MASKS
Masks provide emotional safety. A client of mine smiles at me as he presents emotional material filled with despair. When I tell him that it is unsettling, he explains: “if others can’t see my pain, they can’t use it against me.” He also smiles so that others will like him. In Greek theatre actors used masks to illustrate emotions. Synonyms for mask include facade, false-face, cover, and persona.
The Mask also protects you from undesirable truths about yourself. Because you perceive yourself as good and decent, you don’t face your capacity to hurt others, to be cruel, or to get back at them. You mask your negative thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors. Since they are not in your conscious awareness, you are unable to work on them or transform them.
A mask is a human version of the blind spot you experience when driving. You look in the rearview mirror and are unable to see the car beginning to pass you on the left. Luckily you did not pull out to pass or he would have hit you. The mask blinds you to your own motives by distorting situations. You end up blaming others for their inadequacies, real or imagined, rather than taking a harder, look at yourself. However, those of you who are able to confront your mask, will heal and transform negative elements. You may find and transform the critical part that gets pleasure from bringing others down or the competitive part that holds ill will toward others.
In a recent therapy session, a client talked about how much his girlfriend looked forward to attending an affair sponsored by an organization that she previously disliked. Rather than supporting her, he told her: “I don’t think you should go,” leading to an argument between the two of them. When I asked why he had a problem with her changing her mind, he said: “I don’t really have a problem with it, but I enjoy making her feel bad about it.” He remembered having this kind of communication with his mother. His shadow side remained hidden from him, enabling him to perpetuate hurtful behavior that was in conflict with his stated goal of a satisfying love relationship with this woman.
Your mask is found in your body as well. Your physical body results in part from genetics, but it is also shaped by early life wounds. Under adverse circumstances in your childhood, your energy froze. When that happened, your toes curled under, your arches flattened, your shoulders crept up around your neck, you thrust your chest out, and so forth. In response to negative circumstances from which you could not protect yourself, your body masked your hostile or frightened response, and there it remains, locked in your frozen muscles. However, your body is more like plastic than you realize and through body psychotherapy, it can regain its natural organic stance. In doing so the locked away emotions and thoughts are made conscious and released. As your body changes, you change too and some of your masked and crueler behaviors transform.
Tags: Body psychotherapy, Energy Healing, Personal Growth, Psychology, Psychotherapy Training, Shadow