BEHIND THE MASK

Over the past few months, we have become used to seeing people wearing masks, of varying designs and colours, depending on the personality of the wearer. These are physical masks, well able to be seen and identified by the viewer. And have you noticed how strange it is to not be able to see when somebody is smiling?

But what about the other masks we wear, and have probably worn most of our lives, those masks that we use to hide ourselves, or our perceived selves from others. I’m talking about the cockiness we use to hide our insecurities, as I did as a young teenager. Or the false smile that hides our pain and hurt. What about the labels on our clothes or the car we drive. The extrovert actions that hide the introvert inside. And there’s the authoritarian who can’t stand to be questioned or challenged. The list goes on and on.

We all have our secret selves, which in itself is not a problem. But when the mask stands in the way of communication, or invites rejection, then maybe it is time to do a little introspection and ask ourselves if my mask is not perhaps working against me rather than in my favour. That is. of course, once we have discovered that the mask exists.

It is said that the truth will set you free, so why not spend some time and effort in seeking the truth. Then we can know true freedom.

BEING THE AUTHENTIC YOU

I became actively involved in weight training and body building at about the age of 16, a skinny kid with a great deal of enthusiasm but not a great deal of knowledge. I was being trained by an enthusiast who saw a great future in me, but who also had a limited knowledge of training techniques and systems. At about the same time a young man from Austria was emerging onto the bodybuilding scene, the same age as me, and a proverbial young giant.

 Arnold himself. The one with the unpronounceable name, Schwarzenegger. Every magazine carried his training programmes, his eating plans, his photographs and his measurements. I had discovered, I thought, my guru, my purpose, my calling. We began.

I pushed, pulled and pumped in every direction.  I supersetted, tri setted, drop setted and extra setted. There was not a muscle overlooked. Every maximus, every minimus, every major, every minor, every ceps bulked, stretched and defined. Four hours of every day was devoted to pumping iron, the rest devoted to eating, drinking and supplementing anything that did not bite back.

And then finally it happened. 

After 18 months living the Schwarzie way I stood before the mirror, not the gigantic, rippling bull mastiff of the magazines, but a skinny, trembling greyhound, so highly strung that I jumped at the sound of my  own  breathing  and  you  could  play  a  violin  symphony  on  my nerves. I said hello to my first nervous breakdown, not something I welcomed or expected. 

 It took a number of months on various drugs before I was back to normal mentally and before I had any desire for any form of physical exercise.  I was overworked, burnt out, messed up and going under.

Not the result I had worked so hard to achieve, so what had gone wrong?

If only I had known it then, this was the first example of what was meant by me being ME. You see I had made the cardinal error of wanting to be somebody else, without giving any thought to what I was created, or capable of, being.

Revelation moment - Arnold was different to me.  His body type, metabolism, mind and emotions were suited to the type of workouts and diet he was promoting.  And, as I learned later, he was, sadly, taking steroids. But for me, it was just too much.  I was different, and if I had only realized it then I may have saved myself years of trouble, anguish, and more nervous disorders.

The sad thing is that I was not that unusual. Many people, especially young people, spend time, money and a great deal of effort literally trying to become someone else. Instead of having role models, mentors and others that we can look up to and learn from we try to BE something we are not.

Whether it be Arnies, Barbies, Kens, Toms, Charlizes or Bill Gates, it’s still the same futile exercise. It makes so much more sense for each of us to put that effort into being the best ‘ME’ we were created to be.

Four decades and much learning later I have become, to some extent, the envy of my, shall we say, much rounder, colleagues.

At last the balance is there. I am me.

WHAT IF TOMORROW……….?

What if tomorrow requires us to think differently, act differently, live differently, be different? 

Isn’t this just what happened with the Covid lockdown? Overnight, without any advance warning, almost everything that we had become used to in our lives, changed. In fact, our ability to adapt was challenged in almost every area and at every level of our lives.

It is a known fact that the majority of people do not like rapid or dramatic change, and here we had this tsunami of change sweeping over us with nowhere to run. Suddenly, we were living in a post apocalypse world, perhaps not physically, but certainly emotionally, and many of those things that we would normally have done to cope are no longer available to us, whether it be getting together to have a meal with friends, a long walk in nature, a workout at the gym, a night out at the theatre, a weekend away, all suddenly are gone.

In addition, we now sit in a situation where we do not know what tomorrow will bring, we cannot predict, even in a small way, the future normal.

This is probably the biggest brain shock in the lives of most people, after the mental gymnastics thrown at us by isolation and lockdown.

How then do we confront and overcome this challenge, or in simpler terms, how do we re- normalise?

Firstly, we must look at things to see, realistically, what are likely to go back to our normal, and what are not, in our individual lives. Some have lost loved ones, some have lost work, businesses or livelihoods and all that goes along with it. What does this change in circumstances mean and how can we handle it.

Secondly, we must separate those circumstances over which we have control from those over which we do not and invest our mental and physical energies on those which we can influence.

Thirdly, we must create new habits that will help us move forward, habits that begin with changing our mental approach first, in order to overcome the emotional resistance that keeps wanting to arise,

Then we must start working out, and working on, those new skills that we will need going forward. 

Sadly, unlike the dramatic events that caused our lives to change, this probably will not happen overnight, but, with consistent and focussed effort we will be able to get there. Yes, it will be hard. Yes, it will be challenging. Yes, it will require some blood sweat and tears. But the results may well place us in a better position than we were before, even if we cannot foresee that now.

There is a strength in human beings that is found in no other aspect of nature, the strength and power of the human mind, created in the image of God. Use it well, and to your advantage, by taking control, slowly if necessary, of your thoughts as they arise. By changing them, you will be able to change your words and your actions, and ultimately, your future normal.