Lifeletter #178: To Be Seen or Not To Be Seen (This is the question)

There was a period in my life quite a while ago, in which I started getting up close and personal with the teachers, coaches, mentors and healers in my field. I wanted to know what was going on in their most intimate relationships, the ones with their husbands, wives, partners, children, closest friends, and colleagues.

I felt like an undercover agent, who might have appeared at first to be interested in what they were offering into the wider world. But really I was much more interested in their primary relationships, the truth of their lives in the closest, most intimate circles of all.

What I found was that many people who are very successful, charismatic, dynamic and creative in the wider circles of their lives, are often struggling very deeply in the inner circles. And they are not really wanting to talk about it, or shine a light on what is going on, or get real help and support. Some of the teachers and healers and coaches I worked with actually asked me not to share what they told me about their private lives.

My uncourageous life
doesn’t want to go,
doesn’t want to speak,
doesn’t want to carry on,
wants to make its way
through stealth,
wants to assume
the strange and dubious honour
of not being heard.
–David Whyte

I believe the tendency to conceal this part of our lives is part of our collective shadow. Of course, there are natural boundaries that need to be respected. I don’t mean that we need to go around divulging all of the details of our intimate relationships. That would be neither skillful nor appropriate. Nevertheless, the strong tendency to privatize our lives in this way is something that is holding us back. It’s a self-protective gesture, based on fear shame and insecurity, no matter what we think our reasons are for concealing the difficulties we are having. It makes it difficult for us to respect ourselves and each other, right down to the core of who we are.

To illuminate what is going on here with compassion and kindness, we need to understand how strong our cultural agreements are in this area. We are all participating in them, in the hiding, in the tendency to struggle on bravely by ourselves, and maintain some kind of appearance that is quite different than the reality of what is going on. We have been trained to believe that our students or clients or colleagues would not respect us and our work, if they knew how difficult certain parts of our lives actually were. We imagine no-one showing up for our sessions, courses, conferences and workshops, if they had a good look at the way we are in these inner circles of our lives.

I feel that a deeper transparency would go a long way toward healing and liberating the ancient patterns that we are up against in our closest relationships. The fights we have behind closed doors, the anger we feel and do not want to admit to, the estrangements, the regrets, the grief, the shame-all of these things follow us around, no matter how successful we may be in the other world. And eventually the weight of what has not been acknowledged, integrated and included takes a heavy toll on us.

This tendency to privatize certain parts of our lives, to isolate them, and present a better face to the world, also prevents us from respecting our struggles as some of our deepest resources. When I look back at my own life, and the immense difficulties I have had with my daughter and with my partner, I know that it is walking through these fires that has matured me, evolved me and transformed me, more than any retreat, any training, or any book. Just showing up, day after day, facing myself and my own limitations, and discovering how to take the next step forward. And sometimes I could not take one step forward. I had to stop and feel how stuck I was. I had to burn in the fire of my suffering. I had to fall on my knees and pray for help, for light, for some kind of clarity or grace.

A couple I worked with quite a few years ago was thrashing around in some deep waters. I asked them one day, “What kind of support are you getting with this from your friends?”

“We are not,” they replied, “because we haven’t told them what is going on. We are too scared.”

“Do you think they are all doing better in their relationships than you?” I asked.

“It sure looks that way,” one of them said.

“How things look and how they actually are, are two very different things,” I told them.
“I encourage you to share with your friends what is going on with you. ‘Screw your courage to the sticking point’ as Shakespeare put it, and try it. The ones who judge you and abandon you are probably not the friends you need right now.”

The following week they came back, in a very different state. “We did it!” they told me. “It was amazing. Our friends were so kind, so tender with us. And we found out that lots of them are having trouble too, in this area. They were also too frightened to let us know.”

I grew up in an alcoholic family, where the implicit rules were “Don’t speak the truth, don’t feel too much, and don’t ask for help.” I learned my lessons well; so I have to work all the time with the tendency to hide, to offer a good appearance to the world. I notice these tendencies take a long time and a lot of willingness, to transform. They might appear to have changed, but often they have just become more subtle.

I am inspired and touched these days by the revelations about transparency and vulnerability that are arising in our collective field. Gabor Matte is a great example. Through his willingness to share his own deep struggles, thousands of people have been helped. Just looking at him, it’s obvious that this is not a man who has everything together. He looks raw and ragged, and these particular qualities have not stopped him; they have actually served him. You can listen to Terry Patten speak about the Secret Practice of Losing Face, or read Toko-pa on The Bravery of Being Seen

I don’t have to walk around with a mask on my face. I can learn to feel, to open and to align myself with something much more alive and beautiful than my habitual face. I can choose courage, I can choose honesty, over and over again. I can listen to my courageous life and let it lead me forward, one baby step at a time.

This first
courageous life
in fact, has already
gone ahead
has nowhere to go
except
out the door
into the clear air
of morning
-David Whyte

with love,
Shayla