When we smile and put on a brave face

I was sad to read a post on Threads the other day where a woman described how she had visited a therapist after her hysterectomy.  In chatting to him, she ‘was, typically, telling jokes and making light of the hard stuff.’ He heard her out and then asked, What about the pain?  The woman posted that she ‘… shattered. Absolutely fell apart. Because I have never allowed myself to admit that pain is real.’ She hadn’t realised until then how she had been hiding that from herself.  A case right there for Agrimony.

Smiling and putting on a brave face we call it. The word face comes from an old Latin verb facere to make. “To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet,” as TS Eliot phrased it. In a distressing autobiography by Ronnie Archer-Morgan (of BBC’s Antiques Roadshow) he wrote “I came to realise that a smile deflected people from my inner anguish. It became a form of armour, a shield against monstrous memory, a way to counter my conviction that people wouldn’t like looking at me.”  

These are extreme examples of hiding anguish even from ourselves. We think our wound has healed over when in fact – as can happen with deep physical wounds – it only appears to scab and heal on the surface, while continuing to turn septic underneath.

Sometimes we can recognise Agrimony by the persona they project.  They are often chatty, cheerful, sociable people, quick to suggest a drink or an outing.  Persona comes from the Greek meaning the mask that actors wore, and took off after a performance.  Agrimony wears a mask – and it becomes such an engrained habit that they are no longer in touch with their inner selves. That was clear in the instance above, the woman was so used to ‘acting’ – pretending to herself that she had no pain – and joking about her predicament that she automatically did it with her therapist.

The Agrimony chattiness – unlike Heather types where it is all about their own concerns – is designed to deflect attention or interest away from themselves, their problems, their feelings. They can’t bear to recognise or examine their own pain so of course they don’t want others to touch the sore place either. I have a client who, if I ask a pertinent question, will always digress to another topic entirely, deflecting my spotlight away from himself.

Taking Agrimony reconnects us with our innermost being, helping the torment to surface gently and naturally in our consciousness so that it can heal in the pure light of day. With inner peace restored we find we can face problems with courage and optimism.