Saturday, February 07, 2009

Me too

I have a question too

Seems Nat and Lisa have had the same mindwave as me this week

My question is

"Who do you 'present' as to others?

I will give you an example

I know a lady who suffers from many physical complaints

In fact, her whole world revolves around her ailments

She suffers from about 20 different diseases

This woman used to be drug addict and is no one we know in blogland ok

When she got 'well' she got sick

...and each year she gets sicker and sicker

When you meet this woman and ask how she is, as you do, she immediatley launches into a full-on narrative on exactly what she's going through today

You do not ever again ask this woman how she is, because she will tell you, for hours

By using her 'illnesses' she manages to avoid having to do any work on any other part of her 'self'

Every illness this woman has is one of the ones the doctors cannot ever really find a cause for...

Do you see what I mean?

This woman identifies herself as sick and in pain.....

and so she is.

She may as well walk into a room and introduce herself like this

"Hi I'm Sick, nice to meet you"

So, my question, who do you 'present' as to others?

And why?

BTW.....I don't expect an answer :0)

Its just food for thought

Hmmmmm

12 comments:

Natalie said...

I think the question wave actually hit me last week, while i was thinking how to help someone who seemed to be stuck. I thought that this week , I would facilitate a group discussion each week in order to address things that we humans get stuck on. Didn't know that thought was going around like a virus.

Myst_72 said...

I'll have to give this some thought.

Your painting are so fantastic they are distracting me from reading!

"Hi...I'm Distracted...nice to meet you"..he he!

G
xx

Michelle said...

Well Nat, you know how it works. Actually, I think you probably started it all so we will blame you :0)

Jewell said...

i think that we all try to "present" to others what we believe to want or need to see?!

Chrisy said...

...and sometimes we present to others what we think they need to see...thinking of children here...

Unknown said...

yes,agreeing with Helen here- the image that we see in our mind is what we will present to others- we present what we want others to know about us-I'll give you an example- you know how on blogger there are the profile boxes- they are the perfect example of people showing others what they want them to know about themselves- profile boxes give people a chance to select what inforamtion about themselves they want others to know and can give a whole insight to that person.( that is often not the insight the person intended to give)
You know what i mean- blah !!!!

Yes, questions are good, but be aware, they lead to more questions and YES I always know who will answer your email even though you are a dreaded couple !

love you to pieces xx

Melora said...

It's all about acceptance and conditioning. You show the aspects that you feel others are expecting of you in the situation relating to your past experience. Seeing as how on the whole we are taught that feeling icky inside is a bad thing we try to fight it when we really need to go with it. If being "truthful" is not what you think will be accepted you will not push through the icky feeling but succumb to it hence not taking responsibility and the blame game starts. Just a thought. And yes your photos are beautifully distracting.

Myst_72 said...

Hmm...

O.K. I suppose I present myself in a different way for work than I do for 'home'.
For work I work extra hard on always being positive, 'up', motivated etc - even if I have to come home and crash for a few hours afterwards to recover.
You can't motivate a team slumped in the chair moaning :) :)
I don't feel like I need to push myself as hard at home, maybe the work 'me' isn't the truth but sometimes it's what you have to do.

So no really deep insight from me there :)

I have somtimes wondered what having a 'what I really wanted to write' or 'what I really thought' section on my blog - I do find I still don't open up as much as I could.

G
xx

p.s. It may be good that the person you know isn't on facebook - imagine the status updates!!!!

Michelle said...

I suppose what I am talking about is the 'face' we present to the outside world being a reflection of where we are at inside ourselves.
The woman in the story uses illness as a mask for all the pain she will not work on, and whilst avoiding this she creates more pain for herself.
We do this all the time until we learn why we do it.
Its actually quite scary, the lengths we will go to to protect ourselves from having to touch our 'core'.
I find it interesting and very telling is all.....

Michelle said...

And I'm not really referring to the 'work face' or the smile we will plaster on for our kids when we are crying inside. More the actual persona or archetypal thing...like the'victim' and such, that we can actually live in until something forces us to take a good look at ourselves, if we dare....

Myst_72 said...

Interesting indeed.

It's a shame she can't see that she is doing this.

G
xx

Unknown said...

thats what makes it so destroying Gina