How do you stop the performance when you strongly believe that your superior and very controlled performance ensures your safety or even your worth?
When it's not safe to express painful emotions, you can create a camouflage of success and tight control. Your life can become a performance where you must always be "on" and successful in the role you're playing.
Camouflage. You wear it to hide, to be able to do something in secret, to escape detection but get some job done. Right?Stop and think about who and why people wear camouflage in daily life. Hunters want to fade into the woods. Soldiers need to stay protected and hidden from the enemy. Thieves wear dark clothes to blend into the night. And then, there's the whole animal world to consider. Over millions of years, animals had a greater chance of survival if their outer skin helped them escape detection. Or blend into whatever surface they were on. Stick insects look like real sticks of wood. Deer disappear into the landscape. Fish turn different colors, given how shallowly or deeply they're swimming., or abuse—you don't or can't let others see those feelings. It's not safe for you to express or even recognize them. So, you push them far away from who you"seem" to be publicly. And you begin performing your life. You begin to play the role you think will work best for you and will keep you from harm. Over time, you can become highly invested in keeping others out of your inner world. The only thing you allow them to see... is a practiced, even-keel, in-control version of yourself., relentless efforts at keeping your performance at its highest level. You can become exhausted but still need to look strong. In a moment when you might feel the creeping desire to ask someone for help, you push yourself relentlessly to be independent. In charge. You can fear anyone peaking under that lid of camouflage, so you religiously check that it's locked in tight.I'm a messy person. And my closet reflects that. One of my nephews lived with us for a while, and he joked,"Aunt Margaret, you always look nice when you come downstairs. But how you pull that off is a mystery." I'm not proud of this fact. So, of course, when"people are over," I don't invite them to peek into my closet. I prefer them to think that if I look"put together" on the outside, then the inside of my closet would look pretty good. The more I might be invested in that persona of neatness, the more urgent I'd feel about keeping that door solidly closed.So, how do you stop the performance? How do you allow someone in, to ask for help, to admit struggle—when you believe or have believed that your superior and very controlled performance insures your safety or even your worth? It's a difficult challenge.It's work. But it's very important work. Because you are more than what you accomplish. Your life shouldn't be all about checking boxes—"Did that. Got that." And maybe.... just maybe... after you've begun this work, you can pause before donning your camouflage. And decide instead to share. To connect. To live this moment in whatever state of being you're in.is the author ofSelf Tests are all about you. Are you outgoing or introverted? Are you a narcissist? Does perfectionism hold you back? Find out the answers to these questions and more with Psychology Today.
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