Behind the Smiling Face
I spent an hour after work ended today talking with the new manager. He had been surprised find out that as a child, I used to be so shy that I would hide behind sofas or tuck myself away in other corners. He stood in front of me, shaking his head, trying to see fear where all he sees his friendliness. “It just doesn’t add up,” he said, and I didn’t go into detail, telling him if he knew of my home life back then, he’d understand perfectly.
But for the rest of the day, his words have made me think: about what people see about us and what we know about ourselves deep within.
Only we, ourselves as individuals, know where we came from and why we are the way we are. We know what we saw, we know what we heard, we know what we felt. To us, we have this internal conviction that if people only saw what we’ve been through (which can encompass many experiences in Life), then we would make sense to them and then they would understand. Unfortunately, we can’t walk around with signs around our necks saying: “Please treat gently. Wounds here.”
With all our looking for another person to add to our lives, and for many of us, to find that special someone whom we can relate to and be ourselves with, how easy is it for us to be ourselves? It’s a question that really requires some self-honesty.
No one wants to admit that part of the equation that may be happening in their relationships with others –or just in their relating with others-may be something on their part that is being projected unconsciously. It can be a cautiousness to reveal to just anyone who we really are or, on the other end of the spectrum, an over-eagerness and openness that deflects people rather than draw them to us.
It is very hard trying to find the balance between what we feel within and how we are supposed to appear on the outside. For myself, I understand this completely because this has been my learning over the years: how to relate my wonderfulness to others without letting the “other stuff” keep them away. Many failures and some successes in my own life have taught me, are continuing to teach me, that strides of improvement can be made in learning how to relate to people.
It’s sometimes hard for me to understand that there are many other people who go through this struggle for oneness, this balance within themselves, when to me, they appear to be “just happy and normal.” I find that I am continuously surprised about what I find out about people when I get the chance to talk with them a little bit. It reminds me that many times that what lies behind a smiling face “doesn’t add up” to what my perceptions have been and that I, like others, may need to stop presuming and start active listening.