9.Rediscovering Your Persona: Transitioning into Social Life
Re-entry, full public life of connecting, kvetching, embracing, and wasting is upon us. It’s been awhile. Out on the streets, in public aisles and at cafe corner tables, in your private homes and gardens - we make contact. I hear how awkward it is. Some of you feel it’s a muscle that needs some retraining. Others of you feel permanently changed and hesitant to re-enter public life as before – be it how you apportion your time, or the underlying anxiety remaining of the mutating virus.
It brings up the significance of the personas that we put on in the public realm. The persona is the outward face we present to the world.
Apropos to our times, the persona is a kind of ‘mask’ we put on. The persona is the superficial posturing we put on that conceals our real Self. It is the PR part of our personality.
After a lot of time away from social spaces, many of us have to dust off the persona in the closet. The transition into social codes and frameworks of normality ‘IRL’ can feel awkward. How we reorient our way back into the embrace of another or small talk about the weather is actually really loaded. These emotions of expectation might feel like fear and grief and euphoria are playing out underneath the surface. It might manifest in our physiology - stumbling over words, clammy hands, racing heartbeat, not being able to get in a conversational flow, and so forth.
It reminds me of when you reflect on a night out and cringe at some of the interactions or regrettable things that you may have said (which in all likelihood the person did not interpret in the same judgment that we hold for ourselves). So, we may trip over our words or have some awkward movements before finding our way.
Making alterations to the persona
The transition back into social spheres might also offer an opportunity for making alterations to our personas. Particularly if the changes you’ve experienced over the course of two years have changed your personality and soul (and I reckon deep down we all are changed by this). Taking an objective view, has yours <persona> gone out of fashion? How do you want to reappear then into a relationship with the external world?
Part of the consideration is how aligned your inner world is with your outer world. The persona often looks like an appeaser wanting to be liked by others (and convince others that you’re not a bad person). It could take on other forms though that are not as appealing - the mansplainer [1] or someone in a position of authority being condescending and unrelatable. Or, it could be portraying an always caring and empathic therapist persona in public life who isn’t able to voice their real opinions for the risk of losing their professional reputation! Ahem!
The takeaway is if your persona is very far removed from how you really feel inside, you’re tripping over your own shadow.
The stronger the persona, the stronger your shadow is.
PR isn’t all spin; the purpose behind our persona
In fairness, from a trauma-informed perspective, these personas protect us from feeling vulnerable or from ostracisation and are therefore are a necessary part of our personality structure. As I have written previously on as a matter of adaptation, we subconsciously cultivate these personas early on as a matter of survival.
For adolescents tangled up in exploring their identities, the isolation has afforded a safe space to do this without peer input or judgment. Take 25-year-old Aamina, who identifies as non-binary, the isolation was opportune to explore her gender: “I think it really does give you this strange and unique opportunity to reflect on what your sense of self is built on when it’s not built on what other people think of you as.” [2]
The viral persona - #isthisshi*forreal?
Even more re-entry gusto glory is the #maincharacter trend which celebrates the kind of new realised ‘self’ coming out of lockdown - full of annoying positive aphorisms and young women traipsing through romantic landscapes. They are the central character in their own Eat, Pray, Love kind of movie for us to reinforce with happy emojis. Expectedly, the satirical piss-taking spin-off memes are in no short supply.
Ok, you’re saying, I’m not on TikTok (for those of us born before 1980)! But you’ve probably seen your friends posting pictures at reunions, parties, holidaying, and so forth now without shame or fear. Are these not more subtle forms of earnest #maincharacter vibes? It is all a kind of digitalised persona.
New Yorker journalist Kyle Chayka writes that: “Post-Covid, we want to reclaim control of our stories, exert ourselves upon the world, take our places as protagonists once more – and then post about it.” [3]
On the receiving end of these movies and messaging, it again evokes our shadow self (as social media will always do). And yet, maybe the kids are right to pick and post their ‘moments’; we are the center of our own stories. We don’t need to live vicariously through other fictional and reality-based entertainment influencers, cyborgs, and so-called celebrities.
To conclude, here’s an aphorism I like that a former client used to say to me: After all, this is not a dress rehearsal…
On reflection
How much do you identify with your persona now? What’s changed?
How aligned are your insides with your outsides?
How does it feel to return to familiar settings and interactions?
In what relationships and environments does your persona really take center stage?
What purpose does your persona serve?
What traits might your persona be compensating for?
Sources
Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit for Guernica Magazine (August 2012)
Young People Found Time to Figure Out Their Identities During the Pandemic by Fortesa Latifi. Teen Vogue (24 June 21).
We All Have #Maincharacter Energy Now by Kyle Chayka. New Yorker. (23 June 2021)