Pretence

How much of your life is pretence? Do you ever find yourself in a conversation where you are smiling and nodding but your mind is on a completely different path? And how do you feel about yourself when such a thing happens? Because here you are, essentially you are an honest person and yet there is an element of untruth about the way you are behaving. Have you slipped into the people pleasing mode, have you become split, mind and body moving in opposite directions? I’m very guilty of this, I get drawn into situations where there is unkindness and yet I find myself giggling, it feels all wrong and yet I seem incapable of saying, ‘Stop this is so very wrong.’ In fact I have a sense that the emotion preventing this is one of fear. Though I’m clearly going to have to sit with this behaviour and try to work out what is going on. Im thinking that it’s a dangerous environment, toxic, your emotional well being has become compromised, you know this is happening, you are uncomfortable completely at odds with who you are, your principles, what you stand for, the essence of what makes you ‘You.’ Essentially you are lying, not only to the other being but also to yourself! This game of pretence can be draining and as I’m writing this I’m thinking that essentially I want to be liked, not wanting to ‘Rock the boat,’ to be agreeable. It does however create an inner turmoil, a confusion. A deep hurt that goes right to the heart of me, that rips through me like a butchers knife slicing through the skin of dead flesh, except my flesh isn’t dead, it’s very much alive!