I believe this fear and pain is not so much about whether we are wrong in anything. Depending on what it is about I don't care at all whether I'm proven wrong or not. Give me a mathematical equation, let me mess it up, prove me wrong and I couldn't care less.
And debates on a purely theoretical basis, like what do I think about the political situation in China are equally safe territory because it's something set apart from me.
But as soon as what I express in words or action is somehow attached to my self-worth, if it means something to me, I become extremely vulnerable. The more I feel I'm laying open my soul, that I'm expressing who I am, the more edgy I become about other people's reaction to it.
I can't be wrong when in a post I say this is how I feel, this is what I think when I simply state what I feel and think, cause I'm speaking the truth about my own experience of things, but you can still say, I disagree with you. Then basically what you're saying is not that I'm wrong, but what you're really saying is, I differ and thus show me my aloneness in my experience.
And if then on top of showing me that we are apart and different you do it with a sneer, you're showing me that you think little of my experience. And since usually I identify with my experience of life as in I am what I feel and think and do, that hurts.
And so I am afraid just like you a lot of times to varying degrees that range from nervousness to embarassment to feeling wound and beaten all over, but still I need to go on and share, even if sometimes it takes a while to come around again, cause not doing so feels like death, failing my life.
I think that is what we are really afraid of, feeling we're apart from others and worth less than they are. It's not about being wrong but the fear of being rejected and even more threatening of being rejected on grounds of being not good enough.
I'm just thinking of this song by Cindy Lauper where she sings about seeing someone's true colors. I believe the true colors of our soul, our true self are always beautiful and absolutely fabulous.
However in daily matters, in trivial occasions, I often lack the consciousness of this fact. I try to remain aware of it, and show others the kindness and consideration I believe in, but it's like diving down into the water and being carried upwards to the surface of things time and again. And like all others I then sometimes say things that don't do the soul that is the other person I'm dealing with any justice.
I believe the more you feel unity with other people at a core level the more the fear of being different from them on a superficial level vanishes. But you can't escape being hurt by some responses to you until you reach that place where you feel such unity with all others that they are you, and that I consider some task. But I believe also that the nearer you're getting the more these hurts become simple fleshwounds you can handle, like cutting your finger.
And I believe only the ego sets standards for experience to measure people with it and it's only the ego speaking when it tries to evaluate itself by putting others down. And it's your own ego playing along with the others when it accepts this positioning and makes you feel rotten.
We're so often told by wise people not to be afraid to share ourselves with others and life, that our value is untouchable, I guess it's just one of these truths that take getting there in person to be able to fully believe in them.
