Tag: pretend

• A False Appearance Called You.

  Between the comments, a conversation and reading, it came to me that this isn’t unusual this indirect conversations. And in fact, the bigger the ‘secret’ or point the bigger the fear and the consequences or fall out will be.

  There is a payoff for not talking directly, it allows you to be in a pretend safe zone. Get that, a pretend safe zone or a pretend friendship, or a pretend relationship, a pretend love.

  A pretend love. What is that?

  And how is it that we are more comfortable being a pretend self, than being a truthful one.

  I know I was fricking inept when it came to being myself. I had no clue. I was frustrated, anxious, nervous, a mess, a total basket case, BEING me.

  How is that possible, that we wear the mask of pretend with ease even if it doesn’t cover up the resentment and fear that lies beneath?

  What I know for sure is that we fear a big fall out equal to the level of fear we have IF we were to be ourselves and REALLY say what is on our minds…as well as the size or the extent of the secret.

  In my family it was gigantic, earth shattering big.

  In other families it is huge and life changing for sure.

  But we fail to realize is that it will change the pretend fearful weird exchanges we have with each other to truthful ones.

  I recall my sister asking to be my friend on face book (after a four year silence and vast differences)…and being this new frank self…I asked, “why do you want to be my friend and told her she may not like the new me and that she best to go to my blog and read.” She came back and said, “Nope, not that interested”.

  While that hurt, it also set us both free from pretending. I didn’t want to begin a second time around with her and leave my frankness behind.

  Now it seems quite silly and childish or immature to even entertain the idea of pretending to get along…And that whole sentence is wrong for little children are known for their frankness.

  So, maybe it is not silly or childish, but just lingering on junior high, where we will do anything to get along, to be liked, to be part of a group. We pretend to get along and in doing so live a pretend life.

  That to me is so tragic, that many many people live their whole lives as somebody else…or for somebody else.

  Self loving is not ever having to pretend. I LOVE that.

  I used to pretend to have no fear of my father.

  I used to pretend that I had no resentment against my mother.

  I pretended that she made wise choices or that they didn’t bother me.

  I pretended and pretended and pretended, until I lost complete sight of who I was.

  I looked up the definition of pretend. “To give a false appearance.”

  Yes, I was afraid of my father and I acted like I wasn’t.

  Each and every time we pretend or cover up a feeling or not speak our truth, we lose a little bit more of ourselves…and gain more and more of a false appearance.

  Who knew that by sparing another you would create a false appearance or false self. And here is the deal, you are only fooling your self that if you don’t address each issue, that they fade away and disappear.

  They don’t.

  They are with you always.

  For your feelings can’t be erased by pretending.

  Love can’t be formed by pretending. Friendships are not bonded deeply in pretending. All pretending does is pretend that it isn’t so…when it is.

  Isn’t it funny, you thought you were fooling another when indeed you were fooling your self, creating a false appearance called you.

  October 10, 2011

  appearances, false, out, pretend, self, speaking, truth, you

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• The Only Place I Can Be.

  I am wondering about the Bug called Worry and how it can bite at anytime, how it can sneak up and take you out of any enjoyment you may be experiencing or perhaps not even let you go to enjoyment, instead you dance and waltz with Worry.

  My brother spoke of a Panic Attack, would this be an attack from the Worry Bug?

  That out of nowhere this bug sneaks in and steals your peace, attacking this moment of time?

  When I found myself right side up in what felt like my upside down world, it was a world that opposed what the bug dreamed up.

  It seemed like there were two worlds, the Mind Bug and Reality.

  This Mind/Worry Bug was relentless, and what I did was to take that bug and slam it with Reality over and over again, showing it what is.

  I literally had to put pen to paper to see what this Damn Bug wanted me to do.

  Mostly it pulled me away from my life and into lives I had no control over, it ripped me away from my peaceful home doing what I loved to do, to go into someone’s life I had no business being in. It painted people in colors that were so off color from what they were actually like and then had me worrying about letting them go.

  Maybe its nickname could also be Meddling or Hell.

  Even today I may take a quick trip with it and see a future fear or horrid life, a sad and lonely existence, but it feels so bad, I yank myself back and hold on to something in my nowadays world.

  If you had to pick this Worry Bug out of a lineup what would it look like, where does it live, how does it operate and who invented this???

  I am sure some religions call this Bug the Devil.

  What I think it is an untrained mind. A mind that is totally out of your control and one that hates reality.

  This bug lives anywhere but in the here and now.

  In the past six years I have been treating this mind like an unruly child, and find that I can oppose many of its thoughts and when it comes in and tromps into a moment of enjoyment, I can listen for a moment, but can make the choice as to what to believe.

  As a woman who lived for many years in the land of pretend, I find great comfort and peace in the land called reality.

  It is here that the Bug has a hard time beating; it usually falls down when faced with what is.

  Byron Katie says, “Reality wins only but 100% of the time!”

  I welcome this bug into my reality, but I usually have a dialogue with it before I head out into the land of unknown.

  When I find myself powerless, stressed and out of sorts, you can be damn sure that the Mind/Worry Bug has led me astray from reality.

  What I do to bring me back is grab on to anything that I can hold onto and be with my breath. For where my breath is the bug can’t be.

  Where am I breathing, who is here now, what is going on, feeling my reality as a blind person uses Braille; I settle back into Now.

  For Now…is the only place I can be.

  February 15, 2011

  byron Katie, life, loving what is, mind, pretend, reality, stress, thoughts, worry

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• Associating with My Truth

  I have been fighting my body for so long, fighting with the feelings I have inside, tormenting myself as I struggle to not do, what it wants to do.

   

  I fought my body to be close to my parents.

  I fought my body to respond better to my parents.

  I fought my body to feel comfortable with my family.

   

  I was frustrated it couldn’t just relax, be normal, chill, and be a normal kid, a loving warm child.

   

  It was like there was an inbred system that didn’t respond correctly to the outside.

   

  It blew cold when it should have blown warm.

  It then blew warm when it should have blown cold.

   

  I felt best when I was far from my family. That is odd to know of yourself.  I could then relax and be myself.

   

  I am a freak of nature, for I don’t have the loving warm comfortable feelings I am supposed to have with family, mine are replaced with a cold standoffish chill. 

   

  So, I had to pretend what wasn’t within me ‘naturally’.

   

  The day that my father was exposed as a pedophile was the day I stopped pretending.  The cold fear within me was not unnatural, it was natural, and I was okay.

   

  I was okay within me. My feelings and my body were acting perfectly.

   

  I am perfectly okay and natural as an abused child can be.

   

  It is perfectly natural to fear those who harm you.

   

  There is annihilation between body/feelings and you when you are abused, and perhaps that is the real meaning of disassociation, we left our feelings behind.

   

  It was either annihilate the feelings or annihilate the parent.

   

  If you annihilate the parent you are out in the cold….

   

  To live in complete annihilation from your feelings and your body, is to live half alive.

   

  There came a fork in the road where I knew the cost that came with my self annihilation, the cost was me and many other little girls to follow. 

   

  When I didn’t speak up in fear of that man, he continued on.

   

  I was the imposter, I was the pretender, I was unnatural, and I went against my feelings to fit in.  I will not do that any more.  I will fit out and be shunned for associating with my truth.

   

   

   

  September 10, 2010

  abused, association, betrayal, blame, disassociation, fear, feelings, of, pretend, ridicule, self, shame, shunned, truth

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• The Land of Pretend.

  “Notice When Your Thoughts Argue With Reality”

              Byron Katie

   

  I know as I approach working full time, my head has to be on board; my thoughts have to agree with where I am.

   

  If I am riding around in the mail car, ‘wishing’ I were at home, it will be hellish working. My attitude at work will be affected by how I am thinking, and my demeanor will reflect my thoughts.

   

  Tossing mail will not make me suffer, but the thought that I should not be tossing mail while I am tossing mail, will.

   

  It is amazing it is never where you are that makes you suffer, but ‘thinking’ you shouldn’t be there that does.

   

  Accepting where you are at all times seems like a no brainer, but Notice When Your Thoughts Argue With Reality.

   

  Notice how many times a day you say, ‘I should be…, this shouldn’t be, I wish it didn’t, I don’t want….

   

  Those little phrases are the doorway to hell or illusion.

   

  Each time something happens and your first thought is, ‘it shouldn’t be, you are attaching to a thought that is arguing with reality.

   

  “It shouldn’t be is a thought…it is a ticket out of what is.  It is hailing you to come on board, to leave the scene of what is, to walk away, to escape into the land of pretend.

   

  August 19, 2010

  arguing, be, byron Katie, happening, loving what is, mind, pretend, reality, shouldn’t

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• A Pretend Story In Front of It.

  "One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest."     Maya Angelou

   

  While rereading many of my old posts, I can see where I had built up a story outside of reality for 46 years and how I was un-telling that story and then retelling the story with actual facts.

   

  It is like there were two separated stories going on at the same time, but only one has actual actions.

   

  In one post I talked about either tending reality or pretending reality wasn’t there.  I would now say, that we can either tend this moment and what is, or pre tend another moment yet to arrive, or past tend a moment in the past.

   

  Pretend. (V)

  1.    act as if something were true: to make believe that something is the case or that you are doing something by using your imagination or acting skills

  2.    make insincere claim about something: to claim untruthfully or exaggeratedly to be or to have a particular thing, or imply something in this way

  3.    make something seem to be true: to act in a way intended to make somebody believe something untrue or misleading.

   

  I am first of all shocked that the word pretend is a verb, and secondly it speaks of ‘acting’ like it is an action, not just a mind game, but that it actually has actions.

   

  I know that this may really show my stupidity, but I am in awe that pretending something requires an action. “To act in a way intending to make somebody believe something untrue and misleading.”  Shocking.

   

  While I have been comfortable with my mother’s blindness, this somehow makes it more assaulting.  It actually shows that a person has to know the truth and then work on misleading. 

   

  She was attacking the truth with actions of pretend!

   

  It just proves that she knew and that she tried to act her way into a different reality, to mislead her children down a road that led to nowhere.

   

  I am blown away that pretend is actually doing something.

   

  “To hold before, or put forward, as a cloak or disguise for something else; to exhibit as a veil for something hidden,” is another meaning of pretend.

   

  It just floors me that in order to pretend, you have to know the truth and then put on an Act to cover, mislead, to throw on a veil and hide something.

   

  She led the long line of pretenders, steering us always away from the truth, we marched along like willing soldiers, creating a veil for which my father was able to hide behind.

   

  This unties the tangle that I had inside of me, the twisted up thoughts of her having to know, and yet her actions of not knowing, I couldn’t seem to justify or find clarity there. 

   

  I had her lost in her mind, blind to His actions. Instead this puts her as a full fledged participant.

   

  Pretending has nothing to do with staying in this moment tending to what is, it actually is to act out in front of this moment as a shield and a disguise, a magic act.

   

  I guess I felt better knowing my mother somehow was incapable of digesting the truth, this shows that the truth was there all along, and in front of it she acted like it was not there.

   

  I must now look at my pretend actions.  My pretending I did not fear him.  I acted like I wasn’t,  I acted fearless, I was acting in front of the truth of being in terror.  Trying to pull off no fear.

   

  Somehow this makes life seem more complicated, yet more simple, which is why if you are willing to know the truth, it will appear, for it was there all along.

   

  When I stated that I simply couldn’t pretend to pretend to pretend anymore, I literally had no idea that I was unable to act anymore!

   

  I even recall stating that my scripts and lines were all wrong, that I left the stage of their madness.

   

  I was horrified to know what my scripts and lines supported, I was one of the many actors acting out normal in a very dysfunctional family.

   

  Somehow knowing that they all have the truth within them, and that they are pretending out in front of it, brings me peace. 

   

  It is not up to me to deliver the truth to them, to be the one to show them the truth that is already there, what I guess happens instead is that they get tired of acting

   

  Acting out in a play where all they can ever be is a supporting actor, to the main characters of mom and dad.

   

  How sad to spend all your time and efforts on a pretend family.  How sad to have a family lost in pretend.

   

  I really didn’t fully understand how this all was orchestrated.  Somehow I missed the whole picture, I did not see them out in front of truth, I saw them without the truth.

   

  I saw them not knowing the truth. 

   

  They know, but are working hard to pretend in front of it.

   

  The truth goes nowhere while the pretend dance goes on in front. 

  I can see clearly now both the truth and the veil in front of it.

   

  Not only are there two separated stories, but one is clearly designed for the purpose of shielding the truth, and that is what I find so shocking.

   

  If you didn’t know the truth, there would be no need to build a pretend story in front of it.

   

  December 16, 2009

  dysfunctional actions, pretend, truth

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• There I was!

   (Awakening Intuition by Dr. Mona Lisa Schulz)

   

  Maintaining the Façade.

   

  When I told you about my brush with death at Brown, I said that the feeling I had was that of my façade falling away, so that nothing stood between me and the world around me and I could sense my complete oneness with the Universe and all its beings.  This, in fact is a very common experience for people who’ve come close to death, whether through illness or accident or some other life-threatening event.  They immediately get in touch with their seventh emotional center.  They suddenly see life in a completely different way. They experience what is known as primary intensity, which means that they feel life in a particularly immediate and intense fashion.  They feel things, hear things, and see things with great clarity.  Nothing separates them from the raw energy of life around them.  No veil obscures the harsh realities of human existence or cloaks the full exhilaration of passion and creativity.  These people have no more façade.

   

  As most of us go about our day-to-day business of living, our façade protects us from the more difficult, less pleasant aspects of the world, and the human beings we share it with, such as all the constant, sometimes necessary hypocrisy that permeates human dealings.  In fact, people who lose their facades find this very difficult to bear; they can’t listen to others tell even little white lies, watch the games we play, or observe their manipulations and machinations without having a strong negative reaction.  While this sort of greater honesty might seem like a good thing, it can actually make life in some ways more difficult and painful, because it sets you apart and can make you seem irritable and antagonistic.

   

  Another consequence of not having a façade is that it also opens you up completely to intuition.  When your façade is removed, nothing stands in the way of your feeling all the world and tapping directly into the pool of intuitive knowledge.  That can be, of course, wonderful. But there’s a danger in losing your façade.  While it means that you can all at once hear or see or feel everything that’s going on, you can go too far into the vulnerable aspect of this and begin to hear everyone’s thoughts and feel everyone’s pain, even literally, in your body.  This can truly be extremely painful. 

   

  Surviving a near-death or life-threatening experience almost invariably changes people.  A woman who comes close to dying from breast cancer but is pulled back by chemotherapy and radiation is changed to a certain degree, forever. Such people commonly make a lot of external changes in their lives as a reflection of this.  They may change their jobs, their relationships, and a lot of other things.  After about four years, a degree of normality returns, some of their façade will come back and they balance their seventh emotional center somewhat better between power and vulnerability, but they never completely lose that connection with the Universe that has been revealed to them……

   

  When I read this part in her book it totally explained how I felt, how I was left standing naked against the world.  And I could literally hear, see and feel way too much.

   

  My husband said that I was like a scared rabbit when we would go out in public, and I literally felt that there was nothing to protect me.  That I could feel the negativity coming at me, the false or insincere messages silently hitting me.

   

  However, I was also extremely affected by nature and its glory, the immense beauty that seeped into me from there.

  I was literally brought to tears each day seeing the sun shining as I stepped out for my walk.

   

  To be open to the wonders of the world at the same time to feel the abrasive negative, left me forever charged, open and feeling, the best and the worst.

   

  The façade I wore for 46 years was ripped off of me in one fell swoop, and left me standing there wide open.  Now I have the explanation from a Medical person. 

   

  When I seemed overly sensitive, overly dramatic, and overly knowing, I was literally that!

   

  Somehow someone’s experience that echo’s your own, makes you feel less weird.

   

  And she is right, I have not lost the connection with the Universe, I still feel utterly connected.  I also can hear, see and feel much much more than ever before, but I have also created more self- power, and less vulnerability.

   

  My new façade or new me is so much more aware and feeling than the old me, and it has been about 4 ½ years so she is right, we do find a new normal.

   

  I am blessed to have had my façade broken for it opened my connection to the Universe, and shown me who I really was.

   

  My façade broke and there I was!

   

   

   

  September 11, 2009

  connection with Universe, hearing and feeling too much, intuition, pretend, seeing

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