Masks of Denial (Comment - 17 January 2008)

It seems that our hurts and dissappoinments encourage us to retreat further and deeper into the guarded armour we wear in anticipation of the next blunder, the next potential battle of heart-break. We know we wear this guard as if it is part of who we are, and eventually we fool ourselves into truely believing this is so.

The guard, I have observed, comes in many forms, has many natures - the person may hide behind their intellect, engulf themself in IT, venture into and lose themself in fantasy and imagination, wear the mask of indulgent socialising, or the by-product of padded armour from over-indulgence eating. And we convince ourselves that this is who we are. It seems that we then surround ourselves and associate with others who also partake in this activity of denial - we try to make ourselves feel better by mixing with those we sense are suffering a similar denial-of-the-self dilemma - so that we can pull the wool over our eyes along with them, and not be doing this alone - be a sheep in the flock, so to speak. It doesn't matter that we are in fact hurting ourselves (for we convince ourselves otherwise of this) by wearing our guardedness so vehemently - why do we refuse to honestly see how this practise wrenches us from our true nature? We stop ourselves from being our truth for fear of having to stand alone to do this, we lose a love that we always dreamt of because our lie veils us from living out our true potential, facing and realising our deepest hearts desires .... and then we wonder one random day why we feel so empty inside? Why this gaping hole that threatens to engulf us? Why so dissatisfied with life, unhappy and dissappointed at not realising what we REALLY wanted to, the dreams we had as a child, that we never had the courage to follow as an adult?

I decided from very young (and have worked hard at reminding myself) that I'd rather face my own horror of pain, than miss a chance to truely connect with the mystery of life and love, as I've always dreamed of it being since a child - through myself, and another.