Beneath the mask is a phrase that resonates with mystery and excitement. Many of us hide behind an identity or mask to avoid revelation. We hide behind our job titles or social status.
- The greatest battle we face is to protect our true selves from the self the world wants us to become. We pull our mask partially off and let the world scare us into putting it back on.
- Every person has their rightful place, and in that place, we become beautiful. Hold your gifts out to the world with no apology, no shame, and no regrets.
- We were not born with a mask; we put them on to protect ourselves from the opinion of others. The main risk we face is the other’s reaction. Opening ourselves up threatens others; it invites them to re-evaluate their own lives.
Insecurity.
Insecurity is an inner feeling of being threatened or inadequate in some way. Most relationship insecurities are irrational thoughts and fears that make us feel uncomfortable.
Thoughts like; we are not good enough, we will not be OK without a partner, we will never find anyone better, and we are not truly lovable.
- It robs us of our peace and prevents us from engaging with our partners in a relaxed and authentic way. The actions that come from insecurity like reassurance, jealousy, accusations, and snooping to erode trust are not attractive and can push a partner away.
- The feeling starts early in life with an insecure attachment to our parents or can develop after being hurt or rejected by someone we care about.
- They are maintained and built upon when we negatively compare ourselves to others and harshly judge ourselves with critical inner dialogue.
- One of our greatest fears is that if we show our true selves, the world will say, Oh, it’s just you. But being us is the most perfect thing we could ever be. It’s best to be ourselves because everyone else is taken.
Frenemies.
The same dynamics that create friendship chemistry in the first place can be part of the reason that close friends turn into frenemies. It often develops when there is a sense of betrayal on one side or the other.
- We feel betrayed, hurt, and angry. We do not think we will trust that friend again. Sometimes it’s not the people who change it’s the mask that falls off. We mustn’t be afraid of the enemy that attacks us, but we must be wary of the friend that makes promises they can not keep.
- It may be hard to identify because they look and act nice most of the time. We believe we are good friends, but their words and actions make us feel bad about ourselves.
- They tend to point out our faults and ask us to fix things about ourselves. They are jealous of our relationship with others and may discourage us from hanging out with certain people.
- They seem unhappy when we talk about things that do not involve them. They want us to wear and do things that appeal to them and do not respect our unique taste in things.
- They have strong opinions and do not like when they are challenged. They try to control us by getting upset when we do not follow their demands. We find ourselves trying to please them at our expense or happiness.
- Instead of being hurt, we should accept their behaviour as a gift. It makes it that much easier to sweep it up and toss it out with the rest of our trash because when trash starts to stink, it has no more value in our life.
- In life, we will be left out, talked about, lied to and used, but we must decide who is worth our tears and who is not. Being betrayed is one of the most valuable lessons life can teach us. A Frenemy can be anyone, but it’s only worse when we discover that one of them is our friend.
- Just like being pushed from an aeroplane without a parachute. And while we are free-falling, we look up to see the person that pushed us waving and smiling.
They smirked and waved as we hit the ground. The fall breaks every bone in our body, but somehow, we survive. Sometimes, the person we take a bullet for ends up being behind the gun. A dog will look down when wrong, but a snake will look right in your eyes.
Facades.
Facades are merely projections of the people we would like to be. It allows us to navigate our lives and our relationships in a way that protects us from becoming vulnerable and taken advantage of.
- Different structures require different roles, but problems arise when we forget our role play, let our masks slip and become ourselves.
- Taking the risk to remove our mask can have many positive benefits. It can mean the difference between keeping our relationships with others on a superficial level and allowing them to become ones that are more real and fulfilling.
- Facades serve a primary purpose to make us appear more appealing to others. It allows us in some ways to get our needs met from those in our lives, our friends, family, lovers, colleagues or other people whose attention we want to attract.
- When our mask is on, we can feel more confident to acceptability, admiration, esteem, love, adoration or importance with those we encounter. It helps us to have these needs met by others.
Personality facades are the masks we wear; they are the artificial versions of ourselves we present to the world. Role-playing provides an enhanced feeling of importance, success and positive affirmation to ourselves and others.
Arrogance.
Arrogance is a mask for lack of confidence. People who lack confidence display arrogance as a way of compensating for the way they feel. The seeds of arrogance blossom when soiled in ignorance.
- It’s amazing when we get to the point where we feel proud and confident in ourselves, and it’s common to begin acting differently; once we have found our stride.
- And with that confidence often comes the liberating feeling of being happy with ourselves and our choices, free of caring too much about what others think.
That being said, it’s a good idea to keep in mind the difference between confidence and arrogance. Often confidence is a feeling we have about ourselves while arrogance can be a way of making ourselves feel better by belittling others.
- Someone arrogant behaves in a proud, unpleasant way towards other people because they believe they are better than others. It is aggressive posturing in which someone tries to project self-assurance and confidence.
- Arrogant people do not consider opinions different from their own to be important, and when someone disagrees with them, they see it as disrespect or an attack.
- Interrupting and dominating conversations is a sign of arrogance. Talking over others can stem from a need to feel heard and find validation for our thoughts.
- People are attracted to confidence, but arrogance makes it difficult to have meaningful partnerships, often because this self-centeredness is accompanied by the need to belittle others.
- Feedbacks often have our best interest in mind, so having a hard time accepting feedback and taking a “my way or the highway” approach to life is a sign of arrogance.
- When life does not go the way an arrogant person wants it to, these emotions become evident with the tendency to blame others or circumstances rather than look at the role they played in the situation.
The fragile line between confidence and arrogance is humility. It is a feeling of superiority and entitlement which annihilates the “we” for the “I.” It is an unhealthy ego in need of repair.
Anger.
Anyone can become angry, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right reason, and in the right way is not within our power and is not easy.
- If we spend our time hoping someone will suffer the consequences for what they did to our heart, then we are allowing them to hurt us a second time in our minds.
- Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If our hearts still cling to anger, anxiety or possessions, we lose freedom.
- Anger is like flowing water; there is nothing wrong with it as long as we let it flow. We must allow ourselves to feel anger, allow our waters to flow, along with all the paper boats of forgiveness.
The root causes of anger depend upon the type of anger we are experiencing. The secret is to learn how to listen to the anger into existence.
- Anger avoidance occurs when we are angry, but we avoid repressing our anger. We stop feeling anger and just bury it so we do not have to deal with issues. The root causes of anger avoidance are childhood programming that teaches us being angry is bad, evil, and wrong.
- Sudden anger is a self-protective mechanism programmed from childhood, but when triggered causes us to explode at people in the right circumstances in the right environment. What makes sudden anger scary is that we never really know when it happens.
- Shame anger can be directed at us, and we may not even be the cause of it. It is just that somebody got triggered and accused us of unjustly shaming them. Shame is painful so we become angry rather than admit to being shamed.
- Some people are addicted to anger because they feel good within themselves. After all, it’s their way of dealing with an intractable problem that they otherwise cannot solve. They get a dopamine release when they get angry that gives them a feeling of power and superiority.
- Moral anger is violations of deep-seated values, a sense of right or wrong, or attacks on our identities. A belief has been challenged, and rather than examine whether or not the challenge has any validity or not, we become morally righteous that somebody should have the audacity to challenge what we believe to be sacred.
We all can read and understand the emotions of other people. This is something that evolution granted us because long before there was language, we communicated with each other. We did it non-verbally and had to instantly understand the emotions and motivations of others.