Do You Trust Me?

If you've ever done any kind of improvisation–acting or dancing or music–you know that the gap between being told to "just dance" or "just sing", and being told "Here is the structure, here are the confines: now dance" is a Grand Canyon of significance. If you haven't done any improvisation, you might guess that the choice with more freedom is the easier of the two. In fact, having confines makes improvisation much easier. I titled this blog with that in mind, setting up my own confines in order to make my writing easier. I am allowed, by my own rules, to be rather free in my interpretation of what my blog is about, but I do have to stop and think, with each entry, does this actually meet my intention?

As possible entries arise, and as I censor them, I come back over and over again to the concept of satya, non-lying, one of the five yamas, or moral restraints, in yoga practice. Each time I censor myself, am I doing it truly because it doesn't fit my theme? Or am I trying to hide a truth from this unknown audience of mine?

My thoughts in writing are mirroring my thoughts in life lately. When I censor myself, why am I censoring myself? What are my motivations? When I write, I don't particularly want you to know much about me beyond what I write. I tell myself that it's because I am writing not to define myself more clearly, not to show where "me" stops and "not me" begins, but to define for myself where "me" and "you" connect. I don't want to write something that will fracture that fragile union. I think about my past work in sexual assault, where it was so important to quickly identify and strengthen the places where I could connect with my client; the work was not about me and who I was and my preferences and my experience, it was about supporting and strengthening this other person. Too much information brought the possibility of a disconnect.

That all sounds good and reasonable but I find I need to look a little deeper. When I was a kid, my idol was Mr. Spock on Star Trek. I have him to thank for the fact that I can raise one eyebrow in a quizzical stare. Because he was only half-Vulcan (the other half was Human, for those who grew up in a cave and somehow missed this show), he had to struggle for the emotional control that came naturally to other Vulcans. I admired him for his constant battle, and I could easily understand why it was important for him to succeed, because it was important to me, too. I knew that my life would be better, easier, if I could find that same self-control. He had defined his parameters, and I would, too. If I could control the information about me and my emotional state, and contain my responses to them, I knew that I could control my life and make it safe.

I find now after many years and a lot of practice that I always can come up with really good, really reasonable reasons for not speaking the truth. I am especially good at not speaking the truth without actually coming out and lying about anything. The skill has served me well in the past, but as my life begins to integrate into a greater whole, I'm not sure it serves me at all now, and I'm less and less sure about all of those really good reasons.

A couple of years ago I joined an online business networking site and as I've become more active in it lately, I've noticed a slight feeling of discomfort. I couldn't quite catch sight of it until just this week, when I suddenly joined several other networking sites and the feeling became powerful enough to overwhelm me. Remember that feeling of walking into the cafeteria of a new school? You walk in with your tray and look at the lines of tables: kids are sitting, kids are talking, calling out to one another, running to get a napkin and fork, joking with one another...I changed schools a lot growing up so the memory is still a powerful trigger today. I want you to know me. I want to be safe. Two dueling impulses. I want you to know me. I want to be safe. It's tempting to think that by presenting only chosen pieces of myself, I can have both. Our culture teaches this well; we have to put our best foot forward, present a professional image, and society will accept and protect us in return. But I can't really blame the culture–I think I'm pretty good at creating my own lines around my behavior and my appearance. When I withhold truth, I am really trying to control the actions and responses of the people around me. I have a belief about what would happen if I did not do this, and I respond in fear, feeling small, feeling vulnerable. I am making my world safe. I am defining it. I am making it a little easier for myself to know how to move, to improvise.

So back to satya: is this truth? And I think about the path of our country right now. There are those who want us to believe that we live in an unsafe world. What if our world is already safe? What if we are safe? How would that change us if we could really know it? How would that change me? I am safe. I will show myself to you. Practice it with me now. Let's just dance together.

copyright 2008 J. Autumn Needles