Holding back my Personality Around People

[Orb]

Hey guys I'm hoping we can work together to get to the bottom of this once and for all. 

 

One of the essential fetters in my life lately has been this tendency to hold back expression around people. 

 

There's a fear that if I'm fully myself eventually someone will tell me to shut the fuck up 🥺😂. 

 

How can I be fully myself (alignment/not caring) around peeps? 

 

I've been chatting with my girlfriend and she's highly perceptive, like she catches shit that I don't even notice in my behavior and it's been great for healing. We're both on the same page about it and she is aware of this tendency. She notices that when it's just me and her I'm super fun and insightful but at church or other social spaces I become stiff and lifeless, I only talk about safe topics lol. We're working through this.

 

I notice I get people pleasy. 

Edited November 23, 2023 by Orb

[Blessed2]

22 minutes ago, Orb said:

One of the essential fetters in my life lately has been this tendency to hold back expression around people. 

 

How can I be fully myself (alignment/not caring) around peeps? 

 

Hmm... Has any problem / defect you've found to be in you ever actually been solved / healed?

 

Has it ever worked, the attempt to fix yourself, to become better?

 

Have you ever actually succeeded? Has it ever worked out?

 

How is it that we experience doubt so easily in regard to whether we succeed or not?

 

 

[Orb]

12 minutes ago, Blessed2 said:

 

Hmm... Has any problem / defect you've found to be in you ever actually been solved / healed?

 

Has it ever worked, the attempt to fix yourself, to become better?

 

Have you ever actually succeeded? Has it ever worked out?

 

How is it that we experience doubt so easily in regard to whether we succeed or not?

 

 

Honestly, I don't experience any problems at all within anything. It's more of a form of reactivity that doesn't feel good. It's not an indication of wrongness or incompletion. 

[Phil]

@Orb

Nice. 

 

Maybe “people” isn’t a natural belief. 

[Orb]

4 minutes ago, Phil said:

@Orb

Nice. 

 

Maybe “people” isn’t a natural belief. 

What's the significance of that then? 

[Orb]

@Phil is this rooted in the belief that there are people?

[Devin]

Spend more time around people, it's like getting used to water temperature of the ocean, just takes time and awareness.

[Orb]

5 minutes ago, Devin said:

Spend more time around people, it's like getting used to water temperature of the ocean, just takes time and awareness.

Yea I've been spending more time around people for a while and lots of stuff has already fallen away which is great. 

[Phil]

@Orb

It seems like something feels off and it’s assumed there are people, and then it’s assumed the off-feeling is because of some lack or shortage on your part. 

 

It might also be that the idea of going about being fully yourself feels off because you are already fully yourself.

 

Might be both.

 

If someone tells you to shut the fuck up, it likely has little to do with wether you are or aren’t fully yourself, and probably has everything to do with what you said. 

 

It might even be that what you’re tempted to say is related to nonduality.  

[Orb]

7 hours ago, Phil said:

@Orb

If someone tells you to shut the fuck up, it likely has little to do with wether you are or aren’t fully yourself, and probably has everything to do with what you said. 

Yea this happened many years ago and my response was to clam up and not speak much with people. This is what I'm talking about actually, like the throat closes up and I don't speak my mind fully. I just hold back words. 

 

Also, I don't want to talk about nonduality stuff with my friends from church.

[Mandy]

@Orb Do you want to fully express yourself at church, or does she want you to? Or both? 

[Orb]

15 minutes ago, Mandy said:

@Orb Do you want to fully express yourself at church, or does she want you to? Or both? 

Both

[Mandy]

50 minutes ago, Orb said:

Also, I don't want to talk about nonduality stuff with my friends from church.

 

3 minutes ago, Orb said:

Both

You sure? What do you actually want? 

[Orb]

18 minutes ago, Mandy said:

 

You sure? What do you actually want? 

I want to express my personality fully with people. Not just talking about nonduality stuff, but my humor and goofiness. 

 

It's awkward to be having a deep conversation with my gf  and be confident. And then in social spaces with groups or church I clam up. There's a clear disconnect.

[Orb]

@Mandy mind you, I go to a nondenominational church. It's not the kinda church where every service is basically a funeral. Its the kind where people are dressed hip and are more expressive.

[Mandy]

@Orb

2 minutes ago, Orb said:

I want to express my personality fully with people. Not just talking about nonduality stuff, but my humor and goofiness. 

This sounds like, "I want to share the part of me that people like, but not the part that I truly Am."

 

Which is it? Are they cool and hip and expressive or are you scared of what they are thinking about you? 

[Mandy]

I'm not saying that you should do some form of nondual proselytizing but that there might be some selling yourself out there that's blocking the fun and relaxation. Here we are in church worshipping some dude who was a total nondual anarchist and turned over money tables and spoke about nonduality at risk of life and financial wellbeing, we're doing it in a setting that assumes authority and structure, and don't see how ironically hilarious it all is, but we can't "go there". "That's above them. " There really isn't that distinction or separation, and the belief that there is and that it's problem might be a totally hilarious nothing or a Gift of the magi like situation, but you can't need one outcome or the other going in to let it go, because you're always going to get something like neither and both. 

 

Might get nailed to the cross by Jesus worshippers. No one has more nails and hammers than the nondualist camp. It's just a step up of judgement. Sounds like a great novel, BEAUTIFUL irony, it's the one you're writing. Just an Author authoring, no authority. 

[Mandy]

No one will ever accept You. 

[Orb]

@Mandy I still don't understand what the resolution to this will be.

 

Plus I'm not interested in being some nondual missionary, I wanna be able to hangout with people and be expressive without trying to spread ideas. 

Edited November 24, 2023 by Orb

[Orb]

@Mandy I just want a family and to live a peaceful life, I don't care about being some Jesus rebel figure.