What Mask are you wearing this Halloween

Halloween is known as the day of the dead. Halloween, or Samhain, marks the Celtic New Year, a mysterious point in time when the veil between the worlds is at its thinnest, and people are said to be able to communicate with the dead - ancestors and departed loved ones.  Samhain is literally a world between the worlds. It was believed that on this day, the dead would be able to intermingle with the living. The living, to protect themselves from being possessed by lost souls, would dress up in ghoulish masks to frighten off the evil spirits OR to fit in with them and go undetected in order not to be possessed by them.

But it’s not just Halloween that people wear masks, maybe in a more literal and visible way we do, yet everyday we wear a mask, only these ones are invisible…even to ourselves. And we do it for the same reason: “to frighten off the evil spirits OR to fit in with them and go undetected in order not to be possessed by them.” The only difference is that now we are possessed by an invisible ‘evil’ spirit, in which we created.

We begin to construct our masks at a young age as we tried to fit into our family roles and figure which way of being would make us feel the most safe and loved. These masks were constructed to cover up deep feelings of shame, unworthiness and powerlessless.

And we don’t just wear one mask, the wounded ego can take on a variety of different masks to camouflage its perceived inadequacies. The nature of the facade that we choose varies from person to person, and most of us have more than one social mask that we wear, depending on who we are with and what stage of life we are in.  

Many of us created personas based on how others perceived our true selves and adjusted our personas accordingly to fit in, to be accepted and to feel like we are okay…creating false selves. Our false selves, then serves as a way for our wounded ego to distance itself from our deep painful feelings, in an effort to protect us. But instead, the masks that we construct to hide and protect what others (and we ourselves) have made wrong, bad, and unacceptable become an invisible fortress around our true selves.

Day by day as we continue to wear our masks of “protection”, we lose contact with our true selves. We obscure our true essence, hiding who we really are and even our ability to know and see the truth about ourselves because we have come to believe in the false self. Once our facade is firmly in place, we begin to be used by the nature of the mask we have chosen. We attract to us the very people who will help us ensure that we can continue playing the same character over and over again-even when it has become so painful that we can no longer take it. We stay glued to our false self because we believe we are the mask we are wearing.

Yet, the ‘evil’ spirits we are hiding from or fighting against is really lost fragments of our true selves. As Samhain is literally a world between the worlds, so is our everyday lives as we continue to wear our masks and live through our false selves. That is the real day of the dead.

It’s not the masks that scare us; it is what is underneath them that frightens us the most.

The Mask of Control

The reason we try to control life or other people, is to really control our own emotions. We need things to go as we want them so we don’t have to deal with our own feelings if they don’t. Now this may not be in every area of our lives and it can be so subtle that we don’t even fully notice we are doing this.

For me, and for many, it will come up in intimate relationships. I don’t see myself as someone that tells another what to do and how to do it, but when a relationship is coming apart or I know I have to end it – always for the same reason: they are too immature, have emotional issues (which yes is another indication of my OWN insecurities) - I try to control the situation and that person’s thinking. It becomes manipulative and almost turns into a desperation. I need things to be okay, I need that person to be different; I need that person to understand their “issues” and change them … so that I can feel okay. So that I don’t have to deal with my intense emotions, the ones that come from letting go or feeling rejected.

I have to learn to allow this to be what it is without resistance, without analyzing him and the situation and without the constant doubting of my own thoughts, feelings and the choice I made. These are just my attempts at trying to control my emotions, which actually only cause them to be more distressed and confused.

That’s really what it’s all about ... controlling our own emotions. We can easily fool ourselves into believing we can’t live without that person and we keep our focus on THEIR issues, try to “figure” it out, or try to fix it. But what is the real reason why? Because if we really loved the other person, we would realize they need to find their own path, that they need to “fix” themselves or stay the same if that is what they choose. The point is people do what they do and it is not up to us to control it or change it, but it is up to us to make a choice. A choice for ourselves! One that empowers us, not diminishes us. A choice for our happiness. And don’t fool yourself into believing that you are just compassionate or you want to help them…truth is, you want your feelings to be okay.

FEAR. Fear of our own feelings. Fear of having to cope with our own feelings. Fear of having to really make a choice. Fear of needing to change ourselves. This is why we control.

An inability, or belief that we are unable, to cope with our own intense feelings.

I need to teach myself how to be able to just feel the feelings without having them CONTROL me, so that I no longer try to control outcomes and people.

I need to teach myself how to be okay with my feelings and allow the strong winds of emotion to carry me, rather than spin me around like a tornado.

I need to teach myself how to stay afloat of my feelings and swim along the river of emotions, rather than drown in the muddy waters of self-defeat and despair.

The Unveiling

Halloween is the time of year when we put on masks and go out and be something, someone different than we are.

Yet this annual event of becoming someone else by putting on a costume or mask, is something we subconsciously do every day of the year and perhaps a different mask many times a day depending on where we are, who we are with, the role we have assumed, etc. We often choose the mask that matches the mask of the person we’re trying to please. The masks we have chosen to wear in our varied experiences are a way to keep us safe, but hides our true self from others and ourselves.

And that is exactly what the Celts were doing on Hollows Eve … trying to hide their identity to keep themselves safe. Celts who lived 2000 years ago, celebrated the New Year on Nov. 1. This marked the end of the Summer and harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold Winter. The Celts believed that transitions, times when things change from one state to another, had magical properties.

They, thus, believed the night before New Years was a powerful time in which the veils between the two realms was thinned , allowing one to move between the two worlds with ease. October 31st they celebrated Samhain or Hallow’s Eve, when the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. Afraid the undead would harm them and cause trouble, the Celts left out food on their door steps to keep their homes safe from these ghosts.

And if the Celts people needed to venture out on this eve, they would dress up in costume and don masks in hopes of being mistaken for one of the ghosts' fellow spirits. Just as we do with the masks we wear every day. To hide our true identity, to keep ourselves safe, to fit in, and pretend to be something we are not.

Indeed October 31st - Halloween – is a magical and powerful time. A transitional time. A time to get in touch with our inner spirit, to observe ourselves more clearly as the veil of illusion is thinned. As the lines of our two worlds, our inner self and our outer selves (our own ghosts), are blurred. Opening up the realms so we can move with ease into deeper regions of ourselves and begin to remove the masks.

This Halloween I am going to be someone totally different than I, or anyone has ever been...

I am going to be me!

Happy Halloween!