In whose story, are you the villain, the scapegoat, the evil one?
It’s never been more clear than since 2020 (2024 as I write this) that people make a lot of false assumptions and ad hominem attacks on social media without really even knowing someone. Then there are people who barely know you or those you think you know but realize it was all a facade. Thus, it’s no coincidence how easy it is for people to label others in ways that are misconstrued.
Are you really the villain or did you hit a pain point and someone isn’t happy about that?
Are you really evil or did something you say trigger someone and they are over-reacting?
Does someone really not like you or do you hit a little too close to home?
Is it easier to make you the scapegoat or bash your character than for someone to have to look at something they don’t want to look at?
The system we live in wants you in survival mode, disconnected from your heart, following the plan and what it “expects” you to follow as a good little boy or girl that never really knows your inner child and maintains a state of spiritual immaturity and silence about anything other than the approved indoctrinated messages. As long as you are “perceived” as good…which is really compliance…which is really complete self-abandonment…the numbed-out comfort of “that’s just the way it is,” then you can exist…but you better keep that mask on, or else the cost will go up?
If you’re like me, something happened (ok a lot of things happened over time) and you began to speak up for yourself. It’s like jumping off a cliff where you can’t see the bottom. People deny letting themselves be known, or shown, because deep down they know the discomfort that will come from it. I raise my hand here, it’s so hard for me to put myself out there like this.
Everything we avoid, from confrontation, rejection, and abandonment is created by our own fear of being who we really are because we know that it will require us facing all of those things.
When you become more of you, most people won’t like it, they will want to keep the old you the way you were, the you they felt comfortable around, the you that maybe had lower standards or didn’t ruffle feathers… yet you can’t return to that version of existence…and so the inevitable happens, people that you thought would be in your life forever, slip away.
It’s not that you are better than them, it’s just the path diverges and the frequency changes.
I remember when I was in junior high school and it was either Halloween or some event where costumes were part of the day.
I borrowed an old disco outfit from a friend’s mother that was a flowy, flowery, bell bottom ensemble. I loved it.
I was sitting in class and there was a substitute teacher that day who didn’t like me from the moment he saw me. He kept making snide comments and saying things like, “well, Goldilocks, what’s the answer?”
It was supposed to be an insult, a jab at being a dumb blonde, a sense of being naïve. Well, teacher man, I wasn’t even really blonde, just sun-kissed, so take that you small town indoctrinator jerk-face…Damn, I wish I was good at come-backs. :)
Many people throughout life have perceived me as naïve, the underdog, and this “perception” for whatever reason it exists, has only made me stronger and more resilient…. because I’m not naïve, but I won’t let go of my playfulness or the part of me that looks for the good in people. When people see me this way it’s a projection of their own fears of being open, because to be open means you might get hurt, it’s a form of vulnerability and can be a connection to the mystery, the unknown, the curiosity that comes with giving yourself permission to view the world through child-like eyes.
The truth is, a part of me was seen that day that I didn’t yet understand in myself.
To the teacher, goldilocks possibly represented something in him that was uncomfortable to look at, maybe his own naivete, maybe I reminded him of a woman he liked once where things didn’t work out. I will never know.
Either way, this is a definitive moment in my life that I have never been able to forget.
It may seem uneventful, but it made me feel icky, embarrassed…all the joy I had in my appearance that day, a chance to try on the care-free side of myself vanished in a number of insults on display for the entire class. Ultimately, this event drove me toward studies in psychology and heightened my interest in human behavior.
I was going to have to grow a thicker skin…. or was I?
I became a people pleaser, but it didn’t even matter, somehow the very nature of my being has a way, at times, of irritating others.
I could (and can) trigger someone without even saying a word. This seems to be in my blueprint for my purpose, people love to hate me…. until they realize the villain they thought I was…wasn’t…. isn’t.
I’ve had to learn to be ok being gravely misunderstood and accept this knowing as part of my plight. It’s taken me a long time to accept this.
Thus, why not write about things to provoke thoughts…when that has always been what I have done just by being…an air sign with a ruminating mind needs to write things down…it’s a requirement for my health and well-being.
Over time I began to understand that being yourself is hard because it means some people won’t understand you and won’t like you. Being yourself will annoy people who are not being true to themselves.
I know because I’ve been there. I wore the “invisible” mask of people pleasing and trying to be liked until I couldn’t anymore. I still struggle with it some days. I’m still finding ways to express myself and communicate from my most centered place.
I’m writing this because being real is hard, we all fail some days. Sometimes we run into someone we once knew and it slips back up for a second and we become more and more aware of it, it’s a practice. It’s learning to belong to ourselves, to reclaim our mind from the propaganda, return to our hearts and let our spirit warm the ground for us so that we know we are held, that we belong somewhere, even if we don’t.
The more you become who you really are, year after year, layer after layer, the more people will disappear from your life. It gets harder to hold up the facade, thus, this is probably why elders will often say things like, “if you have a few good friends, you’re doing great.” I get it now, when I was younger, I didn’t.
To be true is not to hold up the fake (and toxic) positivity of the new age, nor to wallow too long by focusing only on the negative, the challenges we all face. It’s being with people that hold you accountable, who accept you but don’t put up with your BS….and this goes for the relationship with ourselves, too.
When you reflect back to someone a part of them they don’t want to see, even if it’s just simple honesty…if they are still heavily cloaked, masked, they will be triggered and will turn you in to the villain of their story.
People can only meet you as far as they have met themselves and most people aren’t willing to dive WITH you, which makes relationships, be it romantic or friendships, that are willing to weather storms and work through the storms, one of the most valuable things in the whole world…. a scarcity for sure.
The deeper you dive into knowing yourself, the lonelier it gets.
This is why I cherish kindred spirits, both those that stay and those that pass by for just a time.
Working in the “corporate” world, I was labeled as difficult, among other words, because I had a lot of questions and did not back down from doing the right thing for my customers. Even in that environment, I strived to stay in integrity, yet was met with so much resistance. Corporations are often a place of secrets, lack transparency, cut corners. The expectation for me to burn the midnight oil was killing me slowly. I’m still healing my nervous system. I’m still making changes towards a better, more congruent, way of living by my values…and I’m grateful for the experience, too, for it has been an invaluable resource and contrast to my growth, so many lessons and blessings for it all.
Maybe it’s the Libra in me, but no matter the circumstance, I always try to be fair because I need to live with myself and be able to sleep at night…yet sometimes this “fairness” is where the people pleasing sneaks in…can you relate?
I can’t deny that my Human Design chart mirrors this life experience in its analysis…the practical problem-solver heretic mixed with the need to deeply investigate things turns me in to a seeker and a catalyst…hello, higher self, why exactly did I sign up for this?
I began to understand that sometimes doing what’s right and being in integrity with myself means being ok with being seen as a myriad of labels in someone else’s eyes…. the neighborhood witch, the villain, naïve…. Maybe this goldilocks was becoming Cruella (depending on who you talked to).
That’s the thing about life, everyone is a villain in someone’s story…. that means you too!
The more you let your weird out, the better it feels to heal the incongruency of the inner and outer worlds…. like the darkness and light merging into, both, not caring what others think, and having love, compassion and meeting people where they are.
When 2020 happened, something inside of me that had been held in my whole life could no longer pretend and I let my stance be known, I did not comply, I did not consent.
I was banished, refused, and outcast… yet again.
Friends and family who already thought I was strange now had a justifiable reason to bid me adieu…all these years later, I’m still not accepted unless I put on a happy face of pretend or agree not to talk about anything but superficial topics, which is not ok.
To that I say, I’m just getting started.
Things will get weirder.
The second half of my life is going to be very different than the first.
I’m at peace being seen as the villain now... imagine me saying this in my best Cruella de Vil laugh.
On this winding path I’ve learned that part of my purpose is to shine a light on the shadows…and to do this I had to get really comfortable with the darkness…. I had to take all the love inside of me and let it exist in a new way, amidst the transition of the old me to the new, even if someone else can’t see it, receive it, understand it, or wanted to use it against me.
When you follow your own path, you have to make peace with this knowing that you will disappoint people, you’ll hurt them, not from that old wounded place of people pleasing, avoidance, self-sabotage or lying to yourself (thus then lying to others), but from a place of just wanting to be real, genuine, authentic and true to your own heart, aligned with your own soul, and in accordance with the path you know you are meant to walk….even if that means walking alone….even if that means peeling back another layer of discovery you didn’t even know was there…the quest is an undoing.
I know I have much more to un-do, long-lost parts of me that were never cultivated, curiosities that have yet to surface, conversations that open my eyes to things I’ve never known or experienced or heard….and I’m here for it…. I’m open to let the adventure surprise me.
The old me has died many times and emerged anew bringing wisdom from experiences of the past in to the present.
Sometimes I feel I’ve lived three lives in one, other times I feel I haven’t scratched the surface of living.
This world is mad, yet they will call you the crazy one.
The Irrational Sage was born out of the awareness that wisdom is not always rational, at least according to societal standards, it’s beyond opening up the inner eye of awareness, it’s beyond words or explanation, it’s a knowing that sometimes doing the crazy thing is the rational thing, the right thing, the true thing…. maybe not to the masses, but to the weirdo living inside of us all waiting to surface.
I know I’ll always be a villain in someone’s story and that even if I could share my side of something it wouldn’t, or couldn’t be heard. I’ve made peace with this.
Being triggered is a gift, it means something has been stirred, something ignored or stagnant that is asking to be noticed. Without others gifting me with triggers, I wouldn’t have been able to heal or see things in myself that I was blind to. It’s ok, it’s not personal, yet it is. Willingly or not, to fill the role of villain in someone’s story is part of the grand play in our inter-connectedness, it’s necessary for everyone as it reflects back insight in letting go, insight in loving others from afar when needed, it’s opposition needed to see the whole of a situation and it’s a part everyone plays at one time or another, consciously or not.
Everyone has a tribe of people vibing on the same wavelength, but we can only find them if we let our voices be heard in whatever way that looks like for us each, we have to let our weird out…we have to be happy with our choices, make peace with our mistakes….we have to recognize that even the kindest, most loving heart, or the wisest “fairest” soul can be perceived as something else entirely…so love those that run towards you, the ones who feel like home, and let everyone else have whatever experience they need to have, including yourself…to thine own self by true…and so it is.
With love and “evil devilish witchy villain’esque scoundrel black-sheep” ways that aren’t,
Cheers to the mad ones in the upside-down-inside-down-reversed-real(m)…let others be wrong about you,
~ Angela
The Irrational Sage
"As long as you are “perceived” as good…which is really compliance…which is really complete self-abandonment…the numbed-out comfort of “that’s just the way it is,” then you can exist…but you better keep that mask on, or else the cost will go up?"- Bravo! Grateful for your openess and wise words. ❤️🙏
Me. Exactly. TY.