The Mask You Wear and Your Life Challenge

Mask by Amanda Banfield/Vice

We all wear them, the mask we show the world.  Did you know that this mask also holds the secret of your life challenge?   It also holds our call, our soul's call, the thing we are here to do with our lives.  In my book, Second Act Soul Calls I talk about calling as related to vocation, that is, the work we are here to do, but calling also refers to what kind of person we are and the mask we wear holds the secret of what kind of person that is.  It also holds the secret of what we are challenged to be and do in the world.  We then can take that and use it in a vocational way or we can simply be that kind of person no matter what vocation we choose. I call this our core issue or core challenge and it comes in many varieties.  Joseph Campbell called it, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, the name of his famous book.  

I see and experienced many of these faces in my work as a coach and therapist.  Maybe it's the face of the conventional hero - the person who always saves the day and does the heroic thing.  Or it could be the face of the angel, the sweet and always accommodating people pleaser.   For some it's the face of a dominant and arrogant individual.  For others the face shows itself as aloof and unfeeling.  Some wear the face of the clown or jester - always making light of things and bringing humor into the situation.  Some are just plain sour and sarcastic, while others are control freaks and always want things their way or they are unflappable people who never get ruffled or out of sorts.

What Face/Mask Do You Wear?

The key to knowing what your soul is calling you to do is and to identify your core challenge is to look at and discover both the external face or mask you show the world and the face that is hidden behind that mask.  Jung called this your shadow.  The shadow is the dark side of your personality.  It's the part you don't want to show and it's the part that needs to be incorporated into the face you show the world, so that you are showing an authentic self and not a mask.  Your first task in discovering your life challenge is to identify the mask you wear and show the public.  The second task is to identify the lie the mask covers, because the mask always hides something and that something is part of the truth of you.

The face/mask we wear always has an aspect of the lie in it - no one can always be the hero, no one can please everyone, all the time, no one is a total victim, or legitimately angry all the time, or in control of everything and life is not always fun and jokes have their place but not in every situation.  Carolyn Myss has also identified many different masks in her book, Sacred Contracts, an interesting and provocative book. What I am calling your core challenge or the face you wear, Myss calls your archetypal pattern. According to the listing on Amazon, "In coming to know your archetypal companions, you also begin to see how to live your life in ways that make the best use of your personal power and lead you to fulfill your greatest - in fact, your divine - potential."  My own work is about the same thing but I like to give people some shorthand ways to get at what Myss, Campbell and Jung have said.  Below are some ways to identify both the face you wear and its shadow.  For a list of archetypes and an explanation of them use this link:  http://www.myss.com/library/contracts/three_archs.asp.

Look For Archetypes 

In order to know your core challenge and therefore the direction your soul wants you to take in life you must first identify what face you wear.  You can use the list or link above or ask your friends and significant others to play a little game with you.  Ask then how they see you and ask also that they not get into an assessment or judgement of this or how it affects them.  Also, ask them if you can do this with them.  The idea is to identify but not try to fix or get feedback of why this is a good or bad thing.  If this feels too threatening then simply do it on your own.  By the way, it's the consistency of the face you normally wear and not an occasional one that shows up that you are looking to identify.  I knew a woman once whose consistent face was that of the professor - all knowing and yet all evaluating - she was pleasant but always seemed to have a red pen in her hand ready to mark up other people's lives with corrections and a list of what was wrong and what needed to be fixed, but like a real professor it was never about her - at least not until the end of the semester when the students got to evaluate her - she was indeed a real professor.  But in her personal life, there was no end of the semester evaluations.  In fact, she was not only not open to being evaluated, she resisted any feedback anyone gave her by saying, "I don't know about that, but..." and would go back to whoever or whatever she was evaluating.

The Flip Side is Your Shadow 

Once you have identified the face/mask you wear then you want to see what's hidden behind that face since all of the faces we wear have a flip side or what Jung called our shadow. The professor had trouble enjoying life because she was too busy finding fault with it.  She also was unable to take in feedback about her own life and what she might need to change, fix or see in order to fulfill her divine potential.  Instead of being someone who had knowledge to share or simply someone who knew things but did not have a need to force this knowledge on to others, she became instead someone very few people wanted to be around and when she retired and no longer had an official job teaching and evaluating others, she became a very unhappy camper.

Now Identify Your Core Life Challenge 

Your core life challenge is connected to the consistent face you show the world and its flip side, your shadow.  As you look at these two things, you may have a sudden aha! moment about this and see why and how certain things have been true for you over the years.  Or it may take some time to come to light for you since denial is a big part of being human and many of us simply do not want to see or acknowledge the dark side of ourselves.  Again, you might ask those friends and significant others - but be kind to yourself and make sure they are kind as well.  We won't be able to see this side of ourselves if it comes with harsh judgement and much blame.  But your core life challenge and your core potential is in there.  Keep looking and you will find it and if you have trouble with this give me a call - I love working with people on finding their core challenge and therefore their potential in the world.

Blessings, Lorraine 

Is it Multiple Personality Disorder or the Voices of Your Soul?

Do you ever feel like you have multiple personality disorder, I know I do.  Of course, I'm not talking about a mental illness - that's for another blog.  What I'm talking about here is when you think and say one thing and do another, or when you go in a new direction and then when you get there you wonder what in the world you were thinking.  Or when you know in your heart that something is wrong for you but you fail to leave it, change it or even give it much consideration, instead you simply live with it and make do.  Or you know there is something you want to do but again, you don't do it, in most cases,because it comes with risks and possible failure, that seem all too likely to happen.  You chose instead to listen to the "voice of reason" and get busy so you won't have time to think about it.  Or you are in a social or business setting and feel "required" to agree with the company perspective or the perspective of your social group.  A voice in your head says, "This is bullshit, I hate this." but you smile and go along with the program.  Or it could be that at work you are one kind of person and at home you are a completely different person.  Or you have this bratty demanding voice that says, "I want what I want and I want it now!"  Or it could be a dependent, needy voice that says, "Take care of me, I'm wounded and need help."  Or a blaming, victim voice that says, "It's not my fault, I'm innocent, they did it, I didn't."  Sometimes it's a charming seductive voice that tries to get it's way with all kinds of deceptive and manipulative actions and words.  It could also be a voice that pretends to know all and uses this to get what it wants via reason and logic.

We All Have Multiple Voices with Competing Needs and Desires - Our Soul's Voices 

Some people call this the committee in your head.  I call these voices, the voices of your soul, but these voices often do act as a committee.  It's the various parts of your personality and they all have important messages to provide you so that you can become a fully functioning individual, what Maslow called a self-actualizing person.  The trick is to know which one to listen to and which one you need to tell to take a back seat and shut up, at least in the moment. So how do you know which one to listen to and which one needs to be silenced?  Well, it's really not that difficult, once you figure it out, but before that, it may feel like this noisy, out of control, chaotic committee meeting you wish you could get out of attending.  But you can't.  Not until you figure out which voice has real priority and authority for you and which one is simply a trouble maker. But remember, even the trouble makers have their reasons for being. 

Name the Committee Members Using Archetypes

In order to know who which voice to listen to and which one to put on  hold, you will need to get to know all the voices and to respect them for what they have to offer you.  I like to use the idea of archetypes or character types to name my inner voices.  You can use your own ideas for this but here are some examples from the committee that lives in my psyche:  Master Sargent, Sassy Sister, Crybaby, Wise One, Sage, Loner, Intellectual Snob, Bag Lady, Wonder Woman, Foolish Franny, Smart Ass, Lost and Confused Lizzy, Funny Girl, Bitchy Witch, Arrogant Annie, Pissed Off Patty, Co-dependent Carol, Control Freak Cathy, Rainbow Mother, Helpful Hanna, Free Spirit, Soulful Sally, Artful Artist and Happy Camper.  I'm sure I have others but these are the main ones.  Each of these has a place in my psyche and contributes to the development of my self as a whole and functioning individual.  Once you name yours, you will see that yours also have a place in your psyche.  The challenge is to integrate them in a way that no one voice calls all the shots.  The key is balance and order, not chaos and disorder as those who have an actual diagnosed personality disorder will experience.

Body Talk - Three Kinds of Messages

The best way to know if your committee, that is your soul,  is in agreement about what you are doing in your life, is to pay attention to your body - it will tell you when things are out of balance.  The sure way to know if you are out of balance is to pay attention to your body and your mood.  When everything is in balance and all your voices have been heard and paid attention to you will feel a sense of well-being.  When you feel otherwise this is a sign of imbalance.  I call this your body talk and there are three kinds of negative body talk, anger, depression and physical pain - not necessarily in that order.

Anger - Irritation and Annoyance 

Anytime you feel angry or irritated or annoyed, particularly in regard to something you have control over or a say in or could if you chose to change it, even if the change is to simply accept it the way it is, then this is a message from the committee that your life is out of balance in some important way.  Now, of course there is justifiable anger - injustice, some kind of violence against you or something happens through no fault of your own, getting angry about it would be normal. But having a short fuse or always getting annoyed with what happens on a daily basis is a message from your committee that you life is out of balance.  To paraphrase the Serenity Prayer - Change what you have the power to change and accept what you don't and have the wisdom to know the difference.  If you find yourself angry and irritated quite often, then it's time to listen to those voices in your head with more attention to what they may be telling you.

Depression - Disillusionment and Lack of Joy 

We live in a world that wants to medicalize and then drug every bad feeling we ever have - this is the medical model and it has high status in our world.  In this view of mood, it's all about the brain; brain chemistry, brain disorders, brain malfunctions and brain abnormalities.  The message from the media and our culture is, if you fix your brain and therefore your mood, then this will fix your life.  But moods, good, bad or ugly come from the soul - not the brain.  In his book, Healing the Soul in the Age of the Brain, Dr.Elio Frattaroli, M.D says, "Healing—making whole the divided self—comes through experiencing, accepting, and taking responsibility for the dark side of ourselves ...an inward journey of self-discovery in which we allow ourselves to feel what we really feel and so become who we truly are."  So the next time you feel down and blue, or have an on-going sense of little joy in your life don't rush off to the doctor for a pill, instead check in with your committee - see what they might be trying to tell you.

Physical Pain - From Chronic to Life Threatening 

Of course, if depression doesn't get your full and undivided attention then the committee will get busy putting some physical pain in your body - you may be a functioning depressive, but it's hard to keep functioning when either chronic or life threatening pain lays you low and zaps all your energy, again, if we turn to the medical model, we may get temporary relief, but long term, we need to be checking in with our committee. The model takes the stance that disease comes from the outside and attacks you and so the cure is something from the outside that cures you.  But what really happens is the committee, the voices of your soul are in conflict with each other and there is chaos and wild fighting going on in the meeting room of your psyche.  What has to happen is the manager of your committee, and that by the way is you, has to ask each of your committee members to come into your office and have a quiet little chat or as happened when my mother was ill with cancer - you choose one or two of your committee and  have a private meeting with them and then they will go back to the committee and explain what is going to happen and which way you will be going in terms of healing this pain.

A Metaphorical Example from Real Life 

I come from a big family and when my mother had breast cancer, all of us siblings went to the hospital when she was first admitted.  We were all in her room, all eight of us - when the doctor came in to ask my mother what she wanted to do.  He began by explaining the various options she had.  At that point, everyone but my mother started talking at once and asking the doctor questions.  I must have asked an intelligent one, because suddenly he held up his hands and pointed at me and said,  "You, I will explain this to you and you can explain it to the others.  All the rest of you need to leave the room."  He then explained the options to me, I explained them to my mother and the three of us came to a consensus as to which treatment option was best for her.  I acted as the committee chair and the doctor acted as the authority figure or to use one of my committee member names, he was the Wise One, brought in to give us the options.  What this means is that in your own life, as the manager of the committee, you sometimes have to pick one or two or your committee members and ask them to advise you what to do.  Later you may go to the rest of the committee and explain your decision to them.

This may sound complicated, but in reality, it's makes a lot of sense and has the effect of making you feel in charge of your life rather than run ragged by all the competing voices in your head.  Plus, it's kind of fun and in the long, and even the short run, a very successful way of dealing with your life.  It also contributes to your seeing yourself as a multifaceted person, rich with nuance and individuality and not some crazy person.  And that, in and of itself, is a soul satisfying way to live.  

A Caveat about the Medical Model 

BTW, I am not dismissing the medical model as useless and irrelevant, as the example of my mother shows, since once cancer is there, in most cases, it will need to be treated using the medical model.  But if the underlying soul issues are denied and dismissed, that is,  if you don' t listen to the other voices of your committee and see what they are attempting to tell you, then most likely you will get another serious illness, or become depressed or be filled with anger on a daily basis.  

So what are the names of the voices on your committee?

Blessings, Lorraine