The Challenge of Being Seen

I have been hanging out with a friend lately who is in a big growth and self-awareness phase. I have been (I hope!!) supporting and challenging- listening and caring, but also to lovingly teasing and nudging. Part of this dance yesterday was me being very present while my friend talked, until they squirmed and asked me to stop looking. I told them I couldn’t. I said, “I see you”.

This moment, I think, touched both of us. It was powerful to be a participant in this moment. But when my friend flipped it and asked, “and who sees you?” I got a taste of the other side. Ouch.

 

My answer- somewhat flippantly and somewhat defensively- was “no-one”. Which is partly true. I have many wonderful friends in my life who are there for me at various times. And I will admit that each of them is there in parts of my life. But I feel like I keep the parts of my life separate. My wonderful supportive sister has never been on a spiritual adventure with me, where a whole other side of me comes into play. My city friends don’t really know my practical farm girl self. But no-one crosses all my boundaries. I don’t let them.

We all secretly want to be seen. We want to be understood. Just about every week, I see several “How to Love a (insert star sign/characteristic/behavior here)”- Scorpio, girl who travels, girl who reads, introvert- they all have their own “how to love them” manual. And I bet, I truly would put money on the line, that at least 90% of the people who click on those articles are in fact the bearer of the said star sign/characteristic/behavior rather than their lovers. I bet.

And what does that tell you? That we all seek to be seen. To feel understood. To be heard. But this is a secret wish. A wish that makes us feel vulnerable. A wish we hide behind masks. I am great at hiding behind masks. Here are a couple of my go-to choices…

      1.    The “easy-going” mask

I am not so much being the ‘good girl’ or repressed ‘nice girl’, but I very rarely feel any need to rock the boat. On the contrary, I feel the need to pitch in, help out, be accommodating, simple to deal with. Not out of fear of not being liked, but mostly just because I can.

I am easy going- everyone else has such busy lives, of course I can accommodate your schedule; I can meet whenever suits you; I don’t mind if you cancel or change our plans. And most of the time, I truly don’t mind. But sometimes, I fucking do! Do not mistake my kindness for weakness. I want to matter too.

      2.    Detached observer mask

This kind of snowballed out of control when I became a therapist. I could hide behind my professional detachment, not only not having to share anything of myself, but also withholding my thoughts and feelings from my everyday life. Problem is, the more personal the other person gets, the more I withdraw. This has not worked out so well for me in “deep and meaningful” relationship conversations.

What I really want to say is, “Stop talking AT me!!” Let me breathe. Let me think. Give me time to connect and answer. Because I won’t speak rashly. I will not retaliate or play tit for tat. But I don’t say all that. I just hide.

So here is my thought for today… Nope, it is nothing as simple as “what masks are you wearing?” because that is a level 1 question, and I reckon we are probably all a bit further down the track than that. My questions are: who do you secretly want to see you? What hints are you dropping, what signals are you giving, all the while hiding behind your masks to ensure that even when they look, they won’t really see you anyway?

Because this is what we do. We create this secret wish to be seen and engage in crazy behaviors trying to be noticed, but not really showing ourselves at the same time. We see this shit in movies all the time. We are fed fairytales about how the ‘right’ person will love you no matter how much you hide. That the ‘right’ person will get your hints and see straight through your masks.

BULLSHIT!

Own your crap people. Yes, we all want to be seen, to be loved for who we are. But we are all running around hiding who we are! This is craziness! We are so busy wishing someone else would see us, understand us, that we don’t see and understand ourselves.

I don’t have any brilliant answers. I am the person who hides herself from the world, behind ‘happy’ and ‘capable’ and ‘independent’. But I know that I am a person who is trying. I am a person who owns her secret wishes. I am person who would read an article entitled “How to Love an Aries” knowing full well she would rather be reading an article called “How to Survive Being an Aries”. Because it is lovely to imagine someone else loving me, seeing me, understanding me, but I am not in control of that. I am only responsible for loving, seeing and understanding myself.

I see me.

Why I am Quitting Love

Yep, you heard me. And no, this is not one of those lovely inspiring “find yourself first” posts. This is a tired, jaded, over-it rant. So, my sweet innocent readers, turn away now. If you are just venturing out on your own for the first time, go and read one of those nice “spend time on and with yourself” posts. My fellow jaded lonely pissed off souls, join me now for a little dark therapy.

Looking back over my writing is like a reading a roadmap for my heart. It starts with reveling in the love less travelled- finding love in life outside of relationship, moves through all the clichés of being single, into the quagmire of online dating and into a new courage to look at love.

And in this time, I have had a few crushes, I have dated a few men (briefly), and I have even had a little bit of sex! And it has mostly SUCKED!!!

Would you like the sampler rundown?

-    ·      The guy I had been involved with who posted a video of me online to promote his workshop on overcoming depression. He used my full name in the video tags, so a search for my writing would give readers the impression I had overcome this serious condition (which I have never had and make no claim to have overcome!!).
·      The guy I had a massive- can’t sleep for thinking about him- crush on, who despite us being friends and hanging out most days, didn’t tell me he had fallen in love with someone else. I heard via the small town grapevine.
·      The guy I dated briefly while travelling, who abused me in an email after I pointed out that stealing a motorbike helmet was not cool. He then expected us to hook up again next time I saw him.
·      Several unrequited crushes- too unrequited to mention.
·      The guy I travelled interstate to meet who turned out to be a wanker (that’s Australian for ‘full of himself idiot’). I agreed to ghostwrite his new book (his third) and we wrote 2 full chapters before he ghosted me with no further explanation.
·      The guy I travelled interstate to meet (yeah, I know, I know, but I hadn’t been to either of the places before, so at least the travel bit was fun!!) who fibbed about his height by many inches and had the correlated “other shortcomings”…

That is all not to mention the “perfectly nice but dull” first dates and the indecent online proposals!

And so, I am done. I will not make any more decisions based on crushes, attraction, cute guys, potentially cute guys, sparks or magic. Anyone I like on sight is hereby instantly ruled out. My crushes will be ruthlessly crushed. Sparks will be put out. Attraction will detract. Consider this my resignation from the game of love.

And here is the part where I would usually offer a witty and clever new perspective. Something insightful and evolutionary that I will be doing instead. Something to help my lovely readers see this from a new point of view. But nope, I’ve got none of that today either. Today, I am just done. I am tired of being disappointed. I am tired of missing out. I am tired of dates and conversations and repartee and innuendo. I am tired of not being the one. I am tired of being only one. Tired.

 

Ah, gentle reader (if you braved it this far and didn’t run when I told you to in the beginning), never fear. It is likely this will not last long. For if life has taught me anything, it is that this too shall pass (and PMS sucks). My trademark incurable optimism shall return and I will fall hopelessly in crush with someone new, someone amazing, someone cute and inspiring. I will probably even swipe right again or log back in to a dating site or something equally as foolish. I shall rise above my decision to not make any decisions based on wanting a relationship and intrepidly set sail back into the stormy waters of love.

One day.

Spiritual Tourism- A Trip of Faith?

Tourism, like most other industries, has trends. Backpacking, gap years, eco-tourism, voluntourism- they all have companies catering specifically to their corner of the suitcase market. The latest trend,  building over the past few years is spiritual tourism. With the growth of yoga and mindfulness has come the desire for our holidays to also have a deeper connection, a bigger meaning than beach umbrellas and plastic souvenirs.

I am not really known for being particularly on trend, but every so often, I find myself accidentally caught up in something that has caught on. I first found myself being a spiritual tourist when I signed up for a month long course on Buddhism at a monastery in Nepal. I was going to Nepal to do some trekking and wanted to study philosophy at the time, so thought the course would be a good way to understand the philosophical basis of Buddhism and justify the expensive plane ticket.

It turned out to be the most fascinating month, but not for any of the reasons I would have thought. The course itself was actually a study of the Lam Rim, the Buddhist basic text, so it was more like Bible class than philosophy. And even more disappointingly, debate, dissention and dissection were discouraged! The course was being taught by a Western monk who struck me as being a bit like a reformed alcoholic- Buddhism had “saved” him from his previously sad and aimless life and he would hear nothing against it. As someone who had gone from zero to zealot, he had no middle ground- there was no space in his belief system for moderation or discussion and it was not encouraged in the group either. It took me a while to realise it was him, rather than Buddhism as a whole, but I was still shocked that he was not as warm and sweet as the Dalai Lama!

I definitely did not become Buddhist in that month but I did become more certain that dogma, no matter how sweet the leader, was not for me. I did become more aware that I was not going to follow someone else’s idea of what was spiritual and I did become more confident in my own random path.

Since then, I have travelled to participate in the ceremonies and practices of various spiritual traditions. I have spent a lot of time in Bali, where their unique form of Hinduism steeps the island in a unique magic. I have been cleansed in sacred fountains, meditated in temples and travelled in large groups of locals for blessings and pilgrimages. I have done kirtan (devotional chanting) in the Grand Canyon, I have meditated at the sacred sites in Peru and ingested plant medicines in the jungle. I have astral travelled with a shaman, I have had tantric bodywork, I have connected with my mind, my body, my heart and my soul with various teachers, gurus and guides.

And I have learned oh so much! About myself, about fellow travellers and about those who set themselves up in the spiritual travel industry. Like so often happens with these things, the quiet success of the original few operators has spawned a plethora of wanna-be imitators. From sexual assaults in ashrams to people dying from plant medicines, the risks of following the wrong spiritual path can be serious.

As a traveller, the best way to find the true teachers is to know someone who was an early ‘spiritual tourist’ or who hippied off to live somewhere awesome and knows all the true spiritualists. Going to the country first and asking around sometimes works, but you could just as easily get scammed and sent off to your taxi drivers cousin or neighbor or any other random person. Going to place and asking other expats might get you further, but even then it will depend on who you come across and who they have come across.

So here’s my conclusion- you won’t really know if the person you have been sent to or found on the internet is the real deal or not (though you won’t find many old-school spiritual practitioners on the net, you can find guides who will take you to them). You just have to do as much research and homework as you can, get as many personal recommendations as you can and then take a leap of faith.

But here’s the other thing: I have never been on a wasted spiritual journey. Even when the other people in the group have been driving me insane, even when I did not feel like the teacher understood where I was coming from, even when I left the retreat early, I have never felt like I made a bad choice.

I know you think I am going to say something about being able to learn from every situation, or every choice being perfect for that time, but I’m not. I am going to say that none of these situations were a waste because I made them count. If the guru didn’t understand my questions, or tried to give be rote answers, it made me more certain that being myself was ok. If the rituals and practices seemed trite, I quietly connected my own was in my heart. If the other travellers had totally different beliefs and agendas, I listened as much as I could stand, then tuned out to good music or practiced finding my happy place.

And because of all of these experiences, I am spiritually tough. I know exactly where my connection with the energy of the Universe sits, I know how to tap into that under just about any circumstances, I know how to say no to participating in things that don’t feel ok, I know how to tell a guru to get out of my energetic space. Being a spiritual tourist gave me the chance to just be spiritual.

So if you are looking for a holiday with a deeper meaning, go for it. Do your homework- most operators have some sort of TripAdvisor entry and I find that is a great way of weeding out the dodgier setups- but don’t be too afraid to take a leap. No matter what happens, I guarantee that your faith in yourself will thank you!