I love conversations with my son, Drew. I never know where they are going to go. I particularly enjoy when he shares songs that mean something to him. We both resonate with the arts and I have found some deep truths in songs he has shared with me, from "Straight, White Male" to "Terrible Things." On this particular occasion, Drew shared with me a song called, "Bad Liar," a song about a divorced man singing to his wife. The potential meaning is complex and so I asked him what he thought it was saying. His answer took me into an epiphany that was timely.
An epiphany that strangely enough deals with chameleons, caves and lizards.
Background
Just the day before I had hit an unexpected place. I was home with my cute little three while all the "olders" are wandering the world in their variously unique places, some closer to home than others. They were quiet upstairs (undoubtedly eating a stolen candy bar, the wrapper of which I found under my bed the next day). The house was clean enough. I had nothing due. Nothing I felt like I had to do. I was walking around a peaceful house at the end of a pretty chill day and yet I was feeling confused. (Best word I can think of.)
Now, I am quick to pick up on unusual emotions during the last few months. Thanks to my Heavenly Father and October, I have:
(1) a new level of inner peace which has completely banished self-disparagement for the most part, and
(2) a primal understanding of His absolute love for me independent of any thing I have ever done. I no longer base my feelings of worth upon my accomplishments nor the responses of others to my actions and have been reveling in that feeling of peace for the past few months.
It is beautiful and has been freeing.
So this feeling of disquiet on a night that had no reason for disquiet caught me off guard. I had nothing I had to do, needed to do, felt inspired to do. I felt like a blank sheet. And I didn't really like it. It confused me.
Who am I? If God doesn't need me to serve for His sake but only my own, doesn't need me to change a world that He is entirely capable of saving, doesn't place another's salvation contingent upon my actions...then what? Who am I? What do I want? As a driven idealist, what next?
I felt myself caught up in self-reflection and sat down in a chair. "I want to read," I thought. "That's what I want to do."
Lesson about "filtering" from Anne Frank
I picked up "The Diary of Anne Frank" since I had never read it and Hava is currently reading it. I was immediately drawn into her vibrant self-reflection. At the beginning she shares how she was excited to write down those things that she feels deeply and privately. And she does just that, in a beautiful, real, teenager way. It made me stop and think. I don't do that. I keep my writings and my reflections honest yet filtered.
Let's talk about "filtered." It's like writing itself. If I were to keep on the page the mis-typed, ill-written grammatics that initially come from my dyslexic fingers, no one would be able to make heads or tails of my writing. My personality when it first comes out in raw, unfiltered form is poorly understood and never really appreciated.
I see it in my Maia. I see her energy, her exuberance, her endless passionate reaction to both help and respond to any given situation. She feels so deeply and reacts so unfiltered. And people have a hard time seeing that big beautiful heart that lies behind all that is "Maia."
Anne Frank opened up to my mind a life full of teenager personality. I found meaning not so much in the fighting, not in the tragic circumstances, but in the little things like how she found her favorite area to bathe herself or what a challenge it was for her--a chatter-box--to sit still for three days while the plumbing was worked on.
It left me feeling at peace.
Back to Chameleons
It was in this state of self-reflection that Drew's interpretation came in. He told me about the way the "Mentalist" described people: how we have three layers of reaction (in my own words).
(1) chameleon: the layer of reaction most common. How we change ourselves for the situation, for people, for ourselves. It is the controlled reactions we create based upon circumstances and how we choose to react.
(2) cave: the place of reaction that is more primal, more concealed. It is a safer, more hidden place that we only show a certain set of people, perhaps seen as more real. It is how we act in our homes or in our private lives. (Drew could flesh it out better.)
(3) lizard: this area of reaction is "fight" or "flight." This is something I had experienced on Sunday when my emotions were raw from experiences the days before and I reacted strongly to an unfortunate sweet soul in first a "fight" then "flight" manner. While I felt sorry for the woman and the unintentional hurt that she felt, I also felt sorry because our friendship wasn't strong enough for that interaction. She couldn't take that part of me that is very real but most often filtered.
As Drew shared this with me, I got stuck mentally. I found myself trying to process where the real me was in relation to the chameleon, cave and lizard. The implications upon the meaning of the song is the story for another day because what I realized at 2 am the next morning was: I was something MORE than a chameleon, a cave or a lizard. I am more than my reactions to other people. While that is also who I am--as my personality is intermingled in my reactions--my identity, my self exists outside of my interactions with other people.
Which led me back to Maia.
Maia and My Personality
Maia is so much like me, for which I am grateful. It has given me an opportunity to learn about myself from the outside.
If you have any experience with Maia, chances are feelings of frustration, anger, bafflement, intrusion, unexpected physical force and irritation come to mind. From a certain point of view, she is a whirlwind of messes, physicality and volume. As I have prayerfully sought how to interact more positively with her, I have been blinded by the sheer radiance and sincerity of her soul. She is a good, kind, earnest person who only really desires to act upon what is true and right and she is trying to figure it out. She doesn't know how to turn it off. She is driven.
Maia loves everyone with her whole heart and body, so "love" means climbing on you, yelling your name at the top of her lungs, and lots and lots of art that is dedicated to how much she absolutely adores you.
And that's my personality. I see in her all the things I did as a kid. I knew everything. I made huge creative messes and never cleaned up. I wrote letters to everyone who might possibly love me, showering them with love. I licked up any kind of affection and approval. I was in many situations in school, church and among "friends" where I knew that I was barely tolerated when I wasn't outright rejected. I saw potential in everything and never gave up.
I probably deserved some of the negative reactions. As a five year old, I threatened to punch my mom in the stomach a week after her c-section. Precocious. I was bossy to my brothers, spunky, vivacious, loud and kind of all out there.
I look at her. I think of me. Who am I? Who is my natural, non-conditioned response self?
Strangely, as part of this journey, my mind wandered back to one of the darkest times in my life.
Lesson in Paradise
I find it interesting that one of the deepest moments of my depression happened in a picturesque beachfront apartment in Brazil with Tova, Quinn and Liesl.
Without recognizing it, I was in a situation where they didn't need me to do anything or be anything to be happier. They just wanted me to be happy and they were already content.
It was at this early stage of my healing I realized:
A) I was scared and embarrassed of being who I was after years of living in feedback mode. Here were two people who felt no differently towards me regardless of what I did or even who I was. At the time I think I allowed it to make me feel worthless because my worth or value before hadn't really been in who I was but the good I was able to do.
B) I was horrified at the thought of hurting others so lived in constant fear of generating a negative response in others because of something I did, said or was. Here I was with three people who were content with me just for who I was outside of that.
C) I am not sure what my personality outside of conditioned response is. I think at a basic level I don't like or am afraid how "the full real me" will be taken, which is interesting to recognize now that I have a blessedly more healthy and stable outlook at my external interactions.
It was at 2 am Friday morning that I realized on a conscious level that I have learned to not like my personality, a personality that can be every bit as irritating, loud, messy and overwhelming as is my Maia's, bless her heart.
I am grateful for the space and awareness I have been given to be my beautifully distinct and imperfect self. I realize now at this stage in my life that other people's negative reaction towards who I am doesn't reflect anything inherently wrong with me. Of course, my core desire to never hurt anyone remains the same. Of course, I will have chameleon, cave and lizard responses. But I am looking forward to the unfolding, the re-emergence of my beautiful personality because even if I can't see it in myself, I see it in Maia.
My self will manage the chameleon, not the other way around.
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