The Mask Whisperer

“Something lost? A part of yourself, perhaps? That which you seek, inside you will find.” - Yoda I saw the new Star Wars movie a few weeks ago. I enjoyed it very much mostly because it had a very spiritual, and timely, message of hope. It also had a message that the power to change anything, or overcome darkness, comes from within. Star Wars has always been about the struggle between good and evil both in the universe and with its character's internal struggles. Some struggled more than others, like Anakin Skywalker, aka: Darth Vader. Without getting too much into it, Anakin had a strong force - of good - within him when Qui-Gon Jinn, the Jedi Master, discovered the young boy. Jinn said that the force within Anakin was so strong that he was the “chosen one”, the one they’d been waiting for to restore balance in the galaxy. And then.... Anakin turned and went to the dark side, which ultimately greatly upset the balance. If you've watched all the movies, you know ...

“No apology has meaning if we haven’t listened carefully to the hurt party’s anger and pain.” Harriet Lerner I love Brene Brown . If you aren’t familiar with her work, Google her. She has TED talks, books, a fantastic presence on Facebook, and so much more. She is a research professor at the University of Houston, an author, and speaker. The majority of her research is about vulnerability. She’s definitely worth looking into. Anyway....Brene posted a list of her favorite books recently and on that list was Harriet Lerner’s book “Why Won’t You Apologize? : Healing Big Betrayals and Everyday Hurts”. I ordered it right away and read it cover to cover in a couple of days. I won’t go into a full on review of the book but  if you do nothing else today, after reading this blog of course, buy this book and read it. As someone who witnesses people’s pain (their masks) - and who has had my fair share of it -, I can tell you that pain is as prevalent as oxygen. It’s also ...

“We can’t avoid pain, but we can transform our response to it.” -  Sharon Salzberg  In my last blog post, I wrote about the masks we wear. Some may have been left wondering, what the hell is a mask, and what the heck does she mean she can see it? A mask is invisible, protective armor we wear to cover up our pain. .....to cover up our pain..... We all have pain. And don't we know it by the amount of shootings, suicides, drug overdoses, divorces, etc. that happen every day. We are all hurting. A mask is our ego's way of protecting us from having to deal with our pain. Put on the mask and viola! the pain is gone. Or so we think. The pain never goes away until it's dealt with.  You name it, there’s a mask for it. Here are some popular masks that I see every day. The perfection mask. The jealousy mask. The “I’m fine” mask. The people pleasing mask. The pillar of strength mask. The angry mask. When I see someone trying so hard to be perfect,...