I would say it makes me tense, self-conscious and even dishonest in that I hold back and don’t share things – both good and bad. For example, I can even be insecure and self-conscious about expressing love because I received a lot of messaging about being “too much” in my childhood. I can feel guilty, as if I am putting pressure on my romantic partner to love me back – when really I am just expressing my enthusiasm/passion! As a result, I can easily judge my loving side and hold it back.
Also, if there is something that I don’t like about me, for example, I can struggle with laziness/resistance/procrastination, I may hide that rather than express my distress about it and ask for support. I can feel ashamed about it. Ironically, that makes me want to push my partner away BEFORE they find out about it – like a pre-emptive strike. I will distance from them before they can have a chance to reject me.
My relationships don’t have a chance to deepen and grow. So it’s self sabotaging. Or my avoidance can cause a misunderstanding that never gets resolved.
I work too much. Being busy keeps me unavailable for the relaxed, present and open-to-love state that connection and play require. There is a cage around me that deflects the love others offer. I am a good partner, sister and friend, but keep part of myself unavailable. I’d like to change that.
What I don’t like about myself is the way my brain works differently to some other people’s brain as I have a learning difficulty and I’m slower than other people to understand things. Even very simple things that some other people would find very easy to understand. It’s hard work for my family to get me to understand things and they have to go over things time and time again and most of the time it doesn’t sink in quickly like it probably would for some other person. This is one of the things that has been troubling me all my life so far. My mum used to say that I am thick. But I think it’s more than that. I have felt and thought that my brain doesn’t function properly all my life so far. I have always felt that I am so dumb brained.
What I don’t like about myself is the way my brain works differently to some other people’s brain as I have a learning difficulty and I’m slower than other people to understand things. Even very simple things that some other people would find very easy to understand. It’s hard work for my family to get me to understand things and they have to go over things time and time again and most of the time it doesn’t sink in quickly like it probably would for some other person. This is one of the things that has been troubling me all my life so far. My mum used to say that I am thick. But I think it’s more than that. I have felt and thought that my brain doesn’t function properly all my life so far. I have always felt that I am so dumb brained.
I completely agree with Tara, I like the approach of we need to start with ourselves. From that place of self love and self acceptance we can love others, and improve our relationships.
By definition, if I’m hiding something (real or imagined), I’ve built a wall that separates us. I can disclose, but total transparency (particularly of the past) is too great a risk … which means, eventually, the relationship will suffer …
My feelings of insecurity about whether what I’m doing and saying is the right way to handle a situation. I am trying to please everyone. Then I am caught in the middle or lose sight of myself.
The older I get, the more I am struck by the commonality of self dislike. And at the same time, I find one of the lines from the liturgy of a church that I have attended when visiting family to somehow be related to this: “Life breaks our hearts. We break each other’s hearts.” I think we hide what we don’t like about ourselves as a means of self-protection from having ourselves broken; or maybe in many cases, we’re not quite sure what it is that we need to hide, so we take on a persona that we think will help us to play it safe. I think the key is trust – or lack of it.
The subject matter is so worthwhile, but I didn’t care for the actors, very much enjoy listening to Tara Brach videos and audios. Thank you so much for this free opportunity.
I am a trauma survivor who completed a lot of therapy to help me deal with getting constantly triggered and getting overwhelmed with fears of rejection and great anxiety. I had years of cognitive behavior or RET therapy and learned to address my worries by “rationally” disputing the thoughts which triggered them. However, I did this mainly to make myself more appealing to other people who usually seemed to feel that I was overreacting. Yes, I did avoid conflict by basically arguing myself out of any concerns/worries/irritations. But I was left feeling that I must hide my worries in order to be acceptable. And I was good at it, too. I now believe that the situation is complicated. The intensity of my reaction shouldn’t justify immediate remedy–even when it seems compelling. On the other hand, the intensity doesn’t automatically mean that my reaction is completely unjustified. I think it needs a good therapist to be able to tolerate the dysregulations and build the relationship that will ultimately help the client diminish them through the reliable interpersonal relationship. By tolerate, I don’t mean, that the therapist believes the client is completely justified. I mean that the therapist is not abandoning/rejecting the client for such hypersensitivity. I think Transference Based Psychotherapy with Otto Kernberg and Frank Yoemans is an especially good example of such therapy.
I do not want my husband to see me naked.
Because of my depression, My life is empty and I fear he is going to go for a woman full of life and activities.
Because of my depression I feel uncomfortable hugging or kissing my own son.
We’re 75 years old, 41 married, and still struggle with intimacy from our separate childhood wounds and our childrens’ teen years traumas. Throw in physical decline and illness, it’s more about struggle than celebration most days. Yet, we nurture some measure of intimacy through the garden/life surrounding our nest. Yes, We’ve missed out on so much interpersonally. But we have a refuge and sanctuary – to experience and share the beauty in front and, and more so, within us. I want to hear more.
I find persons struggling with cumulative trauma hide their true feelings because of shame, guilt, loss and grieve, have low self esteem and negative images of themselves and find it difficult to thrive in relationships and wind up sabatoging attempts to be loved until they accept their trauma and begin working through it.
Hiding these things about ourselves makes it difficult to be vulnerable and open in relationships, leading to mistrust by ourselves and others that we are not being our authentic selves in relationships. Tara’s video highlights the importance of growing awareness of our core values that drive our thoughts and actions. Thanks for this insight leading to personal actions to try.
Many years ago, based upon the harm I perceived I had caused to others, I made a conscious decision to quarantine myself from the rest of the world, for its own protection. I have adhered to this, and am close to being a complete recluse. I am genuine with a trusted few family members, and monitor even those relationships carefully for potential missteps on my part. My partner (in whom I do confide) perhaps described it best: He told me that I reveal so little of myself to others that I come across as “beige”.
They are less forgiving, more controlling, less emotionally available, trying to hide themselves and their vulnerabilities when issues or domestic pressures come up.
Well, not being able to show up authentically simply cannot lead to a strong foundation for connectedness and relationships will stay rather superficial 🤷♀️
I worry I’m not smart and I’m not capable of many things. This makes me insecure around my husband so I try to hide my insecurities from him. He is incredibly confident and capable and proud. He expects a lot from the people around him. When I can’t contain them and my worries leak out he seems. so turned off by my insecurities – this makes me even more insecure and hard on myself. I blame him for not being more gentle with me and then he believes he’s just not a caring person. This cycle goes around and around and around. We get stuck in a loop. Does it begin with me being unsure of myself or with him having high expectations of everyone around him? Or is that the loop and it doesn’t matter where it began?
They often feel judged or criticized by their partner and angry for being seen as “inadequate” or “damaged.” This can lead to anger and fear. As well as, feelings of being inauthentic in the relationship.
When I hide parts of myself, I create a wall between myself and others. As I’ve been letting others peak behind my wall. I learn that my fears about being seen are unfounded. I am not the monster I thought I was. I am lovable. And the monster parts shrink to a manageable size.
Some relationships are not safe to be vulnerable. Hiding that part of me keeps me feeling protected/safe in unavoidable/forced family relationships ie abusive sister who controls the rest of the family with her need for negative attention and commitment to her own victim delusion while actually manipulating and victimizing everyone around her, which is a game I will no longer play yet don’t feel strong enough to avoid the toxic effects of her behavior.
This fear of others to find out about my flaws has had the consequence that I haven’t been in a long term romantic relationship in many years. I’m meeting people and it always ends after a few months. Mostly, I end things or self-sabotage them by being so overcritical of the other. I always tell myself that it wouldn’t be a good fit and finding reasons in my head why I actually don’t really like the other – when deep down, I know I’m just really scared of eventually being rejected once they’ve looked behind the facade and see that I’m just not very loveable.
I’ve had so many negative reactions to my true self— which is not something passable and agreeable by societal standards as a transgender person. I appease others to get things done, by-passing my own voice and viewpoint to make them comfortable to get what I need— from job offers to grocery shopping. And at the same time I will produce a persona of “badassery” that is a sort of angry lone wolf— depending on the context. So my relationships take too much or do not give me what I need. I’ve been punished for authenticity in my birth family setting. It has been difficult to change what has been reinforced by over 30 years of experience— that being myself will have me met with violence. Been changing it recently but it is difficult.
When we in essence present a flase front, I think the acceptance and love we get never really feels real. By hiding ourselves, we end up missing out on the chance to experience exactly what we thought hiding ourselves would bring us- love. Then unfortunately that lack of real acceptance hits at the level of our authentic self, increasing our self-criticism, which in turn fuels our impulse to hide our essential nature.
My partner does not get to see the “real” me. So in a way, by hiding my true self (insecure, needy, fearing abandonment) – if he leaves or doesn’t like me, it’s not the “real” me he’s leaving or rejecting – so I protect my fragile and insecure real self.
Thank you so much for this teaching. I look forward to the next video.
Your example of the physician and his wife could have been my husband and me. We have been together for over40 years, my entire adulthood. We have both been in therapy and spent years on & off in couples therapy but my husband was not able to open up and this put a great strain on him, me, and our marriage. (Both people, of course have to do the work.)
After our daughter was grown I decided I wanted to separate, but this was interrupted by my having severe illness for the better part of a year. It was still my intention to separate but I thought we had a second chance if my husband wanted to try.
He did a lot of work and did start to open up more, perhaps helped by the fact that my vulnerability at that time also made me change and I also became more open.
He recently found a new therapist who uses mindfulness, which has helped him enormously. It is a work in progress but he is now more open, talks to me about how he is feeling and sometimes about his therapy sessions. He tells me ways he has always felt inadequate and unable to connect. His becoming more vulnerable too and this has changed everything for us.
It is sad that it took so long for us to find real emotional intimacy but there is no one I would rather be with and grow old with and I am so glad that we stuck it out and are growing together and so much closer now.
As you said when Relationships turn negative, the connection/symmetry is lost – feelings of unworthiness cause criticism, judgment which makes them not enjoyable to be around, that exacerbates the situation and then they feel even more unworthy ~ spiraling down the rabbit hole. Getting to the route is the hard part.
I came across a few people who do not want to show their vulnerability to their partner assuming that it may affect their relationship. But later they realize that hiding their true self ruined their relationship in the later stages.
They attach themselves to the wrong kind of relationship (i.e. very often the wrong person, for the wrong reason). For instance, a young woman afraid to show her true spirit, her wild(er) side, her real potential, might choose a partner who will keep her down, so she’ll never have to develop that potential; or someone as scared of rejection and loneliness, so he’ll never leave her – and they end up both building a relation around fear and avoidance …
Robyn, another field, Atlanta, GA, USA: Thank you so much for opening this topic! I will get your book and look forward to the next video! My belief of unworthiness began in early childhood along with my nervous system’s response of pulling back, becoming silent. This scenario cycle has repeated itself throughout my whole life because it has rendered me vulnerable to others who are possibly insecure themselves, but stronger in attacking me and triggering my silence and retreat away from them. Today, I establish stronger boundaries regarding how another may speak to me, which requires me to speak up rather than remain silent. It is still a challenge and I want to learn more strategies for myself. Thank you>
This sentence is not grammatically correct. I am assuming you are asking.
When I hide what I don’t like about myself, I become reactive, I disassociate and I oscillate between being a victim and persecutor in my relationships.
Wonderful
I wish to use these ideas from Tara to help me to build an at least a better relationship with my brother who I’ve never really got on with.
Disguise become unsustainable
My dearest person sees through what I try to hide so that encourages me to be my authentic self. This talk was a good reminder to do that.
I would say it makes me tense, self-conscious and even dishonest in that I hold back and don’t share things – both good and bad. For example, I can even be insecure and self-conscious about expressing love because I received a lot of messaging about being “too much” in my childhood. I can feel guilty, as if I am putting pressure on my romantic partner to love me back – when really I am just expressing my enthusiasm/passion! As a result, I can easily judge my loving side and hold it back.
Also, if there is something that I don’t like about me, for example, I can struggle with laziness/resistance/procrastination, I may hide that rather than express my distress about it and ask for support. I can feel ashamed about it. Ironically, that makes me want to push my partner away BEFORE they find out about it – like a pre-emptive strike. I will distance from them before they can have a chance to reject me.
My relationships don’t have a chance to deepen and grow. So it’s self sabotaging. Or my avoidance can cause a misunderstanding that never gets resolved.
I work too much. Being busy keeps me unavailable for the relaxed, present and open-to-love state that connection and play require. There is a cage around me that deflects the love others offer. I am a good partner, sister and friend, but keep part of myself unavailable. I’d like to change that.
What I don’t like about myself is the way my brain works differently to some other people’s brain as I have a learning difficulty and I’m slower than other people to understand things. Even very simple things that some other people would find very easy to understand. It’s hard work for my family to get me to understand things and they have to go over things time and time again and most of the time it doesn’t sink in quickly like it probably would for some other person. This is one of the things that has been troubling me all my life so far. My mum used to say that I am thick. But I think it’s more than that. I have felt and thought that my brain doesn’t function properly all my life so far. I have always felt that I am so dumb brained.
What I don’t like about myself is the way my brain works differently to some other people’s brain as I have a learning difficulty and I’m slower than other people to understand things. Even very simple things that some other people would find very easy to understand. It’s hard work for my family to get me to understand things and they have to go over things time and time again and most of the time it doesn’t sink in quickly like it probably would for some other person. This is one of the things that has been troubling me all my life so far. My mum used to say that I am thick. But I think it’s more than that. I have felt and thought that my brain doesn’t function properly all my life so far. I have always felt that I am so dumb brained.
I completely agree with Tara, I like the approach of we need to start with ourselves. From that place of self love and self acceptance we can love others, and improve our relationships.
By definition, if I’m hiding something (real or imagined), I’ve built a wall that separates us. I can disclose, but total transparency (particularly of the past) is too great a risk … which means, eventually, the relationship will suffer …
I’ve found living a life of forgiveness for others has opened the door to forgiveness in and of myself through the love and mercy and Grace of God🙏🏻🙌🏻
My feelings of insecurity about whether what I’m doing and saying is the right way to handle a situation. I am trying to please everyone. Then I am caught in the middle or lose sight of myself.
The older I get, the more I am struck by the commonality of self dislike. And at the same time, I find one of the lines from the liturgy of a church that I have attended when visiting family to somehow be related to this: “Life breaks our hearts. We break each other’s hearts.” I think we hide what we don’t like about ourselves as a means of self-protection from having ourselves broken; or maybe in many cases, we’re not quite sure what it is that we need to hide, so we take on a persona that we think will help us to play it safe. I think the key is trust – or lack of it.
The subject matter is so worthwhile, but I didn’t care for the actors, very much enjoy listening to Tara Brach videos and audios. Thank you so much for this free opportunity.
It leaves me feeling apart from others and then I blame the others for the way I feel .
I am a trauma survivor who completed a lot of therapy to help me deal with getting constantly triggered and getting overwhelmed with fears of rejection and great anxiety. I had years of cognitive behavior or RET therapy and learned to address my worries by “rationally” disputing the thoughts which triggered them. However, I did this mainly to make myself more appealing to other people who usually seemed to feel that I was overreacting. Yes, I did avoid conflict by basically arguing myself out of any concerns/worries/irritations. But I was left feeling that I must hide my worries in order to be acceptable. And I was good at it, too. I now believe that the situation is complicated. The intensity of my reaction shouldn’t justify immediate remedy–even when it seems compelling. On the other hand, the intensity doesn’t automatically mean that my reaction is completely unjustified. I think it needs a good therapist to be able to tolerate the dysregulations and build the relationship that will ultimately help the client diminish them through the reliable interpersonal relationship. By tolerate, I don’t mean, that the therapist believes the client is completely justified. I mean that the therapist is not abandoning/rejecting the client for such hypersensitivity. I think Transference Based Psychotherapy with Otto Kernberg and Frank Yoemans is an especially good example of such therapy.
Their relationships are less deep.
The relationships are less deep and genuine.
They are less deep than I need them to be.
I do not want my husband to see me naked.
Because of my depression, My life is empty and I fear he is going to go for a woman full of life and activities.
Because of my depression I feel uncomfortable hugging or kissing my own son.
We’re 75 years old, 41 married, and still struggle with intimacy from our separate childhood wounds and our childrens’ teen years traumas. Throw in physical decline and illness, it’s more about struggle than celebration most days. Yet, we nurture some measure of intimacy through the garden/life surrounding our nest. Yes, We’ve missed out on so much interpersonally. But we have a refuge and sanctuary – to experience and share the beauty in front and, and more so, within us. I want to hear more.
I withdraw
I find persons struggling with cumulative trauma hide their true feelings because of shame, guilt, loss and grieve, have low self esteem and negative images of themselves and find it difficult to thrive in relationships and wind up sabatoging attempts to be loved until they accept their trauma and begin working through it.
Hiding these things about ourselves makes it difficult to be vulnerable and open in relationships, leading to mistrust by ourselves and others that we are not being our authentic selves in relationships. Tara’s video highlights the importance of growing awareness of our core values that drive our thoughts and actions. Thanks for this insight leading to personal actions to try.
Well, I just plain hide, almost literally sometimes – avoid people, even those I’m closest to, when I’m feeling the worst about myself.
Unlikable reaction, out from resitance.
Many years ago, based upon the harm I perceived I had caused to others, I made a conscious decision to quarantine myself from the rest of the world, for its own protection. I have adhered to this, and am close to being a complete recluse. I am genuine with a trusted few family members, and monitor even those relationships carefully for potential missteps on my part. My partner (in whom I do confide) perhaps described it best: He told me that I reveal so little of myself to others that I come across as “beige”.
I try to hide the lack of self confidence I feel
They are less forgiving, more controlling, less emotionally available, trying to hide themselves and their vulnerabilities when issues or domestic pressures come up.
Well, not being able to show up authentically simply cannot lead to a strong foundation for connectedness and relationships will stay rather superficial 🤷♀️
Stops me from being real or feeling like I can be real and that I wont be accepted as I am
I worry I’m not smart and I’m not capable of many things. This makes me insecure around my husband so I try to hide my insecurities from him. He is incredibly confident and capable and proud. He expects a lot from the people around him. When I can’t contain them and my worries leak out he seems. so turned off by my insecurities – this makes me even more insecure and hard on myself. I blame him for not being more gentle with me and then he believes he’s just not a caring person. This cycle goes around and around and around. We get stuck in a loop. Does it begin with me being unsure of myself or with him having high expectations of everyone around him? Or is that the loop and it doesn’t matter where it began?
They often feel judged or criticized by their partner and angry for being seen as “inadequate” or “damaged.” This can lead to anger and fear. As well as, feelings of being inauthentic in the relationship.
When I hide parts of myself, I create a wall between myself and others. As I’ve been letting others peak behind my wall. I learn that my fears about being seen are unfounded. I am not the monster I thought I was. I am lovable. And the monster parts shrink to a manageable size.
Some relationships are not safe to be vulnerable. Hiding that part of me keeps me feeling protected/safe in unavoidable/forced family relationships ie abusive sister who controls the rest of the family with her need for negative attention and commitment to her own victim delusion while actually manipulating and victimizing everyone around her, which is a game I will no longer play yet don’t feel strong enough to avoid the toxic effects of her behavior.
The goal is to love yourself inorder to love others
This fear of others to find out about my flaws has had the consequence that I haven’t been in a long term romantic relationship in many years. I’m meeting people and it always ends after a few months. Mostly, I end things or self-sabotage them by being so overcritical of the other. I always tell myself that it wouldn’t be a good fit and finding reasons in my head why I actually don’t really like the other – when deep down, I know I’m just really scared of eventually being rejected once they’ve looked behind the facade and see that I’m just not very loveable.
I’ve had so many negative reactions to my true self— which is not something passable and agreeable by societal standards as a transgender person. I appease others to get things done, by-passing my own voice and viewpoint to make them comfortable to get what I need— from job offers to grocery shopping. And at the same time I will produce a persona of “badassery” that is a sort of angry lone wolf— depending on the context. So my relationships take too much or do not give me what I need. I’ve been punished for authenticity in my birth family setting. It has been difficult to change what has been reinforced by over 30 years of experience— that being myself will have me met with violence. Been changing it recently but it is difficult.
When we in essence present a flase front, I think the acceptance and love we get never really feels real. By hiding ourselves, we end up missing out on the chance to experience exactly what we thought hiding ourselves would bring us- love. Then unfortunately that lack of real acceptance hits at the level of our authentic self, increasing our self-criticism, which in turn fuels our impulse to hide our essential nature.
If im not vulnerable then my husband doesnt dare to be , its a stand off !
My partner does not get to see the “real” me. So in a way, by hiding my true self (insecure, needy, fearing abandonment) – if he leaves or doesn’t like me, it’s not the “real” me he’s leaving or rejecting – so I protect my fragile and insecure real self.
Respect and open/honest communication is a basic foundation of any healthy human interaction.
Indeed it is our fear of rejection & feeling insecure that runs underneath all heated marital arguments & frozen silences.
Thank you Tara
Thank you so much for this teaching. I look forward to the next video.
Your example of the physician and his wife could have been my husband and me. We have been together for over40 years, my entire adulthood. We have both been in therapy and spent years on & off in couples therapy but my husband was not able to open up and this put a great strain on him, me, and our marriage. (Both people, of course have to do the work.)
After our daughter was grown I decided I wanted to separate, but this was interrupted by my having severe illness for the better part of a year. It was still my intention to separate but I thought we had a second chance if my husband wanted to try.
He did a lot of work and did start to open up more, perhaps helped by the fact that my vulnerability at that time also made me change and I also became more open.
He recently found a new therapist who uses mindfulness, which has helped him enormously. It is a work in progress but he is now more open, talks to me about how he is feeling and sometimes about his therapy sessions. He tells me ways he has always felt inadequate and unable to connect. His becoming more vulnerable too and this has changed everything for us.
It is sad that it took so long for us to find real emotional intimacy but there is no one I would rather be with and grow old with and I am so glad that we stuck it out and are growing together and so much closer now.
As you said when Relationships turn negative, the connection/symmetry is lost – feelings of unworthiness cause criticism, judgment which makes them not enjoyable to be around, that exacerbates the situation and then they feel even more unworthy ~ spiraling down the rabbit hole. Getting to the route is the hard part.
I came across a few people who do not want to show their vulnerability to their partner assuming that it may affect their relationship. But later they realize that hiding their true self ruined their relationship in the later stages.
They attach themselves to the wrong kind of relationship (i.e. very often the wrong person, for the wrong reason). For instance, a young woman afraid to show her true spirit, her wild(er) side, her real potential, might choose a partner who will keep her down, so she’ll never have to develop that potential; or someone as scared of rejection and loneliness, so he’ll never leave her – and they end up both building a relation around fear and avoidance …
Robyn, another field, Atlanta, GA, USA: Thank you so much for opening this topic! I will get your book and look forward to the next video! My belief of unworthiness began in early childhood along with my nervous system’s response of pulling back, becoming silent. This scenario cycle has repeated itself throughout my whole life because it has rendered me vulnerable to others who are possibly insecure themselves, but stronger in attacking me and triggering my silence and retreat away from them. Today, I establish stronger boundaries regarding how another may speak to me, which requires me to speak up rather than remain silent. It is still a challenge and I want to learn more strategies for myself. Thank you>
This sentence is not grammatically correct. I am assuming you are asking.
When I hide what I don’t like about myself, I become reactive, I disassociate and I oscillate between being a victim and persecutor in my relationships.