Such a You Thing to do
Could letting ourselves be deeply known be an antidote to the divisive war on the collective psyche?
If you’re on Vancouver Island or know anyone who is, catch A Little Bit Much at the Waverley Hotel in Cumberland this Saturday night, Oct 4th. Or The Metro in Victoria on Sunday, Oct 5th! Please share widely!
My teenage son has been saying this line, “It’s a very you thing to do, Mom.”
I kind of love it. Part of me wants to say, What does that mean exactly?
What is the ‘me’ that he knows me to be, that what I’m doing seems to align with? It’s an interesting way to know ourselves. To see who we are through the lens of how others see us.
Does how I feel inside align with how I’m perceived?
Seems so. At least close in. Seeking out and knowing that information is a vulnerable task. An intimate ask. It’s one I started early on, taking risks to seek reflection from others on how I occur to them, not to manage perceptions, but to grow intimacy and connection. To understand my impact, check my experience against the experience of others. This alignment matters to me. Helps me feel true.
Sometimes it’s embarrassing. If how I occur isn’t how I want to be. If I’m a mess, or my unconscious is public to everyone but me. Ugh, the impulse to hide is real. I have to stretch not to be defensive about it. But I get to choose: Accept how I’m experienced or do the work to change.
Apparently, quitting my coaching business to pursue a new creative and vocational direction is a very “me” thing to do. Do I like that? A part of me bristles at it. Does my kid see me as irresponsible? Or brave? Is this me-ness bold, creative and risk-taking? Or a joke? Is it faithful, true to a clicked-in sense of knowing and trust that I’ve built and know I must follow? Or is it impulsive and delusional?
I know the answers are in my interior. But do those align with perception? Does that matter? I’m not actually wrestling with these questions. I’m delighting in them. I’m curious if they spark anything for you.
It’s got me thinking about who we know ourselves to be and how others know us. Whether we truly allow ourselves to be known, and what happens when we change, or want to change. I’m such a chronic over-sharer and processor of my reality; the people in my life are used to being brought along for the ride of my changes. It’s a very me thing to do, to change in public, to be like this is the revelation I’ve had, the pivot I’m making, this is who I am now, and this is what I do.
What happens when the me-ness of my life is not the me I want to be? Is the you-ness of your life, the you you want to be?
I remember my early and gluttonous personal development days. Maybe it was Landmark, maybe it was something else, but playing with this notion that we train the people in our lives on how to relate to us, on how to know us, by how we show up.
Am I a reliable person? A late person? A hot mess of a shit show person? Am I a vigilant person? A loyal person? An outspoken person? A kind person? Am I a person who goes for things or plays things safe? Am I a person who starts and never finishes, or who sees things through to the end? Am I an available person? A compliant person? A bitchy person? A loving person? A hardened person?
It’s easier to see and identify other people’s ways of being than our own. In a family system, we all “know how mom is”, but does mom know how she is? At work, we all “know how Rob can be”, but does Rob know that?
It’s my favourite thing about being alive, truly knowing people. Being known.
In a world where most of us spend a lot of time online, some of that time may be taking in content of people we don’t truly know, who are performing a version of themselves, or not truly who they are at all. As we hear more and more about loneliness epidemics as people seek connection through parasocial relationships, I worry about the fabric of relating, about the resilience of communities if we don’t do the real and risky work of knowing and being known by the people we live amongst.
One of my oldest, closest friends was at my show in Vancouver this past Friday. She was with a crew of friends I’m just getting to know, and they asked her about the accuracy of my stories. She was alongside me for most of it, living not only the events of my life but my feelings and interpretations of that life. Does how I represent things on stage align with things back then? She said it was the wildest thing, to listen to me talk to a room of two hundred people, sharing so intimately, as though they were my best friends, and for it to be accurate. I’m still sitting with why this touched me so deeply.
Similarly, when I first started performing this show, people would ask my brother and parents if my stories about them felt true to their experience, and they said yes. This is incredible to me. To be able to tell stories about ourselves and each other and feel the experience as shared. Especially at a time when big tech is driving a divisive wedge between us constantly, intentionally, relentlessly, feeding each of us events, information and worldviews that are entirely different than what others are seeing. I don’t think it’s having different views that’s causing division; it’s having such wildly different access to what’s happening, such wildly different information, without investing time and energy to share experiences (not just conclusions) and parse things out together.
This art keeps teaching me what I’m doing with it, with this expression, with this storytelling. I don’t feel like I need to be deeply known by thousands of people. This isn’t about my story; it’s about all of our stories. It’s about being known in the mess and truth and pain and beauty of our experiences, without filters. My me-ness. Your you-ness. Our us-ness. I feel deeply known by my closest people, and that creates a profound sense of security and belonging.
What touches me about these reflections, that I’m being so me (even when I feel embarrassed by it) and that I’m true to who I am and how I’m experienced, is that I believe I’m inviting people into the truth of who they are, too. Not only can it be safe to really be who you are. It’s not your perfection or performance that makes you lovable and worthy, it’s your you-ness.
It’s our lived experiences, sharing about them and learning about each other in all their texture and diversity that bring us together. Not our opinions or ideologies. Not our hot takes on the happenings, or the deluge of information, but what’s happening underneath all of that. Our foibles and our fears. Our gifts and our longings. The truth of how we’re making sense of our world and each other, and how we interpret and make meaning from what we experience. Knowing each other deeply. Being known. These are the bridges I’m interested in building.
I’m down to build that bridge too, Chela. Great thoughts.
Beautifully articulated Chela! I totally agree - that you, in your you-ness, invite others into theirs. It is one of the many magnificent aspects of you! And in my experience, to be deeply seen & known in my essence and me-ness feeds & relaxes the parts of me underneath all kinds of self-protective strategies (like people pleasing, proving myself, virtue signaling, over-functioning etc). I feel freer and more authentically connected to myself, others and whatever higher power there is.