This was a survival strategy I used and honed a lot when I was younger, and it did keep me safe.
Safe from big emotions I did not have the capacity to feel and be present to. Now it is not so useful. Now it harms more than helps.
It is not in alignment with my core value of wanting to create authentic connection.
Now, it can feel to another person I am not being entirely honest about what I am feeling. And I can totally understand how it may feel like this.
My motivation is not to deceive, it is to protect myself.
It is a long-standing survival strategy I am still in the process of undoing.
If I perceive myself to be threatened my instinct to keep myself safe trumps everything.
Gabor Mate speaks of humans having two needs, attachment and authenticity and when authenticity threatens attachment, attachment trumps authenticity.
This means we will cut away or shut down parts of who we are to stay attached, in connection and in belonging, especially when we are growing up.
Connection has always been what I wanted. And in a roundabout way, by not saying what I mean and not showing who I am in my fullness to the world, I stayed in the acceptable box. Why?
“Because I had learnt that if I wanted to be accepted and not rejected or shamed for who I was; I needed to behave in certain ways and not colour outside of the line’s others had created for me.”