Invalidation...

A while ago, a friend passed on this article on invalidation, which I found to be hugely impacting - one of those stop-in-my-tracks-and-see-things-more-clearly sort of things:

http://eqi.org/invalid.htm
(scroll down to read it)

(go ahead, go read the article, or at least skim it -- I know your time is valuable! -- and then come back to read the rest here ... I'll wait for you!)


I've been on both ends of this equation -- the invalidatee, and the invalidated. Neither feels good, when all is said and done. Neither lifts the other up.

I've observed and experienced that when we suspect/fear that we'll be rejected, we don't offer out our true selves, but hold them in a reserve of self-protection -- offering only a masked faux-persona instead. We have become, to some degree, a society of projected personas, rarely connecting in a deep and meaningful way... lonely in a crowd ... isolated in a mob.

I'm astonished at how very learned a behavior invalidation is ... and thus how insidiously it can be habitualized. Honestly, I believe that far too many of us don't SEE that we do it, or even that we so often receive it.

Look at our sources of humor and entertainment -- much of what passes for comedy is laughter at the expense of another.

That we even see people as "other" is a huge part of the problem -- the ultimate illusion.

Everything must change ... because everything is different than the appearances would suggest. Judge not, we are told, by appearances.

It seems to me that the more we know we are accepted as we are, the more we know we have intrinsic value, the more we KNOW our worth, the more we are secure in our own identifies ... then the more we will extend that same value onto others.

If we KNEW who we really were, how God sees us ... then we could not help but to extend that to others.

When we realize who we really are, and live with the resulting integrity, we can call forth the true self of others ... deep calling to deep.

So, in a sense, the way I view and treat "others" is a barometer for how I believe God sees/treats me.

Pretty powerful thought ... do I dare to really look and see...?

Am I prepared to let everything be revealed as it IS, and thus to let everything be changed...?

Or, am I more committed to the comfortable and convenient status quo...?

Shalom, Dena