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SELF REPAIR
Saturday Apr. 15, 2017
I admit to nibbling around the edges of meditation but not seriously pursuing it – I thought I might be able to find a solution there … but no luck.
I’m a quiet shy introvert.
To clarify – quiet shy introvert, self-trained to appear otherwise.
Outgoing, forthright, sometimes seen as gregarious – not fake, it’s learned. Not natural, it’s necessary. To make our way socially/economically with sanity intact, we need (I believe this to be both true and widely accepted – but perhaps I’m wrong …) to interact with others, we need effective communication and social skills to cultivate relationships of any kind to get our needs met, to put food on our table, roof overhead and for income.
Don’t we?
There are people who get by without those – not just lost tribes in jungles – homeless, incarcerated or reclusive ‘inherited wealth’ folks. They seem to manage.
But I’m not in those groups.
If you are like me, it’s enough of a challenge to take care of myself, my needs, my life, my business, my interests, my friends, my family, my dog – without spending time ‘acting our way through life’.
So, where am I going with this?
These are arbitrary choices. Made by us, by our peers – our society, parents and teachers molded us into what they saw.
Yet, how could they possibly see, in me, what I couldn’t see in myself not matter how deeply I searched?
And how could they guess the right/wrong of it?
I was this quiet shy introvert who didn’t tell them. And, more significantly I think – nobody asked!
When people are ill, physically or emotionally, their doctor needs them to participate in their care and treatment. They need to tell where it hurts, how they feel, describe the pain, explain what is wrong. Otherwise that doctor is guessing just as much as those teachers and parents were.
I can’ fix you any more than you can fix me.
We can however DIY – do it yourself. Fix ourselves. Like of those self-repairing nylon zippers – we have to reverse it a few times, but the parts back together again and thereafter things are smooth. OK, not always smoot, but soother …
But we need to be engaged in that fix don’t we?
We need to ‘participate’ in our own care, our own wellness, our own improving.
It isn’t about goals or scoring is it? It’s about understanding and being understood, about listening but more than that, it’s about being heard.
Are we telling, asking, opening ourselves us, sharing our ‘whatever’ to anyone?
Or shuttering it inside, keeping it out of the light – waiting for someone with a flashlight and enough caring to make a difference. And when they do, are we cowering in a corner unwilling – or standing, forcing ourselves, to be in the light, to be exposed and vulnerable.
I’ll label myself: shy introvert seeking same.
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