Unmasking the Self

This is probably going to sound a little arrogant to say on my part, but I am coming to feel that this blog is helping me to unpeel the layers of my many "masks" hiding my true Self.

I have found throughout my life that I wear many "masks." You probably know what I mean (and I'm not talking about literal masks here). Depending on who I interact with, the "mask" I present to others is perceived in certain ways; the "mask" is viewed from different angles. Thus my closest family members know me in certain ways that, in contrast to my-coworkers or neighbors, outsiders could never possibly know. Likewise my husband, of course, knows me in ways that no one else on Earth will probably ever know. The "mask" for my family members comes colored with much personal history, the decades of my development from baby to child to adult. The "mask" that my co-workers see is relatively "newly formed," representing the person I've evolved into and become in the past year or so, yet based on accumulations and refinements of many previous "masks." It is the "mask" for society, the world, for fitting in with the crowd and getting along. And it could go both ways; maybe the "mask" viewed by my closest family members is not as luminous as the "mask" I'm wearing for my co-workers because my family members may have developed prejudices about me over time (not necessarily good or bad prejudices, just "stuck" opinions), based on their decades of "knowing" me. So in a way, the people who think they know me the best, may in fact be clouded by their own perceptions of what they think they know about me. I can have many "masks" but I have little control over how others are viewing or perceiving my "masks." And even within myself, my own perception of my "masks" could be totally different from how I'm imagining that others are perceiving me! "Perception creates reality" as A Course in Miracles says. So each and every one of us is living in our own unique reality, never really knowing, authentically, the experience of another's reality (perception).

So what to do with all these "masks," I wonder? Lately (well, maybe for the last five years or so), I have been trying to take them off, one by one, and examine them to see which ones are worth keeping and which ones are not. To figure out which ones are a more accurate reflection of the real me hiding on the inside. Have you ever examined your "masks" or thought about them? The funny thing about the "masks" is that they can really create false barriers when interacting with others. It's like putting up a wall of fear which can be very hard to break through. It takes courage to cut off the toughest "masks" and expose one's authentic hidden self (and ultimately, that Self-with-a-capital "S"). Courage that many people don't find until they're on their death bed and faced with the end of their existence and everything they've ever known. And I find it ironic that it is the oldest "masks" I wear, the ones clouded by my personal history, that are the hardest ones to remove; and this in turn means that sometimes the people who ought to know me the best, may actually know me the least. And the ones who "know" me within the past few years may actually "know" me in a more genuine, authentic way merely because I believe I am now showing my best, most evolved self!

I am not passing any judgment here on anyone, or saying that certain types of my "masks" are "right" or "wrong" (black-and-white thinking is such a shame); I'm merely observing something about myself, what I am, what I think I am, or what I'm becoming. It is interesting to contemplate! I have no answers. Just observations.

Have you taken a peek under your "masks" lately? Do you know who you are?