by Jenny Rose | Nov 3, 2016 | Connection & Community, Emotional Intelligence, Shadows
A reader asked me, after my last post, what the difference is between engaging in reciprocity and people pleasing. This is a great question, and it gave me the subject for this week’s post.
First, I want to answer that question.
Reciprocity minus authenticity equals people pleasing.
If we’re engaged with others authentically, we naturally have things to offer out of our true selves. At its best, reciprocity is a dance between real people with real-person strengths, weaknesses and needs.
People pleasing is an indirect plea for love, acceptance, approval or attention. It’s all about trying to get something back, not about giving out of the abundance of true self. We people pleasers don’t believe we have anything authentic to give that anyone wants, so we watch and listen carefully and try to play a role we think will please.
The opposite of authenticity is pseudo self. I explored pseudo self when I went through life coaching, but a Google search will provide you with the history and background of the term. Wiki has a good page about it.
Photo by Alex Iby on Unsplash
Essentially, pseudo self is a survival mask that many of us start making as very young children. The construction of pseudo self is so deeply rooted in pain and fear that by the time we’re adults we can no longer tell the difference between the mask and our authentic selves, and the mask has all the power.
This kind of pseudo self is not like the superficial mask we all wear occasionally for social occasions, work occasions and family reunions. For the most part, we know that mask is a mask. Everyone around us wears one, too. Those masks are called manners and social skills (at least in polite conversation).
The survival pseudo self is a much darker mask. Think man in the iron mask. We create it and don it to survive, but over the years it becomes so much a part of us we can’t tell the difference between our flesh and the iron. It tortures us, but we don’t know how to take it off, and if we did know, how could we dare to do it?
Photo by Chris Barbalis on Unsplash
Our culture in the United States is deeply committed to keeping that mask firmly in place because our culture is based in capitalism and conditional love, and the foundation of capitalism and conditional love is the belief that we need to be different than we are. We need to buy things to be. To be what? Fill in the blank. Just to be. What do you want most? Love? Sex? Money? Power? Whatever it is, a half hour of commercial television will help you start a list of the things you need to buy to achieve it. Everything on that list is another rivet in the iron mask of pseudo self.
We are so brainwashed by this as parents, teachers, partners and human beings we unconsciously perpetuate a paradigm of conditional love. We relate to one another through competition, power-over, and all the things we need to be okay. We withhold love, affection, friendship and the “like” button. We’ve created a culture of pseudo self.
Being does not arise out of buying. We’re all born with the power to be. We have access to that power all our lives. Nothing can take it away from us, but we can be trained to surrender it. We are trained to surrender it, and we do.
Photo by Emma Backer on Unsplash
Many of us are actively taught from childhood to create a pseudo self. Telling little boys not to cry or play with dolls, telling little girls to be “nice,” telling women to sit down and shut up, telling anyone they should say, believe, eat, vote for, wear, be interested in, or want anything is supporting construction of pseudo self.
However, the pseudo self can be challenged. The iron mask can be broken down and removed. There are people who show us the way to authentic self, but it’s a stony path, because it means challenging the foundations of our culture and beliefs. It means challenging a lifetime of behavior and the expectations of others. It means breaking rules, and most people are not tolerant of those who break rules.
The post I wrote last week is an example of challenging pseudo self. Think about this. I’m a perfectly ordinary middle aged woman living in central Maine. My stats show I have about one hundred readers. Not even half of those readers know me or have ever met me, and I don’t know them. Only one or two readers have actually commented on the blog, and I have seven subscribers, most of whom are not friends or family.
Yet it took every bit of courage I had to post that piece. I broke just about every rule I’ve lived my life by when I did so. I challenged what I was taught about being attractive, being intelligent, being kind, being nice, being a peacemaker, being womanly. All this because I dropped the mask and expressed my frustration, my anger and my passion and used the word “fuck.” Repeatedly. In front of around one hundred people, most of whom are strangers.
Photo by Nicole Mason on Unsplash
I had a sick stomach and crying jags. I felt panicked and anxious. I didn’t sleep well. I haven’t been able to sit still or relax. For three days, I couldn’t even log on and look at stats and so forth, or do any behind-the-scenes work on the blog.
Letting the iron mask of my pseudo self slip was horrifying, but I also noticed a feeling of relief. The rebel in me celebrated. I dared. I allowed myself to be. I wrote the real truth about how I feel. Everything on the blog is written from the heart, but only the civilized half! The last post came from a different part of me, the strong survivor part, the primal female part, and that’s the best part of who I am. It’s also the least socially acceptable.
I usually feel like a mess. My life often feels like a cluster fuck, to use my favorite expression. If that’s too much for you, then substitute car crash, train wreck, or something you feel is more appropriate! I try really, really hard in life and my intentions are wonderful, but I’m not perfect. Not a perfect daughter, mother, sister, friend or partner. Not a perfect writer, blogger or anything else. But I am. I’m someone real. I refuse to live the rest of my life in my iron mask.
At the end of the day, when I’m dead and over, I don’t want a wake, a funeral, a party or a nice obituary. I want someone to be able to say:
“Damn, that woman was real!”
For more on pseudo self, check out this link.
All content on this site ©2016
Jennifer Rose
except where otherwise noted
by Jenny Rose | Aug 11, 2016 | Connection & Community, Emotional Intelligence, Shadows
Last week I wrote about stories. This week I want to discuss a powerful element embedded in the stories we tell ourselves — the element of expectations.
This subject is too big and complicated for me to address in a single post. It touches on parenting, every aspect of relationship, and really every aspect of our experience, unless we’re Zen masters. Here’s a sample of what other people are saying about expectations.
I don’t know any Zen masters and I’m certainly not one, so for the rest of us unenlightened beings, let’s consider the subject of expectations and how they work to limit us, others and life.
Photo by Paul Bence on Unsplash
Before I go further, a Google search of the term “expectations” will give you page after page of managing work expectations, and all the articles I looked at tell me expectations are necessary, positive and help companies, businesses and corporations be successful. Which means make money. So, for the purposes of this discussion, let’s put aside professional/work-related expectations. Let’s focus on intra and interpersonal expectations. Let’s be human beings instead of consumers and capitalists.
Expectations arise out of our past experience, our dreams, our hopes and fears, our unmet needs, our assumptions and our culture and family. They can be positive or negative. But expectations, like the stories we’ve created, are uniquely ours. We’ve usually made them up in our heads or accepted them from the overculture without question. I don’t suggest expectations are inherently wrong if we remember they’re just part of the stories we’re telling, but the problem is we don’t remember that. We cling to expectations and invest them with great certainty and power. They become our reality. This all happens internally and it doesn’t occur to us to check out what other people hope for or expect. It doesn’t occur to us to agree on terms or have a discussion. We just assume we’re all on the same page.
Photo by Igor Ovsyannykov on Unsplash
Here’s an example from my own life. My parents divorced when I was a child. In subsequent years, as I’ve married and had my own children, there have been references to “family.” What a “family” does or doesn’t do. What “family” means. The thing is, I don’t think Dad means the same thing Mom does when he talks about “family,” and I’m pretty sure neither one of them means what I do when I use the term.
I’ve never had a conversation with either of my parents about this, but I’m curious about their definitions. For each of my parents, “family” implies several expectations or rules of conduct about which I’m clearly ignorant and which I frequently have felt I’ve failed. Furthermore, I disagree with some of their expectations that I am aware of.
Life is full of words like this. Try these on: Parent, son/daughter, wife/husband, partner, friend, lover, teacher, mentor, girl/boyfriend, volunteer, etc., etc. We can define these terms pretty easily, but attached to each is a set of often invisible expectations. They’re very deep, so deep we never think about them. You know exactly what “family” means, right? No question. I know what it means to me. But other members of my family are clearly working with different definitions. So, who gets to decide? Who’s right and who’s wrong?
No one. Everyone.
And that’s not very satisfying, is it? It would be so much easier if someone could be right and someone could be wrong. Then we’d all know, and we’d all expect the same thing(s).
There’s still a problem, though, and that’s the real heart of this post.
Expectations, even if we could all agree on them, are so often limitations.
Photo by Jeremy Thomas on Unsplash
When we create and cling to expectations of ourselves or life, all our energy and attention is on something we’ve made up or inherited, and that’s so small, compared to the complex, mysterious, terrible, beautiful, enigmatic thing we call life! Our expectations are like a narrow beam of light in a dark universe. We don’t think about all the possibilities we can’t see, all the things we can’t imagine. No, we’re focused on that small beam, and if what it illuminates doesn’t live up to our expectations of self and others, then we’re angry. We break connection. We punish ourselves. We punish others. We blame and shame and try to make events, people, marriages, vacations, new homes, jobs and ourselves be what we expect them to be.
You might have noticed this doesn’t work.
Every parent has their head in their hands at this point!
Now our expectations are a real problem, because we’ve made them so big and powerful we can’t see around them. We can’t step back and consider what is. We can only think about what isn’t. We forget our sense of curiosity and joyous possibility. We only think about how disappointed we feel, how let down we are, how things never work out. We nurse our humiliation and embarrassment about what we’d hoped for, and what other people think of our choices. We make up stories about how we can’t trust people, and we can’t trust life, and we become cynical, bitter and depressed.
We make ourselves and others very, very small.
But we can choose to take the power out of our expectations, just as we can choose to take the power out of our stories. We can search out our expectations and root them up like weeds. We can take our focus away from unmet expectations and look instead at what is present, what is happening, and dream about what might be possible. We can accept our expectations are about us, not anyone or anything else. If they’re not working, we’re the ones with the power to change them.
We have enormous power in one another’s lives. If every single one of us extended to just one other person the question, “What would you like to do?” instead of “You will…” or “You should…” or “You can’t…” what would the world be like? What if you were ten times bigger than the son/daughter/parent/spouse/lover/partner/friend others expect you to be? That doesn’t mean you have super powers. It means you unchain yourself from the limitation of expectations, yours and everyone else’s.
One of the greatest gifts I ever received was this statement: “I want you to be everything you are and nothing you aren’t.” What a tender, respectful, loving way to hold another human being and life! And the best thing about it? We can say it to ourselves. We can start where we have the most power, in the place where no one can stop us or limit us. I say it to you, now, whoever you are, wherever you are. No expectations. No limits.
Live everything you are, be everything you are and nothing you aren’t.
Pass it on.
Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash
All content on this site ©2016
Jennifer Rose
except where otherwise noted
