In life, we might say that there are two powerful longings that we all share. We all have a very deep longing for connection… so naturally as we come close to somebody, we slowly start to adjust; to melt and merge our energies with the other person. Part of this is natural and beautiful…
However, when we are not grounded in our own being, we may unconsciously start to adjust more and more without realizing it. This may show itself as changing our timing, our food, and our opinions. We may even change our clothes and physical appearance to be more to the liking of the other person, or we may start to neglect our hobbies or other friends.
It may come to a point where we no longer know what is authentic for us. We may truly believe that what we are doing is coming from our own being.
From this deeply compromised state we are out of ourselves, leaning energetically towards the other person. From that state we can easily become irritated, angry and upset over the smallest thing. The irritation comes from not being connected inside with ourselves and not knowing it.
Sometimes it happens only much later, when we look back, that we can recognize that we were in a compromised state without having realized it.
This state is called, “mystification.”
It comes from a deep longing for connection and wanting to be taken care of.
As a child most of us had to give up our authenticity to survive. This happened so early that we may not be conscious of how we started to abandon ourselves to fit in, to adapt, so that we could gain a sense of belonging and perhaps some attention and recognition. Or at the very least, not be punished.
Today, this state of mystification, can happen with a lover, a friend, and even with a therapist, teacher, or guru. It happens in different ways depending on the kind of relationship we have with the person. For instance, with a teacher or guru, we may start blindly believing and following; rather than using whatever teaching we are receiving to help wake up our own intelligence and make life choices based on our own inner wisdom.
With a friend it may happen that we start to let go of our values and start to follow their values or opinions. Or we may start to compromise and go over our boundaries for instance by listening to their complaining when we don’t feel like it or even abandon other friends to stay loyal. Or we may do something just to fit in, to belong, that really doesn’t feel right.
From this state of mystification, with a lover it may happen that we go over our sexual boundaries. We may do something we don’t want to, but perhaps we don’t even question or know what is right for us.
Here are some examples of mystification in action.
Cecilia is very confident, centered, successful, and focused in her professional life, but whenever she gets close to a man she is attracted to, all her self-confidence goes out the window. She becomes like a shy little girl who questions whether she has any worth at all; especially as an attractive woman. She is attracted to men who are not really available or interested in a committed relationship, she puts them up on a pedestal, and ends up feeling humiliated and rejected when she discovers that they have other lovers.
Cecilia attracts men whom she considers to be strong, confident, and successful, because it is only with these kinds of men, that she can allow herself to lose some of her control and be vulnerable. With men who are not so outwardly self-assured, she gets bored and judges them.
Santoshi has been with Anand for five years. She was originally attracted to him because she believed that he was spiritually more evolved than her, he was a meditator and she felt that she was a beginner in her own spiritual search and could learn so much from Anand. Now, five years later, she is no longer so impressed with the depth of Anand’s wisdom, finds that he is on a big ego trip, and very disconnected from his emotions.
Anthony invested a big portion of his savings with an acquaintance who was starting a company and impressed him with his confidence and energy. If he had taken time to look more deeply, he would have discovered that this person had failed in two previous companies and had still not paid back his debts to a number of people who had invested money with him. Anthony has a history of looking up to people and very easily being convinced about something, especially when it comes to money; hoping that he magically will double or triple his savings in a short time.
When we are mystified, we want to magically believe in people, hoping that people are honest and trustworthy, and believe that if we only trust enough, then everything will work out perfectly.
From this state we believe that life is fair, just and kind. It is a part of us which doesn’t really want to grow up and see reality as it is, and as a result, we can easily give up our power. We are looking for something or someone to save us, to relieve us of all our pain and suffering, and enable us to feel safe and secure in this world.
When we are mystified, we don’t see people as they are, we don’t listen to our own intelligence and intuition, in fact, we may not even trust our intuition.
For that reason, we easily lose ourselves when we come close to someone. We feel betrayed when someone doesn’t meet our expectations, we may compare ourselves endlessly and often feel less than someone. We may become highly sensitive and reactive to any kind of criticism or judgments, real or perceived, because we don’t have an inner sense of self. Another person’s opinion becomes very important and we may feel as if we have to fight for our right to be here or to justify our actions with explanations.
What causes us to become mystified is that we are blinded by our hunger for love and connection, by our deep insecurities, and by our fears that we will never get the love and security that we long for. Our sense of self is full of a deep sense of inadequacy and deficiency.
Where does mystification come from?
It has it’s root in losing an inner sense and confidence in ourselves from a very early age. This inner quality needs to be supported when we are small because at that early time, we don’t yet have a sense of ourselves and we are extremely vulnerable to what the big people say and do.
If we were raised in an environment that was repressive, authoritarian, moralistic, pressuring, where there was any kind of violence from one of the big people or if we had strong expectations placed on us on how and who we should be, we will lose this inner sense of confidence. This can also happen if we were abandoned and neglected energetically and didn’t have anybody there to guide us to learn to trust ourselves. In both cases we missed deep connection and positive mirroring.
Because of this we lost trust in our feelings, intuition, and intelligence, and easily become gullible and impressionable. All of this negative conditioning caused us to feel helpless, to not have a sense of control and mastery of our own life.
Then naturally we will lose ourselves in any kind of relating.
We can overcome mystification with certain specific steps:
1. Paying close attention to our body symptoms and to begin to trust the signals that our body is sending us. Inside, we know what is right and what is not right for us; we just haven’t been listening.
2. Getting into our body, moving it, and strengthening our core. We naturally develop more confidence when we are able to feel our body and mobilize our life energy regularly.
3. Learning to be with our emptiness instead of going to another person to fill that hole. This will help us not to be blinded by our hunger and be more able to see the reality of the situation we are in.
4. Learning to respect our boundaries and having the courage to take risks to affirm them. This may simply mean to walk away from certain situations.
As we practice these steps, we gradually develop a stronger sense of mastery over our life and we become less inclined to lose ourselves in others.
We start to reach a point where we no longer want to keep giving our power away and we are committed to standing on our own feet. We begin to discard all kinds of ideas and beliefs that we learned as a child and start to trust our inner wisdom.
It’s a process which takes commitment, patience, and practice but it definitely pays off and brings tremendous dignity and self-respect.