"To Thine Own Self, Be True"

I've no idea if Socrates really said that. I have believed that to be true for my whole life. But I've also done a lot of thinking about true and what is true for me lately. I re-encountered this whole concept during my Like A Pro training. It made perfect sense. It resonated. If I cannot be true to my self, how can I accept the requests of others? Now I take up a different question, posed by the brief reading of 'This is How'. In that, the author suggests that we lie to ourselves. A lot. A lot more than we know. I won't quarrel with this assertion, as I tend to think it's more or less on target. But it leads me to ask about myself. If I cannot be fully in my own true self, if I cannot find, define, or unlock the "real me", ever, then being true to myself seems, well, kinda problematic. How might one ever know that one is being true to ones self if the truth of the one self is either obscured or unknown? Which leads me to ask, perhaps quite logically: how on earth does one discover the truth of who they really are? That deep, dark secret place we never open up? Does it mean that the many persons I know that, given this same question would likely answer "well of course I know who I am", would be predisposed to answer that all of this is a crock? That the "real self" is woo woo? That the "real self" is a fiction we create to avoid life's unpleasantries? I tend to think not.

Assumptions

Odd. A simple "hi" leads to an absurdity of complication. I say "we seem to be fellow travelers. Wanna share?" and I get "No thanks. I am not interested in a date". Eh?

Honestly, I am sick to death of the communication problem. It's read into like no tomorrow. This is the kind of thing that drives me away.

Road trip.

I think.

Rejection and self

The past weekend was very hard. I was told, in a clear way, at a time when further processing seemed unlikely, that my outward appearance was something that drove people away. I was asked if this is what I intended, which was odd.

It took me a long time - the better part of 30 hours - to really process this, and it hurt like hell when it landed. It's taken me 3 days to get out of the worst of the pain of it, and I'm still on the edge. I still am reticent to see others, be around people.

I've a lot of things to reflect on.

It's just that this one is really painful.

Know thyself?

I'm having a lot of trouble choosing.

That's the simple line.

It's more than that, though, it's a lot about things like taking care of myself, of being ok with asking for what I want and saying what I don't want.

I just don't know where the boundaries are.

In fact, I am often unsure where MY boundaries are, and that speaks to the larger issue.

So in this specific case, I cannot decide what I want to do on a given evening. There are only so many hours in the day and week - how do I spend them? At the same time, there's part of me that is oddly resistant to the interests of a particular person. I find it can smother me at times... but is that the real issue?

And maybe what I am struggling with is how do I LEARN to detect when I am being honest with myself in a way that is clear and open and not disguised as something else?

If I don't want something, then I need to be OK with saying I don't want it. It's a flavor of no, to be sure. And since I don't ask a lot, then it gets sticky quicky for me. Don't ask means I may be prone to BEING asked more, and if I am unsure of what I want AND not sure about saying yes or no, it fast becomes a morass. Then I start to try and piece it together, to make amends, to "perform" so that I won't be subject to disapproval and/or recriminations.

So I am still stuck. Is this boundary stuff? No stuff? Disapproval stuff? Do I feel better, do myself a favor, by saying "no"? Or "yes"?

Privilege

I have a lot.

so many have so little.

It's time to move on.

Time to give back in more tangible ways, perhaps.

Irrationality

There's a lot of "stuff" behind my reticence and anger over the camp.

I realize that quite a lot, maybe all of it, is largely irrational.

And that leads me to consider that a lot of it is about my feelings around my father.

So when I say I am harboring resentment, it is not resentment directed towards my siblings, but rather a deeper resentment directed to my now dead father. I push back against "do this, be this person", and that is a lot of what I hear when my brother expresses HIS resentment around the camp. It hits me, andI get irrational, and I fail to see that it is about my own resentment.

Step one: do a better job about taking care of myself. Learn to TAKE that time I need to be whole. Whatever that is, let go, let it happen, do it.

Step two: own this.

Step three: let go. None of it matters in the context of the camp itself. Either use it and like it or let it ALL go.

Choose.

Time out

[draft for ideas]

Events are not "time for me" they are not "downtime". So when I go, I need to allow for recuperation, down time, afterwards.

My internal creativeness whatever that may be, is stifled. I need to open that up.

Both of the above play into my feeling I cannot achieve intimacy, as I am so wonting for the above that I tend to push back at others in order to try and get it... and since I am not aware that that is what I need or want, that push back comes out wrong and hurtful.

And I am discovering that when I DO allow "time for me", when I let it go, let me take precedence, that it generates useful information and feelings.