Take Off the Mask!

“Take off the mask!” That’s what one of my clients said a few weeks ago, and I have been thinking about it ever since. I keep wondering about how I would do that and what it would feel like. What I have noticed is that, without really, or consciously, trying to, I’m giving up pretending everything is alright, when it’s not. It feels funny to do that. I’m sure that I’ve always thought that I should keep bad stuff to myself, sure that nobody wants to hear about my problems or feelings.

I learned that lesson early on. But, perhaps, I got the wrong message. Nobody wants to listen to someone always complaining about life, the universe and everything. I’m sure that I wasn’t the happiest person to be around in my early years, I was quite depressed and I’m sure I was a real downer. So I took that to mean that I should keep my mouth shut and pretend everything was fine, which had the side effect of me not having anything to say. I’m pretty sure that that really didn’t fool anyone, a depressed person is a depressed person, whether they talk about it directly or not. Which probably explains why I have always had few friends, and no close friends, for most of my life.

Things seem to have changed. Maybe it’s because I absolutely have to, or it’s the result of all the personal exploration I’ve been doing, but I am starting to accumulate friends. People who I can relate to and we have significant things in common. We can talk about stuff that matters to me and to them, and, this is really important, it’s not about complaining about stuff. I can tell you, it’s so refreshing to have conversations not based on mutual dislikes, or on superficial things that really don’t matter.

I can’t say for sure, but does seem like I’m acting differently, more honestly. It’s so hard to judge my own behavior because I am my own yardstick. I mean that if my values change, then my perception shifts as well as my behavior. It’s like having a ruler that continually changes size: It seems like all the stuff in the world keeps changing size, when in reality it’s your ruler that’s changing. I don’t think that is really all that important, other than to be aware that it happens. Otherwise you can get pretty confused when people start acting strange: Maybe they’ve changed, or maybe you’ve changed.

I also notice that I’m handling my clients differently. I’m more direct, less likely to be tentative about what I really think, more willing to ask personal questions and dig deeper. It feels to me like I’m able to focus more on the client, when I’m less concerned about myself.

Wow! A perfect case in point: I just had a conversation with our mail-person who needed me to sign for a package. I met her for the first time just a couple days ago, when she came to our garage sale. But now she wanted to talk about how we’d never met before, even though I’ve lived here for 20 years. Next thing I know we’re talking about sewing and she’s offering me and my family “free stitching!” In that vein, I offered her my services and gave her a few cards. That was something I would not have done one year ago. Perhaps I am learning what it means to “take off the mask” and be who I really am!