Shedding The Veils

Who acts certain ways around certain people to better fit their narrative about us?

Who dials down their personalities to seem more “go with the flow” or “chill”?

Who makes sure their posts and pics on the socials are *muah* chef-kiss perfection before clicking it out there into the universe?

The answer is all of us. Different levels of focus on each, but it’s all of us.

I recently went through a health crisis that I wrote an article or two about. It took awhile to pinpoint what the issue was, and although it ended up being an easy fix of a failing gallbladder that removing it cured, I spent time in the “am I dying?” time-out corner.

And I got really real with myself.

I started thinking about all the time I was spending attempting to elicit responses from other humans to make myself feel certain ways. It’s human nature to do it, so I wasn’t being judgey with myself or anything. I just took a big step back and looked at it.

And wondered why the actual fuck I was doing it.

Humans are a social species, and both our brains and our world have evolved in a way where perfection is a key component to making ourselves feel good about ourselves. Don’t show weakness. Don’t show excitement. Don’t show your ass.

The problem is, we all have weaknesses. We all get excited. We all have asses. Why is it so awful to show it to other people? If we all have this shit in common, why do we pretend we ourselves…which is ALL of us…are above such stuff?

Why do we hide our shit behind veils?

A big part of going down the spiritual path of meditation is to Find Your Authentic Self. Nobody can tell you how to go about doing this, because every person’s brain is wired differently. Some meditation masters call the process “shedding your veils”, so being a pretty hard-core meditator, I felt like I was pretty well along in the shedding my veils process.

Then I got sick. Sick in the They Think I’m Dying And I Kind Of Agree department. And I realized I not only still had a shit ton of veils weighing me down, my own ego was convincing my own damn brain that nah, I was being totally honest with the other humans. Mind you, I’ve never been the type to use filters on my pictures or obsess over every word I released into the atmosphere. But I was still editing my movements enough to not qualify for any spiritual prize like enlightenment or anything.

Trying to act cool when I really liked another human so they wouldn’t guess that I thought they were great. Making sure I did all I could to convince the other humans to perceive me in the way I wanted them to. Thinking about it. Putting focus on it.

Sound familiar?

Thinking we maybe could be dying makes us look at how short our life is. Why we waste time and energy trying to get other people to act or feel admiration, envy, desire, so we ourselves may benefit from a feeling of superiority.

Umm. That’s a hella lotta work. It’s human nature, but it’s fucking bananas.

Back to me dying.

So I started turning this totally human, totally relatable thing over and over again in my head. Mostly during reflective meditation, but kinda sorta all the time, too. What was I afraid of? Was the real me so ghastly that I was afraid to show ME to everybody? And what would be the repercussions if I did?

Once I asked myself “what’s the worst thing that could happen if I showed my whole ass to the world?”, my inner narrative screamed…literally SCREAMED…

“Who cares?”

With that, a whole bunch of veils fell right off. Whoosh. Just like that.

It took one internal dialogue shriek to stop me in my tracks and make me see how much energy I was putting on some shit that didn’t matter. WHY wasn’t I letting people know that they meant something to me, I like knowing how people feel about me and can only assume they like that secure feeling as well. Why was I allowing other people’s opinions about me to rule how I felt about myself at all? Why was I allowing the other humans to have the power to make me feel ways? I could just not want that anymore. I could decide that the only person who could control my feelings was myself.

Wooooooooosh. Epiphany.

I could show my whole ass. The people who had creepy opinions about it or who thought I was obsessed with them just because I indicated that I think a whole bunch of positive feelings about them or who thought I was weird for saying some stuff that was on my mind could fall by the wayside. It wouldn’t kill me. It wouldn’t be the end of the world. I could already be dying for all I knew.

And that’s when it happened. The BIG wooooooooooosh.

We’re all dying. We’re all gonna die. That’s the one damn thing we all have in common. None of us are living forever here, folks. The time to show our whole asses is now.

It’s time to shed our veils. Let’s not agree that it’s normal to not have wrinkles or skin imperfections or a bit of weird body stuff when we’re at a time of our lives when we SHOULD. Let’s not act cool and pretend we’re untouchable, immovable.

Showing our whole feelings, our whole thoughts, our whole selves. It’s not some journey we need to go on with crystal singing bowls and chakras and finding ourselves.

It’s just a decision we make.

When I decided to shed those veils, to stop with the games humans play and just not give a fuck how people maybe would think I’m weak, maybe would think I’m a loser, maybe would think I’m *gasp*…a HUMAN BEING, something insanely, instantly happened.

The people around me started shedding their veils, too. Turns out, showing your imperfect, real side and feelings can lead to deeper connections and give deeper meaning to the whole thing.

It’s possible. I authentically stopped giving a fuck about how people viewed me. I stopped caring about if anyone thought I was weird, or too much, or whatever. Mostly, it killed my need to make useless attempts to make the other humans feel some kind of way about me in order to feel a certain way about myself. It’s our own damn jobs to own our shit and feel our feelings. If we need another human to feel a certain way about us to feel a certain way about ourselves, we’re doing it wrong. It’s great to be admired, but it can’t be the focus. Even in this social media driven world. Even when the other humans are throwing out filtered perfection, we don’t have to. We can make the choice to shed our veils and show our whole asses.

Trust me, it won’t kill you. It didn’t kill me. It shifted my focus. It made me realize that in order to see other people’s asses, I needed to show mine first. The worst thing that can happen is the other humans will say “no thanks” and I can give more of that energy to the people who will be real with me and not play the games that humans play with each other.

You don’t need a guru and incense on a mountaintop. It’s just a choice you make.

Show your ass.