Do you hide behind a mask?

It is interesting how many people I meet lately that seem to have coulrophobia. The fear of clowns. As someone who has always embraced the joy of being entertained by clowns, I could never understand it. Psychologists believe that this fear is instilled at a very young age mainly because children are highly reactive to a familiar body type and an unfamiliar face.

It seems that it is difficult to “read” the person behind that familiar mask. Not knowing what their intend might be. Isn’t it ironic how many people wear masks to cover their anguish and hurt by placing a fake smile on their faces and acting according to what people expect them to be? Bryant McGill wrote that there is nothing you will ever do that is more important than being honest about who you really are. Freddy Mercury, Queen, wrote in his song lyrics: “I’m the great pretender. Just laughing and gay like a clown I seem to be what I’m not (you see). I’m wearing my heart like a crown.”

As crazy as it may seem, most of us are not who we think we are; we are someone else’s ideas. Two words: cultural conditioning. Many people have tremendously warped identities which were distorted by trauma of yesterday and the expectations of tomorrow. The struggle to excavate your true, authentic self from beneath the mountain of conditioning and ridiculous expectation is the epic struggle of your lifetime. Most people are buried alive in a cultural and familial avalanche from the moment they are born, and are never seen or heard from again.

Your number one mission in life is to be who you were intended to be. Not a white painted fake individual who has to act in a certain way to be accepted and even stereotyped. Nothing is more miserable than living a muffled survival of inauthenticity. Not being who you were created to be. Lots of, if not all pain in life comes from suppressing your true identity. You must begin to understand that this is your life. No one else’s! You have one unique life and it seems to be so brief. Be honest with yourself and who you really are. If you can’t live your life as who you really are then your life is a lie.

It is important to follow your own ideas, be passionate, even if to others it looks like suffering. Refuse to be bullied. Resist the pressure to become someone else. In the lyrics of The One And Only by Chesney Hawkes, he states: ”I am the one and only. Nobody I’d rather be. I am the one and only. You can’t take that away from me.”

It is wonderful to think that there is no one like you in the entire world! So be yourself.