If Looks Could Kill

I have an expressive face, and I’m a pro at eye rolling. I have no trouble making it clearly known that I don’t approve of whatever. I mostly likely learned this from my father and society’s disapproval of who I am. It even worked its way back into my face after paralysis, arriving before my speech.  Get this… I had relearn to flare my nostrils, before I learned to speak, again.

My partner on the other hand rarely shows emotion besides happiness although he is not poker faced. We will argue and it will take him a long time to show any emotion. He knows intuitively that words are not really who I am and doesn’t confuse me with my ideas. Sure, he might get silent, but it is frowned upon in his culture to show anything in public, and he has been a great influence.  And yet, he is far from poker-faced and embodies Chai Yen.  He is calm and cool and not pulled by life’s vicissitudes. And he has had is full share of them, starting at birth by being abandoned by his parents.

He has me thinking that everything I don’t like, relates to things I feel internally or don’t like about myself. We often throw our opinion about life with gestures or attitudes if we don’t say it verbally. One doesn’t have to read auras to get a sense of the personal misery I am so willing to share. It makes me wonder how many people I turned off by this exhibition unknowingly over the years? Why do shoots darts of emotion into the crowds and expect anything but a mirroring of the shite you put out. The world is not out there and we forget that we are our world living in a self-created hell. If all we do and see is ugliness, even in its most benign form of laughing at others will just further our misery.

We can start with watching our feelings in every situation, to really see what prompts our every reaction. (How about no-reaction? Who really asked you, anyway?) Those looks that kill may not have anything to do with what or who we are directing it all to.  We might be hungry, anxious, disappointed, tired, in pain or just experience normal emotions that we are not in touch with. When someone says a person is grounded, actually means they know what is driving them internally at every moment. Start with your feet, you will notice they are furthest from you mind, and really you’re your body working up to the head. You’ll notice that you reside in your thoughts not allowing you to feel the real trigger. That is, before you go on a Bette Davis impersonation ....in front of strangers.