I was recently listening to one of my all-time favourite songs of Sting – “Shape of My Heart” – if you don’t know it, put it on now! And if you do know it, put it on anyway 😊

In the song, he sings:
“I’m not a man of too many faces,
The mask I wear is one.”

This verse really stopped me in my tracks. I love how much vulnerability he put into these few words. Simple truth, yet so disturbing… He only shows one face to the world… yet it is masked.

Uncovering your mask

It brings to mind an exercise I did some time ago. It involved a pen and an A4 piece of paper. On the paper, I drew a mask – an empty outline of a human face. Then I cut it out so it looked like a real mask.

On the outer side of the mask – the side facing the world – I wrote all the words that described the face that I was showing the world – ‘confident’, ‘happy’, ‘outgoing’, ‘relaxed’, ‘in control’, ‘smart’, ‘professional’, ‘courageous’, ‘funny’,…

On the inner side of the mask – the side facing my face – I wrote everything that I was hiding behind the mask: ‘vulnerability’, ‘fear’, ‘self-doubt’, ‘sadness’, ‘loneliness’, ‘feeling inadequate’, ‘feeling not enough’, ‘anxiety’,…

New insights

Performing this exercise was deeply insightful. It made me a little sad but also a little more open to the idea of taking off the mask. After all, why do I actually need to hide the real, authentic me?… Why can’t I carry out in the open these deeply hidden gems of my human nature?…

Tell me, what would YOU write on the inside of your mask?
What are YOU anxiously hiding from the world?

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Recently, I had a very powerful conversation with a friend. He let me talk about all the most vulnerable, raw and honest parts of myself. At times, he offered a few words of insight or a clarifying question. Other than that, he just listened to me share about my insecurities, fears, anxieties, hopes, desires and more. At the end of that conversation I cried. I cried because I clearly saw how much shame I was still experiencing around who I was. And at the end of that sharing, I was finally able to embrace lovingly all the dark, scared, sore, lonely and human parts of myself…

You see… I had done a lot of hiding in my life.

I spent my childhood trying to hide how scared I was most of the time. I spent my teenage years trying to hide that I was awkward and shy. I spent my university years trying to hide that I wasn’t a party girl. I spent many of my relationships hiding that I didn’t know anything about sex. And I spent most of my adult years hiding that I was a nerdy introvert, that I used to have serious anxiety attacks about money and that sometimes I felt very lonely.

A lot of these things made me feel like a loser so I kept pretending to be an outgoing, social, happy girl. Whenever I shared accommodation in my 20s, I always made plans to go out at weekends – not because I always wanted to be out but mostly because the thought of having to tell someone on Monday morning that I hadn’t done anything fun was unbearable.

The journey of slowly reclaiming and learning to accept and love myself – just as I am – has been long.

Thanks to tantric philosophy, I slowly began digging out my authentic self from underneath a huge pile of pretence, act and masks. It took a while to actually find the real me because I’d been hiding her so well for so many years.

At times, I wondered who Helena actually was… And whether I would ever find out.

These days, I don’t hide anymore. I have made a huge progress on the path of self-discovery, self-acceptance and ultimately – self-love. I perceive all of my experiences as precious, beautiful and natural. And do you know why? Because they’re all human. And because I’m a human. And because as a human being, I’m meant to feel these things.

Anger? Bring it on! Fear? I can handle it. Frustration? I’ll take it. Anxiety? Uhmmm, sure!

I don’t dwell in these energies but I don’t reject them either. If they come, I welcome them without judgement, I experience them with curiosity and I allow them to pass. In my sessions, I have witnessed a lot of people fighting their human experiences, trying to get over them quickly and ban them from their lives.

But you can’t ban a part of yourself.

Because these experiences that we dread, worry about and regret – they’re here to stay. So you might as well accept and welcome them. That’s exactly what I am doing and it’s working great for me! After so many years of hiding and denial, I’m actually truly fascinated by my human experience – with all of its rawness, fragility and depth. Sometimes my anger gets the better of me, sometimes I struggle and sometimes I fall. But that’s ok as well, it’s just a part of this beautiful human ride.

Because after all, I AM HUMAN. And that’s ok.

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