Breathing Beyond the Mask

I’ve spent years softening myself to seem more palatable to other people. I tend to hide the more raw version of me behind a mask I think they might like better.

Honestly, I think we all do this to some degree.

We want to bring our best selves to our lives and relationships. That’s a good thing.

But when you consistently place the needs of others over your own, and grossly modify your responses in order to help people feel better about you — you might be wearing a mask.

Helping them feel better about you is the key statement here.

How anyone else feels about you is their work to do, not yours.

You’re there to clarify, give insight and collaborate. How people perceive you is their game and only theirs.

Do you remember those old-school Halloween masks from the 70s and 80s?

They were unbendable, sturdy plastic with just slits for mouth and eyes.

Breathing in one of those things was pretty laborious. It surely got hot behind my Wonder Woman mask, and on some level, you worried about rebreathing the same carbon dioxide over and over again.

After a while, you just couldn’t take it anymore and had to take off that crazy mask.

Also, these masks made it impossible to eat your Halloween candy while still wearing them.

In order to get to the sweet bounty I had just collected from neighbors, I had to stop being Wonder Woman and show my real face.

Somewhere, that mask morphed into a Wise Woman.

Not wise with knowledge, but obsessed with how my words and actions hit others.

I might convince myself that the Wise Woman is me simply presenting a better version of myself.

• A woman that prioritizes listening above speaking.
• A woman that always tries to encourage.
• A woman that adds humor to soften a gentle challenge.
• A woman that works hard at self-awareness so as not to injure.
• A woman that lets things roll off her back even when it hurts.
• A woman that includes her own narrative only if it moves your story forward in some way.

But if that’s all I do, then that starts to feel suffocating. By spending most of my time crafting the visual I prefer you to see, I’m cutting off access to the most creative parts of myself.

• The part that is willing to speak her mind.
• The part that might say the wrong thing.
• The part that learns from taking chances and making mistakes.
• The part that makes tangible things from her thoughts.
• The part that bounces down crazy rabbit trails to make those tangible things.
• The part that puts the scariest version of herself forward.

None of that has anything to do with you, and everything to do with me.

By willingly placing that careful and cautious Wise Woman mask on every day, I’m letting others off the hook from facing my real, hard edges.

The edge is usually where growth happens.

The edge is where we make the decisions to move our lives forward.

I’m learning to own my edges, mask off, even when it makes others uncomfortable, and breathe in the real me.

What would happen in your life if you let the real you breathe?