Did You Pick Your Roles?

[Sevi]

The attention whore, the diva, the celebrity.

Due to: physical and emotional torture and abuse in the childhood; lack of acceptance and love; fighting hard against being ignored.

Journaling more than 20 years, working with psychiatrists and psychologists... a meticulous work. personal development is sometimes just a survival need.

What we see can be elusive; without the supportive work like self inquiry and stuff, mushrooms can not be enough to sheding of them.

And ironically, a monkey can feel your wounds and pain and can connect to you and even sometimes can be very nurturing, gentle and caring with you rather than a homo-sapien.. I think that's why I love the animals more than human beings; and somehow I understand those celebrities who are ending up living with 30 cats:)

It's good to remember the phase saying: be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

with love???

[Sukhpaal]

Maybe meditating on what your roles are might help? I guess if you're not sure about what roles you play, could maybe be a good thing because you might identify less with those roles than others identify with theirs. Like for me, I knew my roles off the bat because my life is so deeply engrained in them. But, good luck on finding your roles!

[Emerald]

Hopefully this helps your understanding.

My top four roles are:

- the socially awkward

- the intellectual

- the good person

- the lady (contradicts the first one, but I still have it)

Here are the reasons why:

- The socially awkward: I adopted the first one at a young age, due to not fitting in in school and out of fear of being perceived as mentally challenged. My older sister is mentally challenged, and I used to freak myself out with ideas like "What if I'm so mentally challenged that I don't know it, and everyone is just being nice to me and lying to me and telling me I'm normal." If this were true, I knew I was in for a life of patronization and sugar-coated ostracism. It's silly that I'm still so messed up over this one, but I still have some degree of this role playing out in my adult personality. I have to always police my behavior because I'm afraid of being perceived as off in some way or even creepy. So, my mask is the trying to seem normal to avoid being seen as awkward but coming off as awkward anyway as a self-fulfilling prophecy. This one is frustrating.

- The intellectual: This role was adopted in response to the previous fear. And my mom was very happy to have a non-mentally challenged child, that she really made me believe that I was the most intelligent child on the planet. And I was lavished with praise by her for being intelligent. I realized later that this was not so, and that my intelligence is still within the norm range, but that I could still have this identity if I worked hard for it and valued it. I eventually came to associate being intellectual with being mysterious and sexy. I have always had a strong desire to be accepted and liked and admired so this mask is in place to make me seem more interesting and alluring. Plus, I've always liked the idea of adding value to myself through intellectual pursuits.

- The good person: I learned at a very young age that misbehavior of any kind was punishable in emotionally extreme ways. My mom withdrew presence and love at the onset of any and all misbehavior for longer periods of time than a small child can handle. Also, even though I wasn't raised in a religious way, I was still instilled with the belief that God was always watching for misdeeds. And that people who do bad things go to hell and get tortured forever. This really informed my worldview, and I used to judge people in terms of who was going to hell and who was going to heaven. Every time I went into a cemetery, I would look at the tombstones. The graves with tombstones that stand upright were people going to heaven, and the graves that were buried close to the ground were going to hell. So, it was always a struggle between life and death to be good. I have no recollection of what it is like to be anything other than a good person. So, I have a lot of repression of my more destructive drives. I also have a lot of sexual repression as I was taught that sexuality was even more taboo than violence. 

- The lady: I adopted this role later on, but it serves a similar purpose to my other identities. It exists in order that I might be admired by others and seen as good and interesting and mysterious. Early in my adult years, I came up with the idea that I was only attracted to older men, specifically straight-laced mature gentlemen. So, in order that I might get the type of attention that I wanted from this demographic, I adopted the mask of the mature young lady who has refined tastes and is sophisticated. But there is also an erotic connotation to this identity. Despite (and perhaps because of) my sexual repression caused from the above identification of being a good person, this is a really strong identification that I have. I have never felt truly satisfied with my sex life (for psychological reasons largely based in my childhood), so this mask feels like I will find sexual satisfaction through it. Unfortunately, this doesn't work because it always puts my sexuality in third person. Like I will become sexually satisfied through satisfying my parter. But this never really gets at the heart of what I truly like, and makes my amatory life very formulaic and contrived, as I experience it as an idea set in the third person but never fully in the first person. Also, the awkwardness that I have comes in direct opposition to my desire to be a mysterious proper young lady. These two go together like oil and water.

 

 

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Whywolf said:

Have you ever been plagued by repetitive thoughts, that just will not stop?

Not sure what that means exactly. Various ways to interpret that.

[WildChild88]

I was thinking about this topic of "playing roles" for a couple of days and wow! now here it comes on Actualized.. I should be surprised. 

While listening to Leo's video here are the five major roles I've found I love to play :

1. the people pleaser/good person, the good ol'fella that will listen to your neurotic bullshit all night long to be "understanding" with you. Keeping my opinions to myself (especially if they are harsh) and not wanting to do or say anything that could make you feel bad, not wanting to be considered as mean. No, my door will stay open to everyone even If I'm left drained and misunderstood at the end.

[ Avoiding confrontation has been my leitmotiv since childhood, as growing up in a dysfunctional violent family, the more I polished myself into being non-frictional the more I felt I could bring harmony in this social misery. This has blended my personality to the point it took me seven years from the moment I got out of this house to finally get in contact with my true self and be saying "I need to live for myself, like any animal does, only taking my own values and feelings to account".]
 
2. the positive one, the playful one, always saying something cheerful or something wise to balance negative feelings you may have. 

[Same as before, it has to do with pleasing. Having been wrecked by negative people I can't be serene with the idea of spreading negative thoughts or feelings around me. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one" Well, people need positive beings around them so I would better turn any stressful situation into a funny one. But by doing that, I often end up cynical and put any bad emotion I'm on the verge to feel under the rug. I'm reluctant to express them to anyone and this makes me feel extremely lonely at times.]

3. the lone wolf eccentric that no one can fully reach. I clearly have my own agenda and I take pride in thinking that my twisted path is leading me "elsewhere", far from my fellows and family.

[As far as I can remember I've always been a private tribal nerd. I felt connected to life but not to my human entourage. I think that the lone wolf role is protecting my identity/sanity. I get so easily overwhelmed and distracted by other people's feelings that I fear to appear too available and tend to consider most of them as life suckers.]

4. the intellectual perfectionist, wise, who takes pride in knowing all sort of things about all sort of things, who loves to answer questions, who cares about giving the most accurate answer... So accurate I often end up using big words that no one knows, or I get so far in my story that no one is following me and I just make a fool of myself. I want to explain things so much I get caught with details in conversations, sometimes missing the whole point or the primary intention, making me feel like an anal person who can't just let the fuck go if I appear stupid sometimes.

[I used to be way more spontaneous about my expression. I didn't cared that much onto knowing exactly what was this, or that... to take action. I used to be more amused and thrilled by mysteries. I used to write quickly.]

5. the victimized artist. Poor little bird full of talents that no one took care of, whose parents were too neurotic to treat with minimal decency. Disgusting son of alcoholics that no one believed, obligated to learn to fly on his own... Oh my little soul! I have lost so much time of my life in apathy, so drawn in depression to keep on going to school, to have a decent job and to be financially independent... I am so lame man. I wouldn't shine because that would create shadows somewhere. Oh! If only I had taken an art class or anything, I'd be an amazing painter by now. Poor little fed up thing, afraid to show his creations and to be categorized by mean people who wouldn't understand anyways... 


Woosh...
That was fun I love this forum!

For most I couldn't remember a time in the past when I wasn't in those roles... I remember being a selfish, assertive little brat with no care for authority, picking fights with other brats, dangerously creative and extremely stubborn. And now I realized I've spent the last ten years trying to be anything but that. Since I grew up feeding my right brain in excess, I'm currently working onto unleashing my left brain. I hope to become more of this fearless child I recall.

Thank you for your reading. I'm not a native speaker but I'm still a fucking perfectionist. I hope I haven't left horrible mistakes somewhere.

Edited February 13, 2017 by WildChild88

[Guest Annetta]

@Leo Gura I guess asking for your experience might not matter.
I'm wondering if maybe the roles I have come from over identification with a constant stream of thought, and if that is the case than perhaps I might be able to figure out what is underneath these roles - which a huge part of are produced by this thinking.

I'm assuming meditation is probably the answer for this, I've asked this on a video of yours and that was your answer.

[Alicja_]

@Leo Gura  It may seem then that my life purpose is reinforcing the roles I've been playing for some time now.  I wonder - if I drop them, what happens to my life purpose? The roles I think I display in this domain are: psychologist,  researcher, philosopher. I have a feeling that they are partly acquired via learning about these fields, experiencing life, overcoming traumas, growing, etc, still the core underneath these roles seems authentic. I've always had deep insights about life in general, craved to know more and share knowledge. Still,I feel that the above mentioned roles may to a certain extent result from me  gradually becoming a self-help junkie. These roles became most apparent when I noticed benefits of personal development. And there was a time, I was not interested in the field of growth, rather doing the opposite, pertaining to self-negligence. How do I know, 100 %, if the roles mentioned above are authentic/"in-born"? 

[Bodhi123]

On ‎2‎/‎14‎/‎2017 at 2:05 PM, Alicja_ said:

How do I know, 100 %, if the roles mentioned above are authentic/"in-born"? 

I think you answered this question for yourself

On ‎2‎/‎14‎/‎2017 at 2:05 PM, Alicja_ said:

still the core underneath these roles seems authentic

Roles that originate from a place of authenticity are okay. This means you have integrity

[Leo Gura]

On 2/13/2017 at 1:27 PM, Whywolf said:

@Leo Gura I guess asking for your experience might not matter.
I'm wondering if maybe the roles I have come from over identification with a constant stream of thought, and if that is the case than perhaps I might be able to figure out what is underneath these roles - which a huge part of are produced by this thinking.

I'm assuming meditation is probably the answer for this, I've asked this on a video of yours and that was your answer.

That's what the worksheet was trying to help dig into. The roles are fused into your web of beliefs and your identity. It can get rather messy, as you created this hodgepodge of meaning and beliefs while growing up.

On 2/14/2017 at 2:05 PM, Alicja_ said:

@Leo Gura  It may seem then that my life purpose is reinforcing the roles I've been playing for some time now.  I wonder - if I drop them, what happens to my life purpose? The roles I think I display in this domain are: psychologist,  researcher, philosopher. I have a feeling that they are partly acquired via learning about these fields, experiencing life, overcoming traumas, growing, etc, still the core underneath these roles seems authentic. I've always had deep insights about life in general, craved to know more and share knowledge. Still,I feel that the above mentioned roles may to a certain extent result from me  gradually becoming a self-help junkie. These roles became most apparent when I noticed benefits of personal development. And there was a time, I was not interested in the field of growth, rather doing the opposite, pertaining to self-negligence. How do I know, 100 %, if the roles mentioned above are authentic/"in-born"? 

1) Yes, roles can be messy, containing contrived elements mixed in with some genuine values.

2) There are different levels of personal development work. They can also be useful for manipulating reality. They can be an intermediary stepping-stone. Depending on your level and where you want to get to, you may need to either strengthen your roles or drop them. At the highest levels, you want to drop as much as possible. But not so much that you stop being able to function in the real-world. In other words, keep following your life purpose but don't build too much of an identity out of it. Stop thinking of yourself as "the philosopher", and just enjoy doing philosophy (if you are so inclined). And also enjoy those times when you're not doing philosopher. Even the best philosopher spends more time sleeping than he does doing philosophy. So why don't you identify with being "the sleeper", or "the shitter"? Not so juicy for the ego as "the philosopher".

[Elisabeth]

I recognised more of the roles, but the one that really stuck out was "the tryhard", a role that is now proving itself unsustainable. I'm very afraid of dropping it though (what will happen to my work ethics?? and the impression I make on others?). I can't remember when I adopted this role, I have very little pre-school memories and I was already this way in the first grade.