Yesterday in our One Year of Inquiry Telegroup everyone looked at the stressful belief “I Need To Look Good.”
As I sat with these thoughtful inquirers, all investigating situations in which needing to look good might bring about stressful feelings, I was suddenly stunned by how far this thought reaches…touching on so many relationships and experiences.
When needing to look good is stressful, it can be excruciating and paralyzing, or provoke just a wee bit of anxiety.
But in any case, NOT looking good is dangerous. That’s the belief, that’s what the mind is shouting.
Look Good! Do The Right Thing! There Are People Watching! Careful!!
I could see places in which I felt it crucial that others perceive me well. And it had never occurred to me that maybe it was not important at all.
My dictator mind will formulate the need to look good like this:
- I need the students to see me as capable, personable, and intuitive….if they don’t, there will be chaos, they will complain, they’ll think I’m worthless, they will replace me
- I need the children to see me as a wise, loving, and strong leader…if they don’t, they will be lost, frightened, insecure and dislike being with me
- I need that organization to see me as supportive, vital and creative…if they don’t they will fire me, they will dismiss me, they will ignore me
- I need that man to see me as kind, intelligent and attractive….if he doesn’t, he’ll get interested in a different woman, he’ll leave, he’ll abandon me
- I need that woman to see me as honest, full of integrity, accepting…if she doesn’t, she will disgrace me, criticize me, betray me
- I need those friends to see me as real, caring, and fun….if they don’t, they will forget about me, give up on me, think of me as unimportant
- I need the world to think well of me, to think I’m worthy, spiritual, safe, attentive….if they don’t bad things will happen: rejection, abandonment, attack, hurt, separation, loneliness.
It is amazing how deeply we can go into Other Peoples’ Business. In other words, as Byron Katie puts it, we become very concerned with what other people are thinking of us.
Amazing to sit with this incredible, fourth question of The Work: Who would you be without the thought, that you need to look good?
Without the thought that I need to look good, that I need to clean up my presentation, that I need to be great on stage, that I need to be thought of as kind but firm, that I need to be clear, powerful, graceful, creative, secure, wise, loving, special, pretty, fascinating….
….Wow. It is so unusual to consider not having this thought and what that would be like, it’s almost unimaginable.
Not care at all what I looked like? Not care at all what other people thought? Ever? Not believing that there is anything to risk? No worry about appearing BAD?
That is freedom beyond belief. Totally and completely untethered. Empty and mysterious.
It stops time.
Sitting without this thought goes far beyond where I thought it would go.
Suddenly, I became aware of how, without believing I have to look “good” (whatever I am thinking good is) then there is no future…because there is no planning for what could happen and how to prevent it, no stressful concern for how I’m being perceived.
The entire body relaxes. Open to whatever comes.
All I have to attend to is all the reality around me, this thing apparently called me, this energy that is unbounded and actually doesn’t even need to be a “me” and yet seems to be here, pulsing with life.
The turnaround comes alive…”I do not need to look good to others”.
Not only do I not need this, as I notice the love that is present in the core of myself looking outward, I even realize that all in this instant, I actually need to look bad (if I do).
Those moments of looking bad to someone else, to a group, to others….as someone said this morning in our telegroup out loud….”didn’t every single one of those times I was perceived as looking bad teach me something incredible?”
“In many ways we were drugged when we were young. We were brought up to need people. For what? For acceptance, approval, appreciation, applause—for what they called success…..An attachment is a belief that without something you are not going to be happy. ‘How could I be happy unless I have good health?’ you say. But I’ll tell you something. I have met people dying of cancer who were happy.” ~ Anthony De Mello
You may think the thought, “How will I ever be happy, or be motivated to do a good job, or be successful…unless I believe I need to look good? I’ll go around looking bad right and left, and fail, say stupid things, lose, be disliked…”
Are you sure that is true?
I notice how beautiful the world looks, how safe and intriguing and full of wonder…amazed at the next minute, and the next, without the thought that I have to look like anything.
Without the thought that it is TERRIBLE if someone thinks of me as worthless, incapable, weak, hateful, a poor leader, uncaring, boring, dishonest, stupid, ugly, unsupportive….it is not a brushed off I-Don’t-Care defiant freedom….it is a deep, open, expansive freedom, full of all the feelings, full of joy.
Everyone allowed to think whatever they think, without me getting involved.
“Don’t look for it outside yourself. You are the source of milk. Don’t milk others! There is a milk fountain inside you. Don’t walk around with an empty bucket. You have a channel into the ocean, and yet you ask for water from a little pool. Beg for that love expansion. Meditate only on THAT. The Qur’an says, And He is with you.” ~ Rumi
How would you live your life today, driving your car, walking down the street, at the gym, buying groceries, going to work….without the thought that you ever needed to be better, look good, or generate positive feelings in anyone else at any point in time so far in your life, including now?
Love, Grace