Shattering False Mirages About Us

Distracted people in our midst are usually uninterested, pre-occupied or ‘unsafe’ within themselves with us. They, at that point, are carrying a mirage of themselves with them and they’re not their real selves.

Eye contact is a great test of rapport. A secondary test is inconsistencies in spoken communication, including the excessive use of cliché.

If there’s one thing that harms rapport more than us not being ourselves I don’t know what it is. If we can’t be ourselves with ourselves, i.e. being a genuine accepting ‘friend’ of ourselves, how can we possibly be ourselves (and a friend) with others?

Being comfortable with ourselves is a prerequisite for being comfortable with others.

Many of us, and many times, have carried around with us this mirage of ourselves; it’s being present in the body but estranged in mind and heart. We cannot comfortably relate and we’re essentially running from ourselves in our running from others—the former the cause, the latter the effect.

We deal with these situations dishonestly and cowardly via any number of false fixes, namely treats, from food to alcohol and other drugs to a myriad form of escapism (television, retail therapy, game addiction etc). Yes, we all tend to do it.

Shattering the Mirage

The best and only real way of addressing this sort of situation is to shatter the façade. We can only do this if we’re honest with ourselves. Why would we want to promulgate the mirage; that false face that defies our integrity and denies our immediate opportunities and endeavours, not to mention our happiness?

The reason we do this is there’s always tomorrow to do the uncomfortable and painful thing. But the trouble is tomorrow usually doesn’t come.

The point, however, is today’s the day to do it—at least to do in power!

It is a vast and voluminous wisdom to consider the routine and effective shattering of mirages about us as healthy things worthy of the least delay. Nothing is better than being honest about ourselves and true to an inch.

There is a great and creditable proverb about honesty; one among many:

“Buy the truth and do not sell it;

get wisdom, discipline and understanding.”

~Proverbs 23:23 (NIV).

Being honest with ourselves is the ability to draw on wisdom, discipline and understanding as far as they weigh upon us in relation to our lives.

Let us no longer buy into the lies we propagate about ourselves by committing to shatter the mirages betraying our personal sense of self-worth. We’re never the persons God predestined us to be until we can walk with ourselves, heads held high in right-sized humility.

We are no greater than anyone else. But... we are also no lesser than anyone else too!

© 2010 S. J. Wickham.