What Masks Are We Wearing?

I decided a few months ago to reclaim my maiden name on this journey to honor Spirit. My path is my own and my name should be my own. And so, the family name that I could not stand as a teenager, Cleverley, has become an identifier of self-love and strength. A name that makes some people giggle, an adverb with an extra “e”, will be what my loved ones etch to my tombstone someday. Hopefully that will be decades from now, but no one really knows.

Perhaps I think about family names, spirits, and tombstones because of my profession- chaplaincy. Genuineness is a personal quest because I have attended to the deaths and grieving processes of many people who remind me of a loved one, or who remind me of me. The simple fact is that no one gets out of here alive… and so why keep up appearances? Who do we think we are impressing with our artifices? God sees right through that stuff. The Divine is not fooled by our masks.

During my chaplain residency, I learned about a psychiatric phenomenon called “masking”. While serving with brilliant psychiatrists and nurses on an acute behavioral health unit at a large midwestern hospital, I occasionally heard about this thing some folks do in an attempt to self-protect. When patients mask, it can be hard to provide good care for them since they are hard to read. Not surprisingly, masking can hinder a patient’s wellness. Rather than protecting themselves from pain, they prolong the pain they are already in.

People who are receiving care on a psych unit differ from people who are not by the intensity of their behaviors, but not in their kinds of behaviors, usually. Knowing this, I began to think about masking more broadly. I began to wonder about my own masking. In an effort to protect myself and those I love from pain, was I actually creating different kinds of pain?

I wore masks to protect my family from worrying about me and to protect myself from the perceived judgement of others. It took time to reveal my truest nature. It was a process of becoming more disclosing about the physical, emotional, and spiritual pain I experience. From a place of vulnerability and honesty, I leaned in to difficult conversations with loved ones, myself, and God. Those dialogs led to decisions, which led to change, including a name change.

The fruits of being unmasked are that if I’m feeling sad, I now reach out for support and feel better. When I go to the doctor, I don’t minimize my experience and so I receive better care. Being honest and vulnerable about my faith experience led to the end of some important relationships, but then shaped healthy new ones. The friendships that were truly sincere became even better.

Another benefit of being genuine is that I provide better care for patients and staff. When I let my guard down, others can too. This builds trust, which is the foundation of the kind of deep and unconditional compassion we all need like oxygen. Sincerity manifests.

Some questions: What are you masking? What inside you needs to be unveiled? How can you honor who you really are? How can you create sacred space for the genuineness of others?