CONNECTING TO A DEEPER TRUTH ABOUT WHO YOU ARE
Do you ever stop and wonder about the extent to which your current mask, maybe your rebel ‘I’m not one of ’em’ side, or whatever identity you’ve put out into the world, is actually a way of staying small and avoiding your true power?
If you think you don’t wear a mask, that you’re fully stripped bare and the world sees every part of the deepest core of you, think again. We all wear masks, different personas or identities we step into, most of us have a good handful of them, to be rolled out in different situations depending upon what’s required, and perhaps also a primary or dominant one.
Ask yourself –
Who would people say you are, if 100 or so who follow you online (for example) were asked?
How about if it were 100 or so who know you personally somewhat well, or at least to speak to?
What about if it were the 5 or 10 people who know you best? Is there any difference between what your friends would say as opposed to your family? How about your kids? Your church? The people you chit-chat to at the gym?
Even if you could hand on your heart say that ALL of these different groups of people would spit out the same description of you – which would be a little concerning, actually, as to me that would indicate a DEFINITE locked-in mask, pointing to the fact that you’re VERY much ‘in character’ in all areas; playing out being a version of you who you decided to be and who you don’t err from being – would it match how YOU describe you?
We wear masks. We have different personas for different situations. It is what it is, and it’s not a bad or WRONG thing, either. Of course you’re not going to be the same you with the Internet that you are with your kids or lover; that’d be weird! Of course your best friend sees a different you than your parents do. Different relationships and connections, or situations in our life, ALLOW us to be different parts of who we are. This is a good thing, a growth. thing!
The question is –
And now relevant particularly to you if you’re in any way seeking to do work of note in the world, to unleash your truth and your soul through your message and your art –
Has the mask you’ve created for yourself in this area started to fit just a little TOO well –
And at what point perhaps did you outgrow said mask but fail to even notice it?
What fit you yesterday, or was perhaps a required part of your evolution or growth; a way you were able to come out of your shell and become the next level you back THEN, may not be relevant today.
In fact, it may even have shifted from being the thing which helped you to be MORE of you once upon a time to now being the thing which STOPS you from being all of you!
And yet, because that mask was initially a way of dropping in deeper to identity, and truth, you’re now attached to it, stuck on it, pretty damn committed to it, and failing to see the way it BINDS AND HANDCUFFS YOU.
And I’ll tell ya something which makes this stuff easy to identify in yourself:
100 to 1, the stuff that you sneer at a little, mock a little (internally or otherwise), or are flat-out TRIGGERED by, in particular the stuff you are EXTRA insistent about ‘not needing or wanting’ when you see it in others, is the exact stuff the next level YOU is waiting upon you saying yes to, in order for her to come out.
We’re always triggered when others show up in a way which our highest self knows WE at some point need to step into.
If it’s a woman, then AS a woman, we will tend to ‘hate’ her, think she thinks she’s ‘all that’, and so on, probably go on and on in a ‘me thinketh the lady doth protesteth too much’ sort of way about why we don’t like this person.
I see it all the time, with women unfollowing ME, saying they don’t like me, I’m this or that, and then a year or three later they’re back confessing that it was just too in their face who THEY were not being, and now they’re ready.
And I’ve been on the other side of it myself, triggered AF by women who show up in a higher level of Queendom, or femininity, than what I was ready for.
Thing is –
If something isn’t relevant for YOU then seeing it in others won’t create ANY sort of emotional charge in you. You’ll feel neutral about it.
But if somebody, or something, creates a CHARGE in you, of any kind – that’s something to attend to. And ask maybe, where is this relevant to ME? Is this something I truly am ‘against’, ‘don’t believe in’, or is it a case of ‘a part of me doesn’t feel good enough to show up like that even though I know I must, and I’m scared as well as upset’? Hmmm? Hmmm!
What you have to realise is, it is ALWAYS okay to shed your layers, and drop in to the next one.
What, so you’ve made a big song and dance about being a certain type of person, about being for or against this or that, and now you notice yourself changing, shifting, growing? And you’re worried because people know or love you for THAT persona?
Get over it. And get on with it. Get on with the job of CONTINUALLY OWNING WHO YOU ACTUALLY ARE, yes even if the next you appears to be wildly in contrast with the previous one! Those who ACTUALLY see and love you, and who are your true soul peeps in ALL of the above-mentioned areas, will never judge or forsake you for this; they will CELEBRATE you.
Does a parent judge their child for shifting from toddler to child, child to precocious pre-teen, pre-teen to teen, teen to young adult, and so on? I would hope not!
Do we expect that child to continue to dress or speak in similar ways to the way that was necessary for their growth a year or two back? Do we expect them to find who they are by caring about or ‘standing for’ the same things as what mattered, and was necessary for their evolution and strengthening of identity in the previous phase? I hope not!
So why is it then, as adults, we become committed to and indeed SCARED TO LEAVE behind or confess we’ve moved on from who we were yesterday?
Here’s what you need to remember:
The ones who matter don’t love you for your identity, your persona, and the mask which mattered when you met.
They love you for the intangible, the unseen, the very essence of you.
And that my dear is the bit which simply doesn’t change, and is always there, beneath the surface, and FELT by anyone who actually gets to be part of your world, however far removed.
Thing is though –
If you keep on doing your damn best to hide it by being an old and no longer relevant version of you –
The right ones may never see you.