The Man in the Glass

So I'll speak on a slightly more personal note today. This week has been very uncomfortable for me. I don't mean to sound dramatic, nothing particularly awful has happened, I just mean that for one reason or another the experience of being me has felt quite painful. Even writing about this has been difficult, I suppose I'm reluctant to admit it or talk about it even to myself. Every time I put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard), I feel as if I am saying the wrong thing - I feel as if I am exposed in some way. While I feel this way, my thinking is a little self-involved and that certainly makes me more nervous about saying exactly what is on my mind, but I'll try to be as honest as I can.

At the risk of sounding like a wistful poet, I have been plagued by the idea that there is something fundamentally wrong with me. How is this linked to fear? Fear of self I think is a good way of describing my current experience. Guilt becomes Shame. Regret for what I have done becomes fear of what I am. This makes me want to retreat into myself, an experience I'm very familiar with.

What started this chain of events? Something and nothing - a few things. I've fallen behind on some bills. I've fallen out with a friend. I've been on an unsuccessful date (or more accurately a string of unsuccessful dates). In truth, I think my current emotional state has been building for a while but these are the things that seem to be in focus.

So firstly, the bills. This is a recurring problem for me, and I could have been a little more proactive. However, rather than simply paying them and moving on, I found myself caught up in a peculiar sort of daydream...more than an oversight, this became an indictment of me. "What is wrong with me?", I asked. "Why at 34, can I still not manage my own finances? With the opportunities I've had in my life, why am I still struggling to make ends meet?". This discussion has at times been continuous and quite loud. It's like having a "nagging partner", except this partner lives inside my head and absolutely nothing can silence them.

Secondly, the friend. Some weeks ago, I had a fairly serious argument with a close friend of mine. I put the phone down on him and haven't spoken to him since. In situations like this I can be quite childish...I find it hard to forgive or make the first move and feel somehow I'm "in the right". But of course, there's a comedown...whether I'm right or not I'm still left without a friend. I seem to shrivel spiritually and find it hard to reach out beyond myself.

My failing here, I think is my unwillingness to forgive. My FEAR of offering out the olive branch, of making myself vulnerable to manipulation or rejection. But the critic in my head is more damning; this is just more firm evidence of my undesirability. Why do I find it so hard to maintain close friendships? Why are there so few enduring relationships in my life? Why am I so unlikeable? For one reason or another, it is true to say my close friendships are often relatively short-lived, so the critic in my head is offering some pretty compelling evidence here. As always, when I'm critical of myself, I take the accusations very seriously! They certainly seem to reflect very real failings on my part.

Lastly, if the fear of being unlikeable weren't enough, I've been facing the fear of being unloveable. I've always been a little bit vulnerable in this area...from fear of rejection, I've spent much of my life away from intimate relationships. Now I'm not a monk, but I think it's fair to say I'm much less active in this area of my life than I could be. So recently, I decided to force myself out of my comfort zone and get in to a little old-fashioned dating. One way or another, this has been enlightening but painful for me. Facing fear of rejection, fear of seeing myself through other peoples eyes, exposing myself as embarassingly needy and vulnerable, all the things I've tried to avoid doing for most of my adult life. Monday last week, I again made myself vulnerable and faced a little rejection. I'll just say that the circumstances this time seemed a little ridiculous - the young lady in question shot me down in an almost comical way. I found myself wondering why this has always been so difficult for me. It's as if, I tell myself, there is something so fundamentally wrong with me that the more a person gets to know me, the more repulsed they will inevitably feel.

Add to all of this an argument at work, a general feeling of awkwardness and now I have a knot somewhere at the centre of my stomach...a gnawing sense of inadequacy that has been quite difficult to tame. The slightest thing serves as a reminder of my general failings as a human being. I'll be going about my business when all of a sudden I am hit with a reminder that, unlike most humans, I am deeply unloveable. It's curious, I would never allow another person to be spoken to the way I am speaking to myself. I think the only reason I normally allow it to go unquestioned is because it is very rarely this loud...occuring as it does just below the level of consciousness. Being so quiet it manages to be ever-present but go unchallenged. Why it has suddenly come to the fore is a mystery. A painful mystery.

So what is the answer? How can I live without this fear of the man in the glass? Without paying mind to the constant critic who lives within me? Very, very difficult to answer for me, especially right now while I am still so close to the problem. I know that this feeling will subside, I know that I will survive. I suppose that I must try to ignore this voice for now, to live with the discomfort that it brings without taking it too seriously. This doesn't mean to stuff it down or pretend I cannot hear it, I've made that mistake before. But live with the pain and learn to take it less seriously. Attempt to remain open to life despite the urge to retreat within myself.

I also find that a perfect antidote to spiritual pain like this is to take it as a cue to grow as a person. Living in pain and growing beyond it is character building. I can even learn to take responsibility for some of my failings. These feelings sometimes come from a sense of shame, of failing or falling short of a mark which cannot be helped in the short term. But at other times, the may come from a sense of guilt, breaking a rule or falling short in an area that could easily have been rectified. The beauty of finding such transgressions is they can easily be put right, amended. What better way to address a sense of inadequacy than to correct a mistake and to act differently in the future. Spiritually cleansing.

Painful living this week. I'll try not to take myself quite so seriously over the next few days(!). In the meantime, I hope I can grow beyond this...I've felt terribly...well small and pathetic this week. Fear of self I believe causes us to shrivel...we feel impoverished, not loved enough and our capacity to love is diminished. Not how I choose to live my life today, but nevertheless this is where I am today.