What is it about the masks we wear, the defenses we put up, that makes it so difficult to get to know anybody. How do these things get in place? Do we take some unknown class to learn how to choose and use these things?
I would like to give a couple of examples of the masks that I know that I wear sometimes.
The Mask of "I've Got It All Together" or "I'm in Control!"
It's so easy to put this mask on, and then forget you are wearing it. We want to look to the outside world as if everything is fine, we've got it all handled, no problems, thank you very much.
This one weighs alot, and is very heavy to carry around. Even worse, it makes it very hard to ask for help, which leads to the next mask.............
The Mask of "I Don't Need Anyone"
There is a pervasive notion that to be a "Rugged Individualist" is to be strong, successful, respected. While this concept is very American, it is so impossible to do. It's good to stand on your own two feet, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, but, when taken to an extreme, it can be very isolating. While being independent is a worthy goal, we all need someone to lean on. The curious thing is, most people really like to help when asked.
The Mask of Perfectionism
Another very seductive mask because it makes us look so good. Too bad it's not only false, it's also not attainable. So many people strive for perfection as a way to feel good about themselves. A good move here is to trade in perfectionism for excellence, which is attainable, and a whole lot more fun.
The Mask of Busy-ness
Somehow, busy-ness has become associated with importance. If we are always busy, then we must be important. Unfortunately, busy-ness binds us to many things that might be good and worthwhile, while we miss the things that are the very best.
The Mask of Knowing It All
This mask is typically accompanied by a burning desire to beat people over the head with their important knowledge. The really sad thing is these folks tend to be very unteachable, and therefore never actually learn anything.
The Mask of "I've always got to make a good impression!"
While similar to the I've Got It All Together mask, it differs in at least one important way. It's much more exhausting. It's hard to put down the worry about what everyone else thinks, and the need to control the impression you make on each and every person.
The goal of most masks is protection. In many cases it is not needed. However, sometimes, residual fears of acceptance cause these masks to remain on far longer than they should.
Taking off these masks involves risk.
It's so easy to put this mask on, and then forget you are wearing it. We want to look to the outside world as if everything is fine, we've got it all handled, no problems, thank you very much.
This one weighs alot, and is very heavy to carry around. Even worse, it makes it very hard to ask for help, which leads to the next mask.............
The Mask of "I Don't Need Anyone"
There is a pervasive notion that to be a "Rugged Individualist" is to be strong, successful, respected. While this concept is very American, it is so impossible to do. It's good to stand on your own two feet, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, but, when taken to an extreme, it can be very isolating. While being independent is a worthy goal, we all need someone to lean on. The curious thing is, most people really like to help when asked.
The Mask of Perfectionism
Another very seductive mask because it makes us look so good. Too bad it's not only false, it's also not attainable. So many people strive for perfection as a way to feel good about themselves. A good move here is to trade in perfectionism for excellence, which is attainable, and a whole lot more fun.
The Mask of Busy-ness
Somehow, busy-ness has become associated with importance. If we are always busy, then we must be important. Unfortunately, busy-ness binds us to many things that might be good and worthwhile, while we miss the things that are the very best.
The Mask of Knowing It All
This mask is typically accompanied by a burning desire to beat people over the head with their important knowledge. The really sad thing is these folks tend to be very unteachable, and therefore never actually learn anything.
The Mask of "I've always got to make a good impression!"
While similar to the I've Got It All Together mask, it differs in at least one important way. It's much more exhausting. It's hard to put down the worry about what everyone else thinks, and the need to control the impression you make on each and every person.
The goal of most masks is protection. In many cases it is not needed. However, sometimes, residual fears of acceptance cause these masks to remain on far longer than they should.
Taking off these masks involves risk.
It is easy for us to accept criticism if it is the mask and not ourselves that received it. We can rationalize, then, that "They don't know me. If they did, they would not have done that, or said that!"
The mask provides psychological distance from another person or situation. Our mind filters our reactions through whichever mask we are wearing. When we have the motivation to show fear, the mask changes it to anger, or patience, or even laughter. While these transitional emotions are sometimes very healthy to have, the habit of continually using them means that we loose track of what we are truly and actually feeling.
No Masks means:
1. The will to experience and show emotions as they happen to us.
2. The desire to let go of the desire that we must always impress others
3. The release of the need to have things under control
4. The motivation to experience the world, people, and situations for what they are, not what they can do for us nor to us.
I am going to include this poem about masks in this blog. It sums up so much more than I can do.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE MASK I WEAR
Don't be fooled by me.
Don't be fooled by the face I wear
for I wear a mask. I wear a thousand masks-
masks that I'm afraid to take off
and none of them are me.
Pretending is an art that's second nature with me
But don't be fooled, for God's sake, don't be fooled.
I give you the impression that I'm secure
That all is sunny and unruffled with me
within as well as without,
that confidence is my name
and coolness my game,
that the water's calm
and I'm in command,
and that I need no one.
But don't believe me. Please!
My surface may be smooth but my surface is my mask,
My ever-varying and ever-concealing mask.
Beneath lies no smugness, no complacence.
Beneath dwells the real me in confusion, in fear, in aloneness.
But I hide this.
I don't want anybody to know it.
I panic at the thought of my weaknesses
and fear exposing them.
That's why I frantically create my masks to hide behind.
They're nonchalant, sophisticated facades to help me pretend,
To shield me from the glance that knows.
But such a glance is precisely my salvation,
my only salvation,
and I know it.
That is, if it's followed by acceptance,
and if it's followed by love.
It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself
from my own self-built prison walls.
I dislike hiding, honestly
I dislike the superficial game I'm playing,
the superficial phony game.
I'd really like to be genuine and me.
But I need your help, your hand to hold
Even though my masks would tell you otherwise
That glance from you is the only thing that assures me
of what I can't assure myself,
that I'm really worth something.
But I don't tell you this.
I don't dare.
I'm afraid to.
I'm afraid you'll think less of me, that you'll laugh
and your laugh would kill me.
I'm afraid that deep-down I'm nothing, that I'm just no good
and you will see this and reject me.
So I play my game, my desperate, pretending game
With a facade of assurance without
And a trembling child within.
So begins the parade of masks,
The glittering but empty parade of masks,
and my life becomes a front.
I idly chatter to you in suave tones of surface talk.
I tell you everything that's nothing
and nothing of what's everything,
of what's crying within me.
So when I'm going through my routine
do not be fooled by what I'm saying
Please listen carefully and try to hear
what I'm not saying
Hear what I'd like to say
but what I can not say.
It will not be easy for you,
long felt inadequacies make my defenses strong.
The nearer you approach me
the blinder I may strike back.
Despite what books say of men, I am irrational;
I fight against the very thing that I cry out for.
you wonder who I am
you shouldn't
for I am everyman
and everywoman
who wears a mask.
Don't be fooled by me.
At least not by the face I wear.
Don't be fooled by me.
Don't be fooled by the face I wear
for I wear a mask. I wear a thousand masks-
masks that I'm afraid to take off
and none of them are me.
Pretending is an art that's second nature with me
But don't be fooled, for God's sake, don't be fooled.
I give you the impression that I'm secure
That all is sunny and unruffled with me
within as well as without,
that confidence is my name
and coolness my game,
that the water's calm
and I'm in command,
and that I need no one.
But don't believe me. Please!
My surface may be smooth but my surface is my mask,
My ever-varying and ever-concealing mask.
Beneath lies no smugness, no complacence.
Beneath dwells the real me in confusion, in fear, in aloneness.
But I hide this.
I don't want anybody to know it.
I panic at the thought of my weaknesses
and fear exposing them.
That's why I frantically create my masks to hide behind.
They're nonchalant, sophisticated facades to help me pretend,
To shield me from the glance that knows.
But such a glance is precisely my salvation,
my only salvation,
and I know it.
That is, if it's followed by acceptance,
and if it's followed by love.
It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself
from my own self-built prison walls.
I dislike hiding, honestly
I dislike the superficial game I'm playing,
the superficial phony game.
I'd really like to be genuine and me.
But I need your help, your hand to hold
Even though my masks would tell you otherwise
That glance from you is the only thing that assures me
of what I can't assure myself,
that I'm really worth something.
But I don't tell you this.
I don't dare.
I'm afraid to.
I'm afraid you'll think less of me, that you'll laugh
and your laugh would kill me.
I'm afraid that deep-down I'm nothing, that I'm just no good
and you will see this and reject me.
So I play my game, my desperate, pretending game
With a facade of assurance without
And a trembling child within.
So begins the parade of masks,
The glittering but empty parade of masks,
and my life becomes a front.
I idly chatter to you in suave tones of surface talk.
I tell you everything that's nothing
and nothing of what's everything,
of what's crying within me.
So when I'm going through my routine
do not be fooled by what I'm saying
Please listen carefully and try to hear
what I'm not saying
Hear what I'd like to say
but what I can not say.
It will not be easy for you,
long felt inadequacies make my defenses strong.
The nearer you approach me
the blinder I may strike back.
Despite what books say of men, I am irrational;
I fight against the very thing that I cry out for.
you wonder who I am
you shouldn't
for I am everyman
and everywoman
who wears a mask.
Don't be fooled by me.
At least not by the face I wear.
-Author unknown
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