What the most disturbing stories of your childhood taught your growing mind

This is a story about public humiliation (and its lesson may come as a surprise)

Jul 24, 2024

The most disturbing stories that you grew up with have deep meaning and that meaning speaks to and influences your mind through the oldest and most persuasive language known to man – symbolism. So, what exactly have you been taking in?

I am fascinated by the power of archetypal imagery and story when it comes to how our personalities, lives and even societies are shaped. Today, I want to tell you a tale you probably know already, but listen anyway, because thanks to the amazing Clarissa Pinkola Estés, I’m going to tell it differently – and that difference can make, well, all the difference. So, settle in for a few minutes. Close your eyes, if you like. It's storytime.

**Inspired by Clarissa Pinkola Estés' "The Late Bloomer"**

The Emperor's New Clothes (with a crucial twist)

Once upon a time, in a land far beyond the known horizons, there lived an old emperor who adored new clothes. His passion for beauty was so immense that he spent all his riches on tailors, weavers, and embroiderers, compulsively collecting silks, laces, hats and shoes of every colour under the sun because he admired beauty so much – as much, that is, as he hoped to be admired by others. And so, the old emperor paraded through the streets each day, dazzling the townsfolk with his splendid attire.

But then, one day, two deceitful men arrived at his court – and these were truly immoral, cheating men. They claimed to be master tailors who could weave a rare fabric with the magical power to reveal the worth and intelligence of those who looked upon it, since this fabric would be completely invisible to anyone foolish, stupid or undeserving. Only, they claimed, the wise and the worthy would be able to behold its beauty.

Immediately curious, the emperor called the men to the palace, and in a flurry of pomp and grandeur, they "presented" their fabric. But the emperor, of course, couldn't see it, and when he realised this, he nervously looked about the room to see how others were reacting. But everyone there had been taken in by the same lie, and so they professed their appreciation of this glorious fabric that he couldn't see.

And so, feeling doubtful and chagrined, the emperor forced the corners of his mouth upwards, and he too bestowed compliments upon the tailors and their invisible cloth, and he commissioned them a great deal of gold to create a suit just for him. But all the while, inside, he was panicking – "Am I so unfit that I can’t see this fabric? Am I truly so stupid that I alone am unable to pass this test?"

Days went by as the two evil men busied themselves with their empty looms. With shears, needles and other props, they performed their lie for all to see. When, at last, they announced that they were finished, the Emperor, heart heavy but still terrified to reveal his ignorance, stripped to his most simple linen underwear to dress in these new, invisible, clothes.

What he didn't know, as he stepped out into the city that day and his presence was announced by ceremonial trumpeters and drummers, was that everyone around him was thinking exactly the same thing: I'm doomed, they worried, because I alone can’t see the emperor's new clothes; I, alone, am unworthy. So they all feigned their adoration and hid their blushes because, of course, what they were really looking at was a nearly naked, uncomfortable-looking man, dressed only in the simplest of linen underwear.

Finally, though, a small child pushed their way through the crowd, and although the courtiers attempted to dismiss them and shove them back into the throng, the child managed to open their mouth and say: "That poor, old man is not wearing any clothes. Has nobody told him?"

In that moment – in a piercing flash of awareness – the world awoke, humbled, but alive. The emperor, with all the dignity and grace he could muster, simply asked for one of his servants' cloaks, draped it around himself and led the procession back to the palace. And from the awkward silence left in his wake sprang a strange relief – the growing sense that maybe it was true all along that all these people who had been fooled, cheated into a sense of inferiority, actually were worthy of their place in the kingdom after all. More than that, the realisation that, deep down, they had known all along, that they had been able to see the truth with their eyes and also the humanness of the great emperor – vulnerable beneath the facade, just like them. This awareness changed everything.

How this story speaks to the soul

You might be wondering what was so different about this version of the story – and you're right that the key themes and events were all the same as ever. But did it not feel a little different from its usual telling?

The story of the emperor's new clothes is handed down to us and told, normally, as a story of ridicule. But, as Clarissa Pinkola Estés claims, that's not the way it's told by the old people back in the old country; it's told, instead, as a story of compassion. Compassion for those who find themselves having believed in something that was wrong or deceptive from the outset.

I reckon, when most of us hear this story, we think: if that happened to me, I'd say that I couldn't see the fabric. But would we? If it wasn't invisible fabric that we were fooled with, but something from our special field or interest, some kind of talent or ability that we've formed our entire identities around, would we be so quick to expose our ignorance?

As Estés points out, inside the human heart, apparently all of us either are born with or soon develop a question about whether we're worthy or not, whether it's alright for us to fully be ourselves, to proceed, in her words, "in full-out, balls-out flying with full wings, full tassels, full everything and anything." We question, is it alright?

And of course it is alright, but that is not what we're led to believe.

So this story, though one we've come to tell as a warning about hubris, is one that, when told with compassion, has a very, very different message. Here's what we can take from it.

The true meaning of The Emperor's New Clothes

This story is about the Persona – the way that we project ourselves, the way that we are seen by the world. That's what the clothes represent.

Estés, a psychologist, talks about the creative people she's worked with in her practice – and by that she doesn't only mean artists, but entrepreneurs, teachers, scientists… everyone, because we're all creative. She says that the moment we become concerned with Persona, "we block our flowering." The moment we start to worry about how the world sees us and what the world will do to us if we don't dress or act right or live right, then the flow of our creativity will dry up entirely.

The emperor was vain, yes, but he was also passionate and enthralled by the beauty of clothes, until the trickster cheats humiliated him by literally laying his very human self-doubt bare for all the world to see. But humbling experiences like that – the pain and shock of something like that – can actually be a gift.

Although we frequently have nightmares about showing up at school or work or wherever naked, to be able to do that – not literally, of course, but to be real and honest in front of people, to lay ourselves bare – is what we all truly wish for deep down. We don't do it, because we're afraid that we'll be judged as unworthy if we do. So instead, we fool ourselves into believing that we can perform or project a false but admirable self, and that others will believe it and respect it. But they don't, and deep down, we know it. So this performance doesn't resolve, but adds to our sense of unworthiness.

The great lie, exposed by the story of the Emperor' New Clothes is this: we are led to believe that by being and doing and appearing perfect, we will be able to have a perfect life. We fall into the trap of believing that by projecting the image of perfection – via our carefully crafted Instagram posts, our age-defying makeup, and all the boastful, slightly exaggerated stories that get told over a few beers – we will be able to weave an actual perfect existence for ourselves.

But that perfect existance is only ever as real – and only ever as convincing – as the emperor's new clothes. Yet, we all perform this lie regardless, because we're too afraid to do otherwise. That's why it was only the little child – someone too young to have been cowed by the pressure of meeting societal standards – who had the nerve to speak the obvious truth. The child could do it because they weren't worried about how they would appear. Instead, what they were worried about was the poor old man who had been so humiliated and deceived. So, they spoke up and the moment they did – the moment they expressed what they actually saw – the spell was broken for everyone.

The thing is that we are all that little child, we can all access what is true for us, but we are all the emperor, too: there will always be that fragile egoic part of us that doubts that truth. Because of that, we all are the cheats, as well; they represent the part that wants to find the quick fix, to get what we desire dishonestly, without really doing the work.

We don't get to delete or defeat any of these parts of self. To claim that we can would be to don the emperor's new clothes. But which of these characters we present to the world through our actions – the archetypal clothes that we wear – this is a matter of choice. This is the decision we make.

So what do you choose? What is the truth or the passion or the creativity that you have and that you can share with the world? What is underneath the performance and the Persona? What is true for you, and how can you tell that story?

Thank you for reading!

We’re Hazel (ex boxer, therapist and author) and Ellie (ex psychology science writer). We left our jobs to build an interactive narrative app for self-awareness and emotion regulation (Betwixt), which you can try on Android here and on iOS here.