"Unmasking our Authentic Self" Part I
...what are masks and why do we wear them?...
If you’ve found your way to this blog, you are probably already quite familiar with terms like, “hiding behind Persona-Identifications”, “wearing Masks” and
“being Authentic”.
But what exactly does this mean?
What do masks and personas look like, why do we wear them?
What are they hiding, and how do we take them off?
More importantly …what is our “Authentic Self”, and how do we own it?
If you are still a little unclear about any of the above, keep reading as we’ll get down to the nitty-gritties and subtleties of unmasking our Authentic Self a little down the line…
In Part I of this series, we will delve into the WHATS and WHYS;
What are Masks and Personas?
Why do we wear them, and how do we recognize we are wearing them?
And - what are the gifts our masks may be hiding?
In the next post,
Part II will take us deeper in to the HOW TO's:
How to distinguish between a Mask and our Authentic Self
How to identify and live from our Authentic Self, and
How to gently heal and dismantle our Masks.
Settle in and get ready to reflect on your own masks & personas, some more prominent, others perhaps quite underhanded, as I take you through some true life stories - mostly my own - to bring home the subtleties with which our masks may still shadow our lives while flying under the radar of our conscious awareness…
WHAT ARE MASKS & PERSONAS?
Masks and Personas are the “faces” we wear, not only in public, but all too often also to fool ourselves. And it works - up to a point. But we’ll get to that later.
First, I’d like to briefly touch on some basics before we dive into the heart of this article
- how to recognize even the subtlest of masks in ourselves and how to get in touch with and live from our most Authentic Self.
Masks, Personas, or Overlays - I’ll use these terms synonymously - come in many different forms and guises. Some of the most “popular” and common ones are
The “People Pleaser” (“I am the nicest person you’ll ever meet”)
The “Helper” (“I am lovable and useful and indispensable”)
The “Hard Worker” (“I am worthy”)
The “Optimist” (“I am always positive and happy & you love me for it”)
The “Rebel” (“You don’t get to tell me what to do & who to be…!!!")
The “Martyr” (“I sacrifice myself for (xyz) - therefore, you must see I deserve (xyz)”)
The “Independent” (“I don’t need anyone!”)
The “Over-Achiever” (“I am successful and powerful & deserve your respect”)
The “Invisible“ (“I am not a threat”)
The “Goody Two Shoes” (“I am so pure and good - all the way down to my core”)
The “Charmer/Flirt” (“I am sexy and desirable - you want me & you know it!”)
The “Spiritual Master“ (“I am so elevated and enlightened...yes, you may look up to me”)
The “Task Master” (“I am in control”)
The “Aloof & Arrogant” (“I am superior to you & way above it all”)
The “Bulwark” (“I am indestructible, nothing ever gets me down”)
The “Warrior” (“I am fierce and bad-ass, you better not mess with me!”)…
(*terms are my own creations and - as far as I know - not in general use, except for the ubiquitous “People Pleaser” - who amongst us is not familiar with that charming breed…?*)
There are many more, of course, but you can probably recognize most of the above, either in people around you or even in yourself. I know I have worn some of these at different times in my life; we all have…or do.
WHY DO WE WEAR MASKS?
But why do we need masks? What’s so horrid about our natural “faces” that we feel the need to hide them?
Nothing’s ever wrong with our true inner selves - except our perception of them!
And that’s where we really need to look - to the stories we tell ourselves about who we are behind what we show out in the world.
Looking at who we want to be can be a valuable clue - but only if we also use it as a means to discover what we actually want to hide…from ourselves and from the world.
Luckily for us, this is a fairly easy and straight forward process -
the persona we want to portray is trying very hard to cover up its polar opposite - the belief of who we think we actually are!
For example, if you have identified a part of you that plays the
Perennial People Pleaser, look at what you are trying to convey to everyone around you. You’re sending out messages that you are a really nice person, who never rubs anyone the wrong way, who will always accommodate everyone else’s wishes (because you don’t seem to have personal preferences or needs of your own, so it’s easy for you to be flexible and keep adapting), etc.
Looking to the opposite end of this stick - what would your story have to be about who you believe you truly are, deep down below the surface, where no-one is ever allowed to take a peek?
Probably something along the lines of “I am no good, nobody could possibly like me if they knew who I really am, if I showed my true needs, if I asked for what I really want…because it’s not nice to want anything - that’s just selfish. At least when I do it. It’s ok for others, because, obviously, they’re not me & therefore more worthy than I am. Something about me is really, really wrong…I hope no-one will ever find out about that…as long as I stay nice & don’t ruffle any feathers, people may actually like me; if they saw my true self, they would abandon me, for sure! Uh-oh, someone’s coming - better put that smile back on my face…”
Does this sound vaguely familiar? A lot of these beliefs are typically fairly unconscious, meaning we are mostly - if not completely - unaware of them; however, when rubbed in our faces (like I just did...), a lot of it still resonates with a deep, inner recognition…
If it does for you, don’t worry, you’re not alone in this - join the PPP club, it’s a big one! The majority of us finds ourselves here at one point or another; most stay for a long while, some their whole lives (not surprisingly - we’re such a nice, pleasant bunch, after all…), though others eventually, gradually transition onward…
A few more examples to bring home the point:
The Helper is desperate to prove their worth and value, deep down believing they have nothing worthy to contribute;
The Charmer/Flirt carries a deep pain around being undesirable & seeks to ameliorate this by finding external validation to the contrary to boost their self-esteem;
The Over-Achiever has always felt they’re not good enough, perhaps believing they are a failure, or lazy, or all around just “no good”; accomplishing things makes them feel better - hoping to prove to the world just how amazing & productive they really are;
The Invisible, Shy & Silent One may deflect attention away from themselves by remaining quietly apart from the fray, depreciating themselves while boosting others’ egos, often feeling small and insignificant…but at the core of it (though initially mostly unconscious), they may have a big message to share with the world, a Voice to be heard, a Light to shine…so big, they are afraid of being judged and “attacked”, or envied if they made their True Self, their True Voice, too obvious & visible & loud…
You get the idea.
However. while it may actually play out in these more obvious extremes, our masks can become incredibly subtle and nuanced.
This is particularly the case if we’ve already done a lot of inner self-reflection and healing; it gets harder and harder to spot our increasingly subtle compensatory personas and masks - especially since it’s never really black or white in the first place.
That’s what I really want to get into in this blog post (continued in Part II) -
HOW TO RECOGNIZE WHEN WE ARE WEARING MASKS
One of the things that makes it tricky to discern a Persona-Identity from our Authentic Self is that…they may actually look like one and the same thing!
Just because you might be a long-standing member of Club Perennial People Pleaser doesn’t mean that you’re not a genuinely nice, positive, smiley and helpful person by nature. Or that being flexible, adaptable and easy going isn’t also one of your most admirable and authentic traits.
It’s not really about what we do or how we present ourselves - what matters is the motivation behind the action.
Is this getting a little confusing?
Let’s look a bit closer. And deeper. All the way down to where our dark secrets, our sub- or even unconscious stories live - the beliefs we hold about ourselves and about the world.
I’ve talked about this in previous posts, and will probably go into even more detail in consequent articles, but just briefly put - our stories and resulting coping mechanisms have been built up around deep, emotional, psychological wounding, often acquired in childhood, or even passed down from our ancestral lineage.
[read “The Bright Side of Shadow-Work” & “The Thing about Triggers” for more]
We could have had pretty extreme, obvious traumas contributing to them, or some so mild as to be virtually invisible. Regardless of the severity of the “trauma” or wounding, we all deal with some story or another regarding how we see ourselves, every one of us playing them out in our unique ways and adaptations.
You could have had a mother dealing with deeply ingrained issues of self-loathing & resentments, masking it with a veneer of criticism & nagging. Being empathically sensitive, you may have tried really hard to find ways to please your mom so she would give you the positive attention you craved as a young child. Maybe it even worked once in a while.
Or perhaps you found out early on that you got a lot of positive attention from the opposite sex when you put on your charming, flirty side…which helped you compensate for the fact that your mom or dad never seemed to notice you much…
And so, "The Charmer” and “The People Pleaser” was born, out of a sense of emotional necessity.
Your nagging mother “taught” you that you were never good enough, unless you became the perfect little angel.
Your emotionally absent parents may have instilled a deep belief in you that you were not desirable, not important enough to pay attention to.
You might have adopted any variety of other coping mechanisms, instead.
You could have become the Independent or the Rebel, pretending you didn’t need or want anyone or anything, definitely not anyone’s love or approval, for sure!
You may have put up walls of avoidance, dismissal or aloofness to make yourself feel impenetrable to the pain of rejection forever more…
You may even find aspects of all of the above, and more, adding to the merry mix of your inner tribe of conflicting personas.
Nothing’s ever that straight-forward when we are dealing with our complex human psyche…
Hence, all the different shapes and sizes of masks to help us cover up deep wounds that we’d rather not have to feel or look at.
So - how do we know we are operating from a Cover-Up Persona, rather than our Authentic Self?
Search your deeper emotions & really become aware of and present with them; are you getting any sense of validation, soothing or perhaps even numbing & distraction from your behaviors & interactions?
Are you going "unconscious", acting on auto-pilot, rather than being in the here and now?
All of those are signs of Compensatory behavior patterns; start looking here, and try to identify your true motivations behind your behaviors and ways of interacting; in Part II, we will take this even deeper.
THE GIFTS BEHIND THE MASKS
And yet, more often than not, these “false identities” have a gift for us to take away from our experience with them, a deep, innate strength building & biding its time behind the surface mask;
I definitely belong to club PPP. And “Invisible” is probably my secret middle name - more likely, my first!
But I have also heavily leaned on “The Independent” and “The Rebel” to get me through life. The latter were a little at odds with the former, but hey, they all had their place.
What have they taught me?
It feels like all my life, I’ve been trying to be almost quite literally invisible - and it worked! I didn’t draw attention, I didn’t get into arguments or fights (except in more intimate relationships, but that is another story for another time…), and I learned to utterly depreciate myself and make myself small when talking to others, making them feel more potent and powerful than me so they wouldn’t find reason to resent me, be jealous or attack me in any way. All of this completely unconsciously, needless to say.
These days, after a lot of healing around deep unworthiness and lack of confidence issues, I find that I actually quite naturally want to boost people’s spirit and self-confidence. I’m downright passionate about it - so much so that I am building my profession, my business around it!
But it is no longer coming from an impulse to hide my own light and make myself seem non-threatening.
Now, it is inspired by my authentic joy in assisting others with stepping into their light and power and passion…everything I had been hiding from for so long myself. And boy, have I gained a lot of insights and understanding from all this hiding and struggling…hands on learning at its best..!
With all this staying in the background, unconsciously scanning and checking the crowd, making sure everything felt safe, I also got quite good at "reading" people. Being the Observer, the Witness, is second nature to me...which comes in handy when we want to take a step back from our emotional enmeshments and take a more neutral stance - a healthy dose of "detachment".
And all of this curtesy of a life-long protective mechanism of hyper-vigilance, lack of self-confidence and always feeling on the outside of things....thank you much, dear Life-Lessons! I'll take my gifts now- they are hard earned and much deserved!!
Did this make things a little clearer?
Another example:
you may be quite naturally light-hearted, social and charming and find yourself easily lifting people’s spirit thanks to your gift. You enjoy this, because you can feel how much it makes them feel better about themselves.
Or, you may still, unconsciously, be using this gift and your need to socialize to get attention and admiration, to boost your self-confidence & to forget about the empty hole inside of you where your heart or soul should be, for just a little while longer…
And, quite possibly, you may be doing just a bit of both.
There is no black or white. Only lots of nuance and individuality.
And ingenious ways of coping and surviving in a harsh and complex world.
You, too, will have strengthened your gift of easily "reading" people, knowing instinctively what they want or need, their weak spots and their insecurities...and how to meet them there.
How you use these gifts is up to you. They can be invaluable in any kind of helping, healing, service role; and they can equally be used to (charmingly) manipulate and use people for your own benefit.
Whether used consciously or unconsciously, flirting is still a form of manipulation. Use it with awareness of your deeper agendas and motivations to avoid unwittingly hurting others...and to become aware of your own unhealed wounds and needs and find your Authentic, most fulfilling Way of Being in the World, instead.
Thank you for sticking with me till the end of Part I!
If you’ve made it this far, I know you’ll want to join me in Part II, where we will start looking at the HOW TO’s of discerning and dismantling our Masks for our True Faces to come out and shine.
I will see you over there…
And of course,
if you feel you’d like some help & assistance with getting in touch with your stories & emotions, ready for a deeper exploration, transformation & healing, I am here for exactly that - check out my Spiritual Guidance & Transformational Coaching Sessions & Courses, my in-depth Soul Purpose Blueprint Readings,
or get in touch with me at brighde@awakenedhearth.com if you have any questions...I am looking forward to connecting with you!
Brighde is a Writer with a love for dark chocolate and the mystical side of life. She firmly believes every aspect of this curious Journey on Earth can be improved with a steaming mug of good tea, an open heart and mind and a grounded connection to the higher vibrational realms of Spirit inherent in everything. With a background of almost 30 years of working in the Healing Arts and Bodywork, her current focus is on facilitating deep inner transformation, growth and healing through one-on-one Intuitive Guidance and Coaching Sessions as well as on-line & in-person Courses and Workshops. Your can find out more about her work at www.AwakenedHearth.com.
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