Seeing people for who they are. Means seeing the reality of the person without filter. This is sometimes too scary. Because we don’t want to see things we’ve been avoiding. Because it means we may have to come to terms with things we might not be ready for.
And sometimes we’ve been coaxed so much and for so long into believing what a person is rather than seeing the reality of that person. We even coax ourselves by trying to make the other person into something they are not because we have a vested interest in doing so. Our safety is at stake so we superimpose a reality that isn’t actually there on the other and we try our best to not see the holes in our story.
Sometimes we’ve been coaxed so much and for so long into believing what a person is rather than seeing the reality of that person.
We fail to see his or her actual behavior, their actual actions or lack there of, their actual roles in our lives. Not ‘said’ roles, not believed roles, not superimposed roles but their actual, living of, doing of roles. How they affected or influenced our lives, our experience – without justifying or judging or fixing but just seeing. Just seeing clearly what kind of person is this, who has he/she actually been for me?
The answer could be frightening. It could be that the other may have been intentionally hurting us, abusing us, the other could be not safe for us to be around. And all our instincts may have been right on – trying to protect us and alert us of the need for boundaries, the feeling of being violated etc.
In seeing this, blame can come to an end. We have a choice to stop being the victim of our circumstances. We start being responsible for ourselves; we no longer deny what’s right in front of us. And in doing so, we stop justifying unacceptable behavior and being on the receiving end of abuse.
However, we do not become ‘spiritually superior’ by pretending to forgive prematurely or treating the other with a phoney ‘spiritual’ overlay of ‘we are one’. Because that’s another really subtle and really insidious way of deceiving ourselves by spiritually bypassing the raw nakedness of what we’ve seen. The nakedness of the relationship is the starting ground. Seeing the stark reality of it without any explanations – not even and especially not spiritual ones.
In that nakedness, personal truth becomes clear without pretense, without spiritual overlays. Without violence, without desire to come out victorious, to best, to prove wrong, to achieve a desired end. Even subtly like acting spiritually superior by being “non-reactive” – that’s a pretense. It’s a subtle agenda which acts as a strain on natural instinct- the ability to respond or not respond from truth and without agenda.
Seeing the truth means being really honest with ourselves about where we actually are with this relationship without justification. Without the ideal of where we would like to be. Just the simple uncensored truth. We can begin there. And that is painful. Heartbreaking.
But in that, we can be gentle with ourselves. Not come to premature conclusions. Sit in the discomfort of it. Without imagining alternative realities. Without the noise and advice of others – no matter how seemingly wise.
We don’t know. We are just seeing or letting the truth be shown to us. And giving ourselves the time to process, integrate, digest – there’s no hurry. No pressing matter. Just allowing ourselves to be worked on by truth, by nakedness, by honesty and just doing our best is all.