by Fumiyo Egashira, Japan
Everyday, I spend a fair amount of time on the Internet. I read various blogs and check out Facebook posts, but I hardly ever contribute my own input except for liking/sharing some posts every now and then. I remain pretty much invisible.
I have been OK with this position of mine… until I saw a post about a month ago which challenged me to feel into myself when I click on those ‘Like’ or ‘Share’ buttons: what is it about these particular posts/articles that I feel inclined to share with other people? What am I communicating? What am I actually feeling about them?
I just went blank. I couldn’t find any words.
I became hesitant to click on those ‘Like’ or ‘Share’ buttons. It made me realise that my attempt to look within, connecting with myself, was immediately followed by a quick look-around outside. How easy it is for me to lose myself.
May I indulge?
As I start typing these words I immediately notice how heavy and tight both of my forearms are feeling. Also there’s the tightening of the jaw and the throat – as if they are being compressed, strangled. My breath becomes shallow. My stomach tightens.
Hard work.
What is it about me that finds it so hard to write/express myself – to be seen?
There are some usual suspects.
- Would people like what I have to say?
- What would they think of me?
- Would I upset anyone?
- Would I be good/smart/esoteric/true/loving enough?
- Who am I to say what?
And there’s something else.
As a teenager, I used to enjoy writing stories, poems etc. on the back of the text books, my desk in the classrooms… everywhere. I loved using words. They were not intended to be read by others, however I did enjoy the occasional compliments I received.
Some years later, in a different country, I landed a series of jobs such as a newsletter correspondent, an editorial assistant at a community newspaper and a freelancer.
Somewhere down the line, I stopped writing. Here’s how it all happened:
- A teenager enjoys writing.
- She doesn’t get along with the teachers at school and her writing becomes a relief out of emotional turmoil, and she thinks it is her creative expression.
- She begins to think she is good at writing and becomes identified with being a ‘writer’.
- She gets a job that asks her to be neutral and not subjective. And then another job, then another… she gets confused and loses interest.
- She refuses to let go of the illusion. Her identification solidifies.
- Eventually she comes up with an excuse to give up the illusion – with such ferocity that says ‘Writing/Expressing is only for those who seek their ego massaged’.
- She stops writing/expressing – as she doesn’t know how else to do it.
There feels to be something else deeper that had been ready and waiting to be triggered, but that’s another story.
I have believed for so long that expressing myself only serves to boost my own ego – which probably was very true for the way I was. I might have kidded myself into thinking that I ‘loved’ writing, however getting my name printed and the perceived recognition/identification/acceptance was a major drive for me. Looking back, even before all that started, writing for me had already become a means to escape from life as a teenager. This was a hard one to admit – the possibility that there could have been no genuine love in the first place. So, I kept pushing it away.
Over a period of time I dipped in and out of writing/editing jobs while I continued feeling rather uncomfortable. Whatever I did, it just felt so phony. On one hand I couldn’t stop milking the opportunities, but on the other hand there was a constant sense of embarrassment I couldn’t quite deny. Soon that awkward feeling was turned into a judgment, then to a self imposed curse that has shamed and crippled me from expressing.
Full stop.
But I didn’t know it then as such. I thought I was growing up, becoming smarter, by choosing not to express.
I realise now that there was this undertone of “like me, like me, like me” laced into every thought and action around me and my attempt to express, and choice to not express. To say “Other people’s reactions don’t bother me” wouldn’t have come out with an ounce of honesty while I kept looking outside of myself for validation – for what I have to offer, and of my-self; or I gave it all up in resentment. I didn’t know any other way. It never came out from true love within.
But there is another way. That, now I know.
Finally, my self-imposed curse got shook up. I can now re-learn ‘the other’ way to express myself.