Post-meditation (and guitar) thoughts:
You can't have intimacy if you're pretending on any level. If you're masking, even if it is to avoid pain or to numb a response to past trauma, you are unable to be Intimate in that moment (even if your heart/brain/ego want to argue otherwise).
This is not a criticism; as pain, fear and trauma can be very real and must be confronted if you're going to hold any hope of defeating them. No, it is simply an acknowledgement that intimacy requires courage and vulnerability, even when it causes discomfort.
Tearing off the mask is hard. I've masked for almost my entire life. I know it well. I have deep compassion for the masks I see. But, the truth remains: You cannot have intimacy if you are, in any sense, pretending.
It is f*cking painful and difficult to face the truth: both the Beauty and the Terror. As a result, I have long been the Chief Architect of my own Loneliness, building my elaborate mask to navigate and shapeshift my way through trial, discomfort, fear and upheaval.
My principle work these days is in taking a sledgehammer to those walled-up defenses and in continuing to strive to be a person who is open, receptive, available, accountable and wearing my actual face.
If someone is going to love you, me or anyone else, let it not be for any projection or affection. Let it be for The Messy. The Real. The Beauty and The Terror. It's all gotta be in there.
And believe it or not: It's the Good Stuff, y'all.
