As humans, we all share the same intrinsic need to feel loved, accepted, and secure. Unfortunately as we navigate a broken world, we develop deep-seeded fears of being abandoned, unlovable, and unworthy. As a result, we put on a mask to help hide insecurities, imperfections, and fears. The problem with masks is that they are not representative of who we truly are. In this episode, Abby and Alicia address the reasons why we put on masks, the various forms masks take, and how to remove the masks which can be so exhausting. This conversation offers encouragement and practical ways to live from our true identity that is rooted in Jesus instead of a false self that we must strive to maintain.
Links: www.noheartleftbehind.com
Counseling: www.noheartleftbehind.com/counseling
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Contacts: Abby Shields (Founder & Lead Belief Therapist NHLB) reconnectus@yahoo.com
Alicia Stickles (Executive Director NHLB) astickles@noheartleftbehind.com
[MUSIC] >> Welcome to No Heart Left Behind's Hope in the Hard of Family Life Podcast. I'm your host and executive director of No Heart Left Behind Alicia Stickles. If we're honest, family life can be hard. Family can be our greatest blessing, but also the source of our deepest wounds. At No Heart Left Behind, we have a passion to empower families to thrive with the word of God and the love of Christ. So each week we're going to have real conversations about hard issues facing families today. It is our hope that you would be equipped with practical tools based on biblical principles for when life happens and relationships get messy. In other words, how do we flesh out all those Bible verses we know when life isn't looking like we had hoped? If you're in a season of family life that feels hopeless or you have a heart to navigate the challenges of family well, but just don't know how you're in the right spot. So whether you are driving in your car or checking off one of your honeydew's, pop in those earbuds and come find hope in the hard of family life with us. [MUSIC] Welcome friends to another episode of No Heart Left Behind's Hope in the Hard of Family Life. My name is Alicia. I am the host for this podcast and I am here today with my mom, founder and lead belief therapist of No Heart Left Behind, Abby Shields. >> It's glad to be here. >> Yes. So today's topic for our episode is called the masks we wear. And I feel like people would understand what that means. I think today a lot of people call it imposter syndrome or the false self, any other phrases you can think of to just kind of give our listeners the idea of what we are going to be talking about. >> Just those things that we hide behind that prevent the real self from being exposed because we don't think that they would like the real self. So we become that imposter. >> Yeah, yeah. >> I have a really good idea of how to describe this mask situation that we're talking about today and this is a poem called Please Hear What I'm Not Saying. And it's a poem by Charles C. Finn. It's kind of long, so I'm not going to read the entire thing. But I think he does an incredible job describing our masks that we wear. So I am going to read some excerpts from it and it goes like this. It says, don't be fooled by me. Don't be fooled by the face I wear, for I wear a mask, a thousand masks. Mask that I am afraid to take off and none of them is me. Pretending is an art that's second nature with me, but don't be fooled. For God's sake, don't be fooled. I give you the impression that I'm secure, that all is sunny and unruffled with me within as well as without, that confidence is my name and coolness is my game. That's the water's calm and I'm in command and that I need no one, but don't believe me. My surface may be smooth, but my surface is my mask, ever varying and ever concealing. Beneath lies no complacence. Beneath lies confusion and fear and aloneness. But I hide this, I don't want anybody to know it. I panic at the thought of my weakness exposed. That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind a nonchalant sophisticated facade to help me pretend, to shield me from the glance that knows. I'm afraid you'll think less of me, that you'll laugh and your laugh would kill me. I'm afraid that deep down I'm nothing and that you will see this and reject me. So I play my game, my desperate pretending game with a facade of assurance without and a trembling child within. So begins the glittering but empty parade of masks and my life becomes a front. I tell you everything that's really nothing. Do not pass by me, it will not be easy for you. A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls. The nearer you approach me the blinder I may strike back. It's irrational but despite what the books may say about man often I am irrational. I fight against the very thing I cry out for. But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls and in this lies my hope. Please try to beat down those walls with firm hands but with gentle hands for a child is very sensitive. Who am I? You may wonder. I am someone you know very well for I am every man you meet and I am every woman you meet. That's such a powerful, powerful poem to describe kind of what we're going to be talking about today. Yeah. You know about what causes us to put on masks and where do they come from and then how do we get rid of them? Yeah. Because I mean I think in some sense every one of us to some degree wear a mask. So you know I think part of it is being able to identify the mask we wear and what it looks like because my mask and the things that I hide are going to be different than what you hide and it's based all on you know life experiences and wounds that we receive and all that kind of stuff. So I did want to spend a little bit of time talking about what causes us to put on masks. Now I think the biggest thing is to understand the dynamics of how we come into the world and how God created us and what He created us for and to I think for me as a little girl and I think all people were created to jump and skip and hop and be spontaneous and love the way God loves. But unfortunately because of sin and through life circumstances we develop negative messages about who we are. And a lot of that stems in from out of the root cause of shame which we've talked about in previous episodes but and then we develop faulty perceptions about love and what love is and we think love is let's see it's well that it's conditional it's not unconditional like I'll love you if or I'll love you when when you do this and we start to get those messages is of what what gives us love and what doesn't. Right and then so out of that we begin to believe that we're a mistake that we're unlovable the way we were created that was my thing I felt very unlovable the way I was created and that's what I began to put on my mask. But then all of that can grip your entire life that the things that happen to us when we're little can create those belief systems that says you're not enough you're worthless you you can't do anything right and those are the lies we believe to be true and because of that we constantly compare ourselves yeah I don't know I don't know if you did you know. I feel like middle school is like the worst that's that's when we all get the mask is like you get all of these messages in those like young kid years not just I mean it's not just family anymore it's like you are on the playground and you are in you know close contact with really mean kids sometimes or just in comparing ourselves when you compare yourself and you don't measure up then you say what's wrong with me and you'd be because of that you begin to make assumptions that you're less than that you're not enough and so I have to create something to put on and so I put on that mask in hopes that you as my friend or you as my an individual that I know would not see the unloveable me and then that mask would be something that I would put on hoping that you that would become the lovable me yeah does that make sense yeah no it makes total sense and you know where my mind goes with that is just in culture today just all of the the social media and like we have something called YouTube you know where it's totally self centered and people can create whatever identity they want to be like it's it's not the true authentic self it's you know you can create whatever you want your life to look like you know based on what you present to the world and you know that's why it's interesting to see how popular social media is but then also just the depravity in it of like it's not it's not real it's a facade you only see the certain parts you only show the world the parts that you want them to see and that's why sometimes there's those nicknames of like Facebook is fake book or you know you don't have photos that are insta worthy meaning those times and those things about your life that you wouldn't post on social media because they're not lovable and it's just interesting to me how gripped we are by those things you know and how powerful the mask really is right absolutely and then as we grow up right what happens is it's difficult to distinguish the mask that we created from the real person that God created us to be and that's that's when I see them then and my in my own life the mask that I wore I had so many masks and so when I tried to commit suicide people said not Abby she's so happy go lucky and we'll talk about that a little bit more in the episode but they because I never portrayed what was really going on on the inside of me yeah you know and so that's that's the importance of understanding one why we wear masks to and then how to get what some of those masks are and then three how can we get out from under these masks yeah and I think another reason that we put on masks has to do with fear absolutely I mean fear of rejection abandonment you know and so we we wear these masks almost like as coping mechanisms to be able to survive yes to be able to cope yeah you know and and I call them in my office I call them fig leaves because we hide behind those fig leaves just like when shame came into the world Adam and Eve went and they hid behind the fig leaves and those are the types of behaviors that we hide behind yeah there's the Brennan again I always talk about Brennan Manning but he's like my guy because I just love so much of what he teaches but there is a great book that he wrote called Abba's Child and it talks about the way he would describe the mask is as he calls it the imposter and basically another way he would describe is your false self meaning the self that you put on that you want everybody to see versus the true self and what he would say about the imposter is that the imposter is a liar the imposter lives in fear it's preoccupied with acceptance and approval and the imposter is basically is what he does and so out of all of these things we build these masks for the outside world to see but that's not it's not who we are and it's so and it's not our true self and that's the problem with masks is that they are not who we truly are they are images that we have that we feel like we have to maintain it's where that keeping up with the Jones is kind of saying comes from is and that can be so exhausting I mean I think you and I are probably you know people who can speak to this because you know especially our life before Christ I mean that was our masks were strong like I mean to the outside we had no problems no issues no nothing I mean I remember sometime a long time ago before Christ somebody calling my husband and I the Barbie and Ken of Mandeville because our lives were so perfect you know I had the perfect body my kids I dressed my kids perfect my husband it was good looking I was thin at the time we had a we didn't have a huge house but we had a modest home but we had the Mercedes Benz I had the diamond tennis bracelets and that's what we hid behind and then you know the Barbie and Ken of Mandeville I can all I can still remember that lady telling me that that's she wished that she was like my husband and I but behind closed doors oh my gosh I was an angry mama I you know ran around on my husband they didn't see all of that type of stuff and boy did I feel like a hypocrite at the time yeah because and because I think at the root of it we think the real south who we really are is unlovable yes and and so that's why we create all of these all these things and I think it's important to understand what our imposter looks like because it's individual for everybody's different I mean there are a lot of similarities but it's it's different each mask is different because it it's your comfort zone right okay it's in its ways that you've learned to receive those deep intrinsic needs that we all have which is to feel loved to feel secure to feel accepted so let me ask you Abby mom shields what does what does your imposter your mask look like maybe and sometimes they kind of change you know but so could you talk a little bit about that what that looks like for you I'll go first and then you go and then I'll go again okay so I'll start us off I think the the biggest mask that I wore most of my life was the people pleasing mask it was really really really important to me that you liked me my self-esteem depended on you liking me because I didn't like myself so I grew up looking to you for validation looking to you to tell me what a wonderful person I was if I had a real hard time saying no because I was afraid that if I said no you wouldn't like me and I needed you to like me because I didn't like myself and so I needed other people around me to make me happy and then the other part is my self-worth came also from making you happy so it was that was a real real struggle um I can remember one time somebody needing a ride to the airport and she called me up and she said can you take me to the airport and of course what did I say I said no I mean yes and um but little did she know that I had a hair appointment at the same time that I had scheduled seven weeks before and instead of saying no I can't and going to my hair appointment I canceled my hair appointment that I wasn't going to get in for another seven weeks just to take her because I was so afraid that if I said no to her she wouldn't like me and it's so funny how like even in little things like that it plays out I mean yeah because there wouldn't have been a big deal for you just say hey I have a hair appointment I'm sorry but once again that fear yeah of being rejected the fear of not being like the fear of feeling less than all of those fears played into those behaviors yeah yeah all right your turn so um I mean I very much identify with the people pleasing mask um but I would also say that um the achieving or the over achieving mask was part of my imposter syndrome just needing to be perfect and I think both of those things you know again they stem out of your life circumstances and so at a very young age I learned that you know when I was performing when I was achieving you know love acceptance praise all of those things were given and you know when I wasn't making the right choices or I wasn't um or even I think even if you didn't pick out the right dress that I would wear I would give you the look something something silly like that or I wasn't you know I can still remember like falling apart when I got like a B in second grade in Miss Wiseman's class and I came out and I was undone about the B but it wasn't actually about the grade it was about a like a hole in my mask had been punched and in in so for me it was more about um it was it was more about that that that I'd be exposed that I wasn't perfect um you know I can remember so many times like you know as I got older in high school with basketball like if I felt like I wasn't doing well enough and at this point these are all pressures that I had put on myself like I don't feel like you and dad ever put pressure on me to perform on the basketball court or anything it would just it was all internal at that point where um if I wasn't performing up to a standard that I thought was good enough I mean just I was undone and again it was that exposure of my true self that I thought was unlovable if I wasn't the performing student or the performing athlete that was being challenged there and it was God's kindness that eventually removed those things so that I could see um my true self but yeah I would say the achieving mask and the um the people pleasing mask what are some other ones that you feel like are pretty common that you see working with people um as you do in your office um I think the humor mask where and I wore that as well like and I can remember in middle school being the class clown and that's how I got acceptance and some people use humor to try to slough off the guilt or the shame they're feeling and if they can make a joke about it then it's not so so difficult to deal with life and um it made them look happy go lucky and went on the inside and that's kind of that was me is that I that's why people said not Abby she's so fun and spontaneous and all of that but on the that was once again a mask that I was using to cover up my inadequacies and how I felt less than um and I think a root of a lot of that is the message of shame that says you're not you're you're not good enough you made a mistake um or not you made a mistake but you are a mistake and so um I think that's one that I see also how about you and yeah well um I just think I think about the person that you know bashes themselves a lot like if I can be the first to put myself down then somebody else then somebody else won't you know and and sometimes people will look at that and call it a humility but it's really not humility at all it's a false humility of like if I can voice my worthlessness first then nobody else um right and and that person that hides behind that mask um has a hard time accepting compliments yes alrighty that that there's no way you know people say um I have several clients that struggle with that where their husband would say you look really pretty I struggled with that too you know my husband would tell me or this client would say that their husband would tell them how pretty they were and they they couldn't accept it because they were bashing themselves there was no way that they could be that pretty that somebody would give them a compliment yeah um so let's let's transition here a little bit because you know I do think one of the most important things to to do is spend time asking the lord to show us these things that we are show us what our mask looks like because the opposite of the mask or the imposter or the false self is the true self and the true self is who god at our core created us um created us to be and that core self that true self is lovable and it and and has purpose and um you know in in that book the abba's child um Brennan Manning will say it like this he'll say spirituality is not one compartment or sphere of life rather it is a lifestyle the process of life lived with the vision of faith sanctity lies in discovering my true self moving toward it and living out of it and that really is the goal is discovering who we are at our truth as our true self and living out of that as opposed to these masks we create the lies that the world tells and it's living out of the message of truth yeah and so let's talk about that so what is the true self like what is that look like to take off the mask and live from the true self well I think the first thing is to start to become transparent like Jesus by separating there's a statement that says by separating our who from our do okay you're gonna have to unpack that okay well our who is the spiritually perfect child of god and scripture tells us that in numerous scriptures john one verse 12 Ephesians one verse five and there's many many others but in order to separate the who from the do it's going to require severe humility why basically because we have to learn that our identity is separate from our actions yeah okay that's tough and it is because all my life I felt that who and believed that who I was was what I did and what you did determined whether you were lovable or not right yeah and 99.9% of the time I didn't get the love that I was looking for yeah in all of that and so I think that is such a powerful statement about separating the who from your doing and the other thing to be able to understand that is to stay in the scriptures to stay connected to the vine be because as you come to have the Holy Spirit speak to you through the scriptures you're going to be I began me but you as well can begin to understand that I am not any of those things that the world tells me the world would tell me that I was inadequate the world would tell me I was worthless the world would tell me that I couldn't do anything right the world would tell me that I was ugly the world would tell me that I was discounted that's a huge one of mine is being discounted and but the more I replace those words and feelings with the truth because those words god is not going to speak that over my life yeah he's just not one of the scriptures that made a major difference in my life was first Peter chapter two verse nine because it was in that little scripture well there's several of them but that one specifically spoke to me and told me that I was chosen that I was a royal priesthood that meant I was the daughter of a king a princess that I was a holy nation that meant that he had purpose for me but then the rest of that scripture says that I was God's special possession and I began to sit with that and to realize that holy cow after all I've done he still chose me and that you know you wouldn't bring up a childhood wound when I was in fourth grade I don't know if any of you out there can experience have experienced this this but when I was in fourth and fifth grade and I was in PE class and the PE teacher would have us play kickball or dodgeball I hate those games right now because I was always she would line us all up and she would pick out the four guys that were the BMOCs the big men on campus and they she would have them pick their team and when I say I was always I mean always picked last even to the point where when the guy who got me on his team would look at the teacher and say do we have to have her on our team how do you think that made me feel and so it's just really important to understand to not let those things that the world puts on us to replace that with God's word yeah and I think the thing about God's love is again it's not based on what we do it's based on who he is and what he did for us right you know and so we at our core we are holy and blameless loved children of God and that is that is who we are that's our identity right and there's no act once when we have trusted Jesus as our Lord and Savior that is who we are we are his adopted sons and daughters right and there is nothing that we do that changes that identity and so you know in order to take off the mask it is coming to a place where we believe more of what scripture says about us than what the world would say you know I always hate it when you do this and you do it all the time but it's true um who me yes you like you'll say you know if someone's saying like I'm stupid or I can't do anything right or whatever you'll say stop now find in scripture where it says that you're stupid or find in scripture where it says that you can't do anything right and we always roll our eyes and whatever but if we want to know what our identity is and who God says we are then that is the place that is the source that's the place to find it so again it's not reading scripture isn't about checking off a to-do list or a getting brownie points for being a super Christian it's about basking in what our father says about us and that's why we go to scripture is because that's where truth is about who we are and if we're not connected to that then we're going to walk around you know continuing to wear these masks I think another thing that's really important to help us take off the mask and it was the very first scripture that the Holy Spirit ever spoke to me about it's the one that I have tattooed on my arm and that's Galatians 110 and I know that some of my clients might be listening to this and they always roll their eyes because that's one of the first things I always try to teach them do not and Galatians 110 says who are you living your life for what people think or what God thinks because God already knows you and so if you're living your life for what people think then that's when you're going to put on the masks but the more I learned that my whole life because the rest of that scripture says if you live your life or what people think you're not a servant of Christ give up living for what people think and let your behavior be such that God because God already knows you he knows your every hair on your head he knows he's created you he knows the plans he has for you and so the more I learned to live for him and not worry about what other people thought the the less I worried about my masks yeah absolutely I think the way that I would like to wrap up our episode today is just finishing with a story about a man his name is John Egan and again I mean if I can't say it enough I took this Abish child book if this is an area that you struggle with just living from your imposter or your mask as opposed to your true self I cannot recommend this book enough because it really was transformative for me because it pointed me to Jesus in the in the what the love of the gospel is so anyway so he writes about this guy John Egan who died in 1987 he was an ordinary man an unheralded high school teacher in Milwaukee he spent 30 years ministering with youth he never wrote a book appeared on television converted the masses or gathered a reputation for holiness he ate slept drank biked cross country roamed through the woods taught classes and prayed and he kept a journal published shortly after his death it is the story of an ordinary man whose soul was seduced and ravished by Jesus Christ the introduction reads the point of John's journal is that we ourselves are the greatest obstacle to our own nobility of soul which is what sanctity means we judge ourselves unworthy servants and that judgment becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy we deem ourselves too inconsiderable to be used even by a god capable of miracles with no more than mud and spit and thus our false humility shackles and otherwise omnipotent god egan a flawed man with salient weaknesses and character defects learned that brokenness is proper to the human condition that we must forgive ourselves for being unlovable inconsistent incompetent irritable and potbellied and he knew that his sins would not keep him from god they had all been redeemed by the blood of Christ in repentance he took his shadow self to the cross and dared to live as a forgiven man and egan's journey one hears echoes of merton god is asking me the unworthy to forget my unworthiness and that of my brothers and dare to advance in the love which has redeemed and renewed us all in god's likeness and to laugh after all at the preposterous ideas of worthiness struggling to shrink the illusionary self egan pursued a life contemplative prayer with ruthless fidelity during his annual silent eight-day directed retreat the revelation of his true self-hit with sledgehammer force on the morning of the sixth day he was visiting with his spiritual director that day bob says again with great clarity strike in the table with his fist john this is your call the way god is calling you pray for a deepening of this love yes savor the present moment where god is indulged the contemplative in you surrender to it let it be search for god then he states something that i will ponder for years he said it is very deliberately i ask him to repeat it so that i can write it down john the heart of it is this and this is what just blows my mind to make the lord and his immense love for you constitutive of your personal worth define yourself radically as one beloved by god god's love for you and his choice of you constitute your worth accept that and let that become the most important thing in your life we discuss it the basis of my personal worth is not my possessions my talents not a steam of others reputation not kudos of appreciation from parents and kids not applause and everyone telling you how important you are to the place i stand anchored now in god before whom i stand naked this god who tells me you are my son my beloved one i mean wow that is the true self is coming to a place where god's love for us is the most important thing about us right and i think that if we remove the veil the mask from our face from our heart okay i think it's when we remove the veil from our faces we can understand the glory of christ within us and paul talked about that in second karantians chapter three verse 18 about removing that veil i think he's basically saying remove the mask of the world to see the glory of christ within you yeah amen absolutely thank you so much for joining us on no heart left behinds hope in the heart of family life podcast we hope you felt seen encouraged and just a little more equipped to love your family well if you want to learn more about no heart left behind be sure to check out our website www.noheartleftbehind.com or visit the link in the show notes if you love the podcast we would love it if you would follow us on your favorite podcast player and if you love this episode please share it with a friend your encouragement is not just for our egos it really helps others find the show and encourages them to check it out mother Teresa said if you want to change the world go home and love your family so until we see you again next week go home and be a world changer
