Edges Magazine Issue 29: Why Do We Marginalise Ourselves?

EDGES MAGAZINE Issue 29

May 2002

Why Do We Marginalise Ourselves?

Elaine Kennedy is part of the Edges Team.

Marginalisation always seems to be referred to as something we inflict on someone else,or,have inflicted on us by outside influences.But what of self-marginalisation?That deeply sealed alienation we inflict on ourselves as a result of our inability to face our deepest fears.Fears of broken-ness; inadequacies;failures;death;and most frightening of all:who we really are.

By sealing in these realities we won ’t even acknowledge exist,and never even attempting to admit they might be there,we marginalise a very important part of ourselves from ourselves,thereby creating a permanent wall dividing us from our fellow humans.We stifle aspects of ourselves which would otherwise help our spiritual growth,if only we would give ourselves a chance.Our deep spirituality is stifled from expansion and growth and our potential to link with one another never sees the light of day because our fears greatly outweigh our strengths.So much gift of who we are is wasted.

Not wishing to look at our smallness,we turn in our dis- satisfaction to creating vastness.Vastness of wealth; status;class distinction;pedestals;creating gods out of other ordinary humans and then destroying them with our jealousy.All this is pretence,a tool of mass destruction!So many of us are not content with who we are that we spend our lives desperately trying to create a different persona.In my childhood I suffered greatly from the effects wrought by someone who could never be content with who he was.Eventually,he alienated himself from all those around him.The irony was that he felt most alienated when in the company of people he strove to be like.He died not knowing who he was.His legacy was a tangled web of tragic and deeply rooted marginalisation,which has taken years to un-ravel.

Of course we must strive to achieve potential.We are all given talents to fulfil.But achievement should not change us as people.We are,through life,the same person we were on the day of our conception,our heritage and our uniqueness blend to make us who we are.

In the film,‘The Accidental Tourist ’,there is a deeply thought-provoking line which says that loving someone isn ’t enough,it ’s who you are when you are with them.

But just exactly who am I?It ’s good to think there is someone with whom I can be myself ………entirely?!

What about all those aspects hidden even to myself?How close to the truth is the image I project even to that special person?Sadly,we travel through life with areas of our inner core walled in,yet on the odd occasion when we are forced to peep out from behind our paper-thin facades,we discover the beauty in the fragility of the human condition.We actually blossom far more from accepting our smallness than we do from moments of greatness,because the light of God ’s love shines on our own fragility when we have dragged it away from the hidden edges towards our centre.Only then can we use our own smallness to reach out to others with sharing and healing.If only I could break down all the walls of my self-marginalisation,how much more I could give to others!

When Jesus was asked to heal the paralysed man,He pointed out to us how much more important it is to be spiritually rather than physically healed.It ’s our inner dis-ease which is paralysing.As ever,Jesus was trying to make us see that we need always,to try and see the bigger picture.

Our modern world,with its accumulated self-alienation of generations,does nothing to help us.Our attitudes to failure,weakness,mediocrity etc,only serve to increase our deep fears and therefore our need to project a distorted image of ourselves.Yet to face our truths is such a liberating experience.One of our most disturbing fears is the realisation that we are all the same!Surely not!Other people fail;are ridiculed;do awful things;die! Surely that final edge is not for me?!Yet,is Elvis Presley any less dead because he is surrounded by obscenely expensive slabs of marble?

A few months ago,being ill,I suffered a bad malaise at the doctor ’s surgery.I lay on the floor surrounded by efficient medical staff armed with electronic gadgets that pinged and bleeped.My eyes met my husband ’s aghast gaze – he thought,,as I did,that I was on the way out.I read in his face something which is beyond language.It was love beyond the deepest.I experienced in that moment,a revelation of the intensity of the love that is to come,and I wondered,in that beautiful moment,why we are so afraid of it all -so afraid of life as well as death.Maybe our greatest fear is that if we catch a glimpse of the full picture of who we really are,we won ’t love ourselves at all.That would have to be the furthest possible edge of self-marginalisation.

In my moment of revelation,I knew I wasn ’t ready.I still have too many alienated areas to bring to my centre (five months on,I despair that I ’m still the same crotchety old so and so).I also know that when we finally meet God face to face,we will be who we really are with Him.In the vastness of our smallness there will be no more self-marginalisation. And as for God,He is who He is with us,the only totally un-marginalised and complete being we will ever encounter.