Where is the real you? Looking at Masks, Labels and Filters

We sat in circle today, partly to release parts of 2019 that we needed to, partly to set intentions towards 2020, and a new decade, but also to explore the topic of Masks, Labels and Filters.

Masks

Masks are donned to conceal the full truth of ourselves and to portray ourselves as something other than what we are, they allow us to masquerade as something that is not fully ourselves, and filters do the same in a slightly more subtle way.

We may slip on our ‘work’ mask, or our ‘date’ mask, going to the ‘gym’ mask, or maybe the ‘parent at daycare/kindy/school drop-off’ mask where we show just a little aspect of ourselves, but much refined, to suit that particular situation and that what is asked of us.

We may also apply a mask to hide emotions, and deafen thoughts and opinions that we perceive will not be approved of by a person, or in a certain environment.

Many of us were brought up to believe that “girls must be nice, like sugar and spice”, and that the bigger and supposedly negative emotions of anger, anxiety, disgust, fear, frustration, sadness are not welcomed.  So in turn we may mask that emotion with another, and may use humour, self-deprecation, or contempt, to conceal our true feelings. 

We know they can serve a purpose. They keep us acceptable and accepted, and can be used to try to meet perceived expectations, or to prevent hurting another person’s feelings. But wearing a mask takes away energy from our consciousness and can wear us out over protracted periods.  This becomes particularly pronounced when we are sick or weak as we have less energy to keep up the façade.

Where or to who do you put on a mask, or mask aspects of your personality?

It is good practice to bring awareness to when we do this. I believe we are all guilty of it in some times and spaces. I wonder what would happen if instead of playing the role, that you let yourself be true to you? If you let your inner wild woman be free?

I’m not necessarily saying that we do away with all the social norms – although some of the expectations on our behaviour is still so limiting. But to at least take notice and ensure that you don’t continually tame yourself in the aim to protect other people or to be accepted. It is far more important to be true to yourself, to show your real emotions, and be the wild and free authentic you. Because you aren’t in charge of other people’s emotions, they are. And because if you are truly you, you will be a magnet for more of the authentic things in life that speak to your soul, instead of things that you think ought-to.

Labels

We wear many labels. Some we only put on when we need to and can take off at ease. Some were stuck on us when we were very small, and we grew up believing they were parts of us, not aware that they were something we could discard if it no longer spoke the truth. Some labels are particularly sticky, and some are coveted.

The labels that may sing to your heart, such as wife, mother, coach, strong, independent. Others may make us cringe and cower, overweight, divorcee, anxious, introverted.  

Regardless of whether it is a positively or negatively perceived label it still serves to bind us to certain rules and beliefs on our behaviour. If we stretch the boundary we tend to draw notice and judgement (like as we in turn notice & judge).

Take a wife, who takes her role and identity as a wife seriously and embraces it, but doesn’t do any of the housework or cooking, and values her career highly which involves frequent and long trips away from her husband. This kind of behaviour, as applied in the current paradigm would draw judgement from others, and perhaps some guilt from herself. But she isn’t doing anything wrong, she’s just doing something beyond the confines of that label.

So we can see that sometimes they provide helpful expectations around how to behave, perhaps some goals to reach, but they can also be awfully restrictive. There is a whole lot more to us than what a label denotes, there is more to us even than the sum of all our labels. You are more than a mum, an entrepreneur, a nurse, a nurturer, an employee, a sister, an athlete, shy, loud, overweight, underweight, freckled, hairy, tall, confident… etc.

We are infinite beings that any label does little justice to.

If we can move beyond the labels our potential is limitless.  

We undertook an exercise to list all the labels and identities that we hold, and then to decide if they were serving us or they weren’t.  

From a place of courage, we released the labels and burnt them. This ritual enabled us to free ourselves from the concepts and constructs around them, any expectations on behaviour, or restrictions on who else we could be. And in doing so we were reminded that deep within we are so much more than these labels.

We needn’t aspire to be anyone else, or to do anything else than what is true to us. If we can all learn to sit in our uniqueness and sit in our truth I believe real magic could happen. We could see like people attracting like, the doing away with comparison and competition, and people brimming with self-worth and self-confidence, doing what they do best without any fear of judgement or criticism, giving their best to the world, and receiving the best from it. It might sound idyllic, but I think it’s more than possible.