Have You Taken Off Your Mask?

Wearing a mask can be a rather insidious form of dishonesty. It is very enforced by our social norms and interactions. Since social decorum is required to a degree for a civilized society to function, this makes it very difficult to ignore since my ego believes it to be an accepted Truth.

I received this poem from a good friend and subscriber who lives in Florida. It underscores issues I have raised in several of my posts about the importance to me of being honest. Perhaps you will discover how important it is to you, too.

“Out and about, I started thinking about Halloween and the masks people wear.  And then it struck me that we all wear our own masks all the time. What mask do you wear to hide the real you? I hid behind the mom mask, the student mask, the wife mask and now the “old” mask. 

HALLOWEEN MASK

By Jeanette Zanghi

Phony people

Wear a

Plastic mask,

Evil people

Wear a

Monster mask,

Sweet people

Wear an

Angelic mask,

Take off

The mask,

Don’t hide--

“You” are

Beautiful.

Wearing a mask can be a rather insidious form of dishonesty. It is very enforced by our social norms and interactions. Since social decorum is required to a degree for a civilized society to function, this makes it very difficult to ignore since my ego believes it to be an accepted Truth.

By being honest – I don’t mean being brutal. Brutal honesty is simply another form of anger and aggression. For example when people innocently (we presume) inquire “How’re ya doin’?” you don’t need to tell them to f**k-off because you don’t feel like being sweet today. When people ask for your opinion about something or some issue, you don’t need to berate their sense of dress-code or their intelligence. But you can say honestly, but gently, that normally stripes don’t go with plaids. That you used to think the same way about those issues, but have since read X, Y, and Z and now have come to different conclusions. That’s wearing your honest-but-gentle mask – rather than hiding behind the always-need-to-be tactful-even if it means don’t answer their question-for-fear-of-hurting-someone’s-feelings mask.

By being honest – I don’t mean sharing delicate personal information that is unnecessary for your honesty. For example you don’t have to tell your 12-Step group or your bridge buddies or your yoga class members or the cashier at the grocery store that you are “kinda down” today because your erectile dysfunction kicked in last night and you disappointed your mate and that always makes you feel inferior. You don’t have to tell the folks who have asked, “How are you today?” as a matter of common courtesy, that your PMS kicked in big time yesterday evening and you called your husband a slovenly SOB, hit his head with a frying pan, kicked him in the groin, ripped out some recently planted hair plugs, and sent him to the Emergency Room. Since you are dreading going to see him, you are feeling “kinda down.”  But you can say, “I’m feeling ‘kinda down’ today. Sorry I’m not my perky self.” That’s wearing your as-real-as-I-can-be-for-today mask, rather than hiding behind the always-need-to-make-people-feel-good-because-that’s-what-active-listeners-do mask.

Jeanette’s poem is right on the money.

Being as honest as I can be in whatever situation I’ve found myself in has been critical to my overcoming toxic shame. It’s been critical on my journey to sobriety and the transformation it effected. It has allowed me to feel comfortable (not arrogant and mean-spirited in the name of honesty) in my own skin. I’m certainly not perfect but, as a good friend continually says in our Course in Miracles (ACIM) meetings, “I’m a work in progress.”

Today – at least – that’s enough for me. To be honest. To be a living example of WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). To be without that sickening feeling inside that the “me” you think you’re dealing with isn’t the real me. Unless you’ve been there you can have no idea what a true relief it is to be without those inadequate, dishonest, this-isn’t-me feelings.

Thank you, Jeanette, and thanks for listening. As always – feel free to forward this message to your friends, family, and those accompanying you on your spiritual journey.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!

Don

#3 November, 2012

Copyright, 2012

 PS: I will be traveling to my daughter’s over Thanksgiving and the ensuing weekend. There will be no message on November 25.

My Lost Thoughts Have Simply Become Piles Of Intellectual Dust-Bunnies

I saw a cute saying while in New England recently. It went like this: “Have you ever stopped to think, and forgotten to start up again?”

Catchy.

It made me really smile as I read it. Since then I’ve seen quite a few signs/placards of that same saying.

But as I continued to stroll around that New England day – people watching and enjoying the history that has been lovingly cared for – I found my mind toying with the idea behind that saying. As I was thinking, I became aware of the flitty-ness of my mind: I had some really good points to make in this post, but watching a little girl trying to control her feisty Jack Russell terrier, and – poof! – gone was one of those great ideas.  Had I forgotten to “…start up again?”  No. That “great” idea of mine was just a flitting thought of which I have thousands a day. No single thought is more profound or more mundane than any other. They are just flitting thoughts that float from somewhere, pass through my consciousness, and disappear into nowhere at the appearance of the next flitting thought. The only thing that stops a thought from simply being flitting is my grabbing that thought and keeping it at the center of my attention at the expense of the next queued-up flitting thought – which might also be profound. Which might be from the Holy Spirit!

I get up from my chair in the office and walk into the kitchen. I stop. “Why am I in here?” So I go back to my chair, get up again, and walk again into the kitchen. Quite often that works, and I remember what I was going to do. Sometimes, even that doesn’t work. Another lost thought.

Perhaps all my great, but lost, thoughts have ended up as piles of intellectual dust-bunnies next to all my lost socks.

However catchy and cute that saying is, I am seriously reminded of the non-existent world my flitty mind has created. This has been very true this week of the election. I have found myself very attuned to all the hype, excuses, rationalizations, explanations, angst, and smugness that have found their way in all the news talk shows. Obama won because…. Romney lost because…. Obama wouldn’t have won if only …. Romney could’ve won if only …. As I listened I found myself right in the thick of it: “No! No! You’ve got it wrong. That’s not why he [won/lost]. What’s the matter with you? That earlier commentator got it right [Loose translation: I agree with him/her] – Why can’t you see that? [Loose translation: I don’t agree with you].

Walking the dog this morning, I found myself having a discussion with Bill O’Reilly of Fox News. I was getting angry and incensed. What the hell was really going on? We were about to leave to enjoy a beautiful autumn day in our new Toyota Prius, my dog is totally fascinated with some new-to-him scent, and I am virtually (but silently!) shouting at Bill O’Reilly with words of unbelievable wisdom.

Is that absurd or is that utterly absurd?

Just be glad that I am no longer drinking. If I was, I’d be on the phone trying to reach Bill O. Sometimes I think if someone could actually witness the thoughts that flit through my mind, they’d call 911 and have the little men in white coats on me like ants at a picnic, replete with a bottle of magical Thorazine and little rubber duckies to keep me company.

And I ACTUALLY LISTEN to this steel-trap mind of mine! Not only do I listen, I actually believe its perception of reality to be factual and true and my job is to convince all who’ll listen of these utterly absurd “facts.”

Thank God for AA and its firm belief that I cannot take myself seriously. That’s why there’s always so much laughter in an AA meeting. When I hear people overly exaggerating about themselves (or about others) it’s truly funny – and it’s always very truly TRUE about me. So I laugh – through them at me. And it heals me. And it centers me. And I hear the voice of my Higher Power speaking to me. And it transforms me.

Most of all I am brought back to the reality that gives me some peace: I am not my thoughts. My perceptions are a self-created dream, like everyone else’s perceptions. As difficult as that is for me to comprehend sometimes, it still remains the only way I sense a little bit of actual, peaceful reality in the midst of the capricious flitty-ness of my mind.

Again, this message is really for me. Thanks for listening, and – as always – feel free to forward this message to your friends, family, and those accompanying you on your spiritual journey.

Don

#2 November, 2012

Copyright, 2012

I Need To Stop Beating Myself Up

I get really frustrated with myself quite often. My ego keeps telling me I shoulda/coulda/woulda all sorts of things if I were really spiritual. As a result, I find myself getting – not just upset with me – very upset with others. My serenity goes in the toilet. Spiritual? Ha!

As I began really understanding the messages of a Course in Miracles (ACIM) and its similarity to much of the spiritual truth I found in AA, I began getting anxious and frustrated over my lack of progress in all things spiritual. This has not been a new phenomenon for me. Whether I was playing tennis or learning to play golf, or enjoying springboard diving, I would work so seriously to improve my skills that it ceased being fun. It had become work. Frustrating. Exasperating. Counter-productive.

The same process occurred with my journey into sobriety. Very early on in AA I found myself reading through the Twelve Steps and wondering, “How difficult can this be? I mean, when you read the early accounts of the pioneers of the Fellowship, they were going through the Steps in a month or less: Accepting that their lives were out of control; doing a moral inventory and sharing that with someone; making amends where they could; and moving on to doing Twelfth-Step work – sharing their lives with still-active alcoholics.”  Within several months I believed I had “gotten it.” I was ready to tweak Bill W’s version of the Program. In fact I was ready to be the reincarnation of Bill W. Then I found out that there were many of us in my groups ready to assume that same role. How could that be? How could so many of us be convinced we were correctly improving the Program yet vigorously disagreeing with each other?

Finally I understood how idiotic I was being. After eating many, many slices of humble pie I relaxed and found myself enjoying simply being one of the herd – growing, morphing, changing, becoming transformed from the inside out.

As we say in the Fellowship, we strive for spiritual progress not spiritual perfection. Applying that to my growth in ACIM, I am really trying to follow that message while on my spiritual path. If it all seems so simple why is it so difficult?

For me there seem to be four incremental steps of my growth in ACIM:

1.     .       First I need to comprehend what the Course is explaining. This world is a dream and I am the dreamer. What I see as reality is simply my perception of things, which is no more valid than anyone else’s perception of things. I am constantly on the defensive (or on the attack) when people challenge my perception. I am not what I think. I am not a body. I cannot – through an act of my will power – perceive things as a loving Son of God. My role is to be a savior of the world by being a partner with Jesus the Christ – offering Forgiveness and the Atonement to all. However, that is up to the Holy Spirit, not me. All I can do is acknowledge that the world I see is my perception, forgive myself and my perceptions, and then ask the Holy Spirit for another way to perceive the situation. This process – Forgiveness/Atonement – is what I’m to be all about.
2.      .     I think I intellectually understand step one. Now, I have found myself to be very attuned to when others are defending and justifying their perceptions. I try to notice this in a very non-judgmental way, often playing all sorts of mind games to convince myself that I am not judging people, only noticing and observing. But I’m judging and I know it. Back to Step 1.
3.     .      Thirdly, I am moving to understand that what is really important is not how astute I have become in spotting the ego-centric perceptions of others, but recognizing the “reality“ I attribute to my perceptions (this is the if-you-spot-it-you-got-it syndrome I learned in AA.) – especially those I’ve masked in an aura of ACIM-approved perceptions. Of course, there are no ACIM-approved perceptions – that’s just the slickness of my rapid-fire, steel-trap ego mind. Back to Step 1.
4.      .     Fourthly, I am to begin living in the Now experiencing the reality of the Son-of-Godness in everyone I meet. These encounters, called Holy Encounters in ACIM, have been very brief but very intense. They are orchestrated by the Holy Spirit, not conjured up by me.

I know my transformation is a true progression: 1, 2, 3, then 4. However, I spend most of my time moving from 1 to 2 and back again. Every once in a while, I touch base with 3 – but it is usually very brief, then I am back to 1 again. I certainly do not live in the state of 4. And, trust me, I never let myself forget that. I get really frustrated with myself a lot. My ego keeps telling me I shoulda/coulda/woulda all sorts of things if I were really spiritual. As a result, I find myself getting – not just upset with me – very upset with others. My serenity goes in the toilet and I’m back to step 1.

Progress not perfection.

Although this message is really for me, thanks for listening, and – as always – feel free to forward this message to your friends, family, and those accompanying you on your spiritual journey.

Don

#1 November, 2012

Copyright, 2012