Take.Off.The.Mask
Be wild. Be free.
No, seriously. Can we please stop pretending to be someone that we are not? Or, maybe the issue is not to hide behind the collective we, in this case? Maybe, the first step in taking off the mask is to step away from bundling ourselves in with everyone else by saying “we all” do something just to make ourselves feel a little safer as we talk about the very vulnerability that we hide in the first place. So, I’ll start. I’ll go first.
I’m ready to stop pretending that I’m someone that I’m not. And, I’m not talking about now knowing my core values and what makes me tick. I’ve done the work. I know what I value, what makes me tick, and what makes me tock. I know what feels good, and I know what doesn’t. But, now, I want to talk about why I allow the things that don’t feel good to sneak in. It starts with something seemingly tiny, usually when I’m exhausted, worn extra thin by the many hats I wear daily. And then before I know it, a little comment has turned into an unruly vine full of thorns that is slowly suffocating me with self doubt, comparison, jealousy, inadequacy, self-loathing, and the need to be accepted. So, the mask goes on. I flock to the very voices I know to avoid. The voices that speak with turned up noses, rolled eyes and flashes of fangs. The haters— the ones whose acceptance somehow weighs the most. And, so I wear this mask. This mask is created by my perception of what everyone else thinks is “authentic,” “good enough,” and “worthy” of praise. And, yet, it feels disgusting. It feels exactly the opposite— fake, pitiful and unworthy. It feels exactly like that gut wrenching feeling of wanting to fit in and be accepted by the mean girls and the weird
Competitive desire to not only be “good enough” for them, but better than them. Because the mask makes me like them. It is adhered to my face, my thoughts, my heart with envy, insecurity, and greed. And in this crazy cycle of costuming, it literally takes bottoming out to pull off the mask bc that’s the only thing that lets me breathe, lets my awkward beautiful heart and mind breathe.
So, this time, this time, I swear it will be different. First, of all, because I am accounting for only my behavior. Im accounting for my happiness. My happiness is my responsibility. And my happiness suffocates in the mask of having to appease the masses from whom I seek acceptance. Intellectually, I have long known that what’s behind my mask is different behind another’s, but this time, I’m tuned in. I know the emotional feeling of wearing the mask too long. I know that it’s more important to breathe freely, living my dharma, than to breathe shallowly trying to live someone else’s. And maybe if I peel off my mask and look myself in the mirror, I won’t be so scared of what I see. And if I am startled by the wild thing beneath the mask, if I examine it long enough, I will see eyes that sparkle with love and a mouth that speaks kindness, and the glow of my authentic heart beneath. And maybe, just maybe, if my mask is off, someone else will take off theirs just long enough to see beyond their own fangs— long enough to break the spell of insecurity until one day we are all enchanted by the power within each of us to love from a place of acceptance and compassion. So, I’ll take off my mask. Then you. Then, one mask at a time, until the wild things are no longer beasts, but seen, free of judgment, for the beauties that they truly are. Because, “all good things are wild and free.”