Shedding the Mask!

Tuesday, 23 March 2010 00:00

People pass through our lives everyday and often we can forget that each and every one has a story, a reason for displaying the exterior that masks their vulnerable interior. Each mask looks different to the world- a mask of happiness, cockiness, deflation, anger, sarcasm, strength, confidence or ignorance – but in essence, covers the same fears, struggles, love and softness that is in everyone. We are all the same in essence, just different in experience or existence, so we choose to present an exterior that makes us feel as if we can cope and/or be comfortable with what is occurring outside.

Although I have a gift of being able to see through this mask with people it can also be easy for me to be caught up in my own world and not recognise it at times, or forget to search for it. I was blessed recently, with the opportunity to re-learn this as I connected with someone in my life, for the first time, in this new way. I saw beyond their tough exterior to their heart, and they were able to do the same for me. The reason why we hadn’t previously, is that we had both been stuck on showing our outer selves to each other, fighting for that inner core to be protected and kept safe from what seemed to be someone who might, albeit unintentionally, be able to hurt us.

It never ceases to amaze me, how, when you stop and talk from your heart, and take that perceived risk, whoever it is you are with, cannot help but to listen, be touched and inspired to open their own hearts. How can you connect and ask another to shed that skin if you are unable to do the same? Each and every one of us knows the language of the heart and can hear and resonate with it. And although the mask is important in ways, this is the key to seeing beyond it and truly connecting with those in our life.

I have been blessed and humbled again at the willingness of so many of you to commit to truly feeling the love in your hearts for the first time as you do ‘Relationships and You’. Each time you show your courage and determination to break down some of those masks that have been there for years.  

Remember, “Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.” James Arthur Baldwin. Reveal your true nature and in doing so, give someone else the courage to do the same.

Love and Light,

Emilia