This blog post has stayed with me...."It's Safe to Be Visible"
( read it here at http://travelingev.com/2014/09/its-safe-to-be-visible/ )
I consider these two sentences very telling...and familiar.
“It’s safe to be myself,” and “It’s safe to be visible.”
What is more alarming is the fact that we are not safe to be ourselves and to do so publicly.
She comes from the same church that I came from. She was taught it wasn't safe to be herself and dared not show it.
The fear of doing so...is almost solid, for what stands in the way is the person we had to become... instead of ourselves. We have to kill and get rid of the person who overshadowed our Me self. The one that was accepted by the church and/or family.
I am now speaking for me, using her two sentences. I can't know the deeper content that she speaks of. But her and I both were raised in a religion that didn't honor or respect separated individuals; but clung to sameness...a uniform of conformity.
It isn't so much the banding together in mutual beliefs, but the fact that it is not safe to do otherwise.
The word safe seems so odd in those two sentences. But it is quite accurate.
What is unsafe as we change is our relationships with family and friends.
I know this is about the religion...but it also works in regards to being yourself and visible with your truth in abuse as well.
I just want to ask...how safe are you to be yourself?
Or, what do you stand to lose that is more important than being yourself?
What I learned is that my family was unsafe, it teetered on the edge....for when I stood in the truth of my past, they disappeared.
Intuitively we all know what is on the edge...what will be tipped and flung aside. We know what we stand to lose. Most of us will not be visibly authentic...for it costs too much.
I found, that nothing is worth more than being visibly me.
Thanks Ev for sharing!
