Attempting “to be” according to someone or something else’s paradigm eventually leads to burn-out, which dictionary.com defines as "fatigue, frustration, or apathy resulting from prolonged stress, overwork or intense activity."
While it may feel authentic at the time, we later discover it was only the mind’s amazing ability to get along with other people out of a core sense of duty, or the thought that,
"Maybe other folks have it right and I don’t, so I should probably try it their way in order to fit in."
This living at the behest of another person or organization's standards or worldview often perpetuates itself by seeming other-centered and open-minded, when in reality, it is a betrayal of both others and ourselves (even if that betrayal isn't understood until much later).
In the end, the partnership cracks under the strain of inauthenticity and the no-longer-deniable evolving of one’s own value system.
Always doubting that I could trust my instincts and embrace my social preferences, and lacking confidence that shyness and introversion have their place in a world that reveres consistent social interaction, I forced myself time and time again to "get out there” and be gregariously communal.
Having been pretty much an amiable all of my life, it was no surprise that I would carry this tendency into my Christian contacts, program-involvement and new acquaintances.
I’ve heard it said that those who must spend hours speaking a language other than their native language are exhausted at the end of the engagement.
That is exactly how these self-imposed social encounters felt for me.
I could put on my convivial pretense and fool most everyone, to the point that even family members and close friends were surprised, even directly denying it, when I began to own and live out the reality of being an introvert who had some social anxiety.
It's not like I didn't try, really hard, to socially please. I gave it my best shot, over and over and over again.
From age seventeen to thirty-eight I drank my way through insecurity.
I felt my health deteriorate during the year I volunteered as a youth group leader.
I experienced an increasingly oppressive anxiety as I berated myself for ever initially donning an insincere hat with church people that I could now no longer pretend with.
I stepped out of the fray of family gossip and news and began more and more to just "shut up, show up and wear beige,” as they say, to family gatherings, not because I don’t love my family, but because large, frenetic group settings bring out the awkward in me.
Finally at peace that I can, and do, have something to contribute in my way of quiet background presence has solved untold self-loathings post family gatherings. And it has freed me to find harmony in work and volunteerism (preventing burn-out as defined above).
The allowing of respect and dignity for the long-hidden person inside became possible through the hard-won conviction to finally live within the social style God customized for His intended benefits both to myself and society.
And the fruit of that work is flourishing in countless ways.
As I have stepped into my own skin, for the first time in life, other friendships that had been tainted by the false friendships are becoming strong; rising to the surface like cream. I invested in them not by stoic intentionality or earnestness but by a pure, organic, unexplainable and reciprocal affection that continues to elicit contentment and yes, even happy anticipation for future get-togethers.
See, I had come to think that perhaps I did not like any social interaction. But as I shed my false pretense and should-based attitude, I am discovering that I actually do enjoy people!
What these authentic friendships possess is a mutuality of agreement and comfort with the length, type and frequency of visits, conversations and activities—and an unexplainable simpatico granting an intimacy to speak freely without fear of offense. Our values do not always align, but we don't have to hide them. We don't always see eye-to-eye, but we can, in camaraderie, agree to disagree.
These rare and splendidly small-in-number relationships soon revealed themselves to be the comfy slippers and favorite sweaters that I could now unapologetically abide with as favorites.
In this just-right state of being, I am, ironically, freer now to talk with strangers, because I can discern when to let a momentary cafe conversation with someone new end there in the cafe, or when to let it become another meeting over coffee in the future.
In other words, I trust myself with people now because I trust myself with myself now.
Do I wish I could have avoided the pain I caused, and which I caused to myself, through the denial of an approach to life I initially considered less-than, or even wrong?
Yes.
But the gift God has handed me is already tested and tried by the fruit He is bearing in the unfathomable first inner calm I have ever known mentally, emotionally, spiritually and in the work and quiet life in which I now spend my days.
Within that is His forgiveness and assurance that things take time, along with His always ever-present wisdom and strength to stay His course.
In this world of pushy, clubby and at times militant mandates of stylized conventionalized and stereotyped togetherness, I would hope for God to be the permission for whoever is reading this to hear and listen to, finally, that still small voice—that clarion call towards the social style and innate relational fit God purposed and intended for you—not a yoke of “shoulds”—but a resting in the joy of the unique and no-longer-perceived-as-opposing characteristics that make up each one of us.
Copyright Barb Harwood
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