Thank you for sharing about your thoughts. I would like to think that we all have our insecurities. I certainly have my own. We also have varying degrees of comfort with different groups of people. And even if we should decide to unveil our true selves, we can do it gradually and up to our own comfort levels.

You are wise in your insight: “finding this mask is the easy part. Breaking this mask down is the hard part.” I applaud you in your efforts towards greater authenticity. What we need to start with is self acceptance. With acceptance and forgiveness can we truly own ourselves.

All the best to your journey,
Evelyn

This post was helpful to me, so I think that I owe it to the community to respond. I feel like not responding would be a kind of protective mask of myself, because when I receive something positive I feel like I owe something in return.

It’s difficult to respond, though, because of the particular mask that this post has made me realize that I’ve been wearing. I’ll get to what this particular mask is in a moment, but I have something to add to this. I notice now that it’s difficult for me to reveal these details, and I think that this is an okay thing: but it’s something that I would normally mask in some way. There’s no need to mask it. It’s okay to merely say that I’m not comfortable sharing all of these details with, in this instance, an Internet community. Instead of masking it somehow, it’s okay to instead just say that I’m uncomfortable sharing these things: so to add to your post, I’d say that being selective with whom we trust with our true selves is not necessarily a mask. Yet if we’re not comfortable enough with who we are to share these things, it is instead a confession of insecurity.

Needless to say, I’m willing to confess to that insecurity. It’s something I’m working on and doing a fine job confronting.

To return to my initial paragraph and the main discussion of this post, I’ll tell you that this post helped me to realize that I mask my sexual insecurity. Instead of being honest in situations in which sexuality comes up, I hide behind sexual jokes and a mask of masculinity. Although I have some masculine tendencies, I’m not a very masculine guy, yet I hide behind this mask. I begin to wonder to what extent this mask has hidden from me who I really am.

I don’t feel that it’s helpful to the discussion to go into these details, but wanted to share my example of a particular mask that I’ve found in hopes that it would be helpful to others in looking for their masks. I found this particular mask by looking at my friends and with whom I most feel like myself. I realized that I’m more honest with a particular friend than anyone else, looked at the ways I’m dishonest with him, and found this masculine facade.

Obviously I need to look at it and my impulses more carefully: finding this mask is the easy part. Breaking this mask down is the hard part. But I thought I would share my discovery and thank you all for your writing. Evelyn, your initial post was very helpful, but your comments below as well as those of all contributors helped as well. Thanks, everyone, for sharing.

-Charlie

All the best,
Tenshi

Thank you for visiting my blog.

Wearing masks can sometimes be helpful as you have shared. In my post, I wrote that it only becomes a problem when you are overly identified with a persona that is very separate from who you are deep down inside. The risk is inauthenticity. You may also lose your ability to feel, to be intimately connected with who you are.

If you have every awareness that you are wearing a mask and that you have a choice in wearing it or not, or when to take it off, then there is no issue at all.

Love and light,
Evelyn

I agree that the masks we wear frequently hide our true selves and can become a barrier behind which we hide. But what of this idea that the mask we wear may also shape who we are over time?

I wonder, Is it wrong that I put on a smile today even though I’m feeling really blue? Won’t wearing this smile potentially help “turn my frown upside down”? Where is the happy medium?

Thank you for sharing this post. It definitely got me thinking. Any thoughts?

Noted about the word that should be used for facade, rather than facade device; for easy understanding. I’m glad that “masks” was used to help you understand things better in your reading. In akashic record readings, we were taught with the word “shell” or “facade device”.

Discovering who-is behind the masks is, for most of us, not a one-time event. It is a journey. It may also well be that one fine day on a park, like in Eckhart Tolle’s experience, you have a major breakthrough and can suddenly see your true self in total clarity.

I wish you much peace, love and light!

Evelyn