On Pretending

Is anyone else tired of pretending? Wearing masks, shielding themselves with armor, holding back their true voice? Me too. 

Sometimes pretending is fun—a nice game in which to creatively engage others with joyous connection. Sometimes pretending takes the form of childish learning. Sometimes pretending is wearing a face you don’t mean and speaking with a voice that’s not your own. 

You have thoughts and opinions about mask wearing and armor collecting—and you have raw vulnerability underneath them. The naked Self. 

How does one come to learn they’re not allowed? Not allowed to speak, not allowed to be seen, not safe to explore, not okay to live, not able to move, not allowed to just be. 

Before you know it, you’re wrapped tight like a mummy with shreds of linen labeled “safe, acceptable, small”. Essential pieces of you ripped out and contained safely in canopic jars away from your entombed body. A pretty face painted on the casket of who you once were. 

I believe it happens sometimes slowly, sometimes with dramatic events—no matter how, it is one soul-crushing, soul-stealing experience at a time. Purposefully, ignorantly, or unknowingly. 

Twist this root and the pulp which drips out says, “you’re too much”. 

It comes down to a fundamental lack of capacity. We all come into the world as nothing short of being a genuine Self. As we grow an extremely important and essential process of socialization takes place. This process trains us how to effectively function in the world. It is also carried out by people who filter what is and is not appropriate or allowable. 

We therefore are taught externally to limit ourselves until we can more fully develop our own ability to internally limit. But the process of socialization is not merely based on what is true, what is noble, what is desirable—sometimes (perhaps frequently) it is based on the selfish needs/desires of others, preferences, and fickle emotions. 

So, the people in our lives pick up embalming tools such as socialization, inability, and brokenness to remove our internal organs and wrap us up in those linens. 

It is for this reason that I claim it comes down to lack of capacity. When we are taught that others won’t love us for who we are, we learn to hide. When we hear anger in a voice as we are difficult ourselves, we learn to protect. When we feel wrong just for being, it makes us not want to be.

So, I am going to ask again, are you tired of pretending? I’m inviting an ancient voice deep within your Self to remember what it was like to be you, before you were taught that you’re too much. 

There are those who exist that have the capacity. The capacity to hold you, the true you and they’re waiting for others to come along who hear the call. They need held too. 

I’m a tomb raider that’s made it through all the booby traps. I’ve kicked open the tomb door, broken open the locks, and axed in the pretty painted face. I’ve taken my torch and burned the linens from your mummified corpse, and now I’m slapping you in your rotten and desiccated face screaming at you to, “wake up!” 

And when you do and gasp at my candor I’ll spit in your open mouth before you can utter curses for my disturbing your slumber. It’s time to break forth and reclaim the jarred parts of you that once rejoined will lead you to come back fully alive. The world of the living calls. 

Will you awaken or continue rotting?