beautiful Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia
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