What masks are hiding the shining brightness that is you?
In this life, we hide behind many masks.
When we grieve, we often feel we must hide behind a smiling “I’m okay” mask, sensing that our friends, family and other associates are not comfortable with the depth of our pain. We are not comfortable with their discomfort and the responses triggered by that discomfort, so we put on the mask.
Sometimes, we even try to hide the full depth of our grief from ourselves. Fearing its power, we are not willing to risk drowning in a bottomless well of tears. We are not willing to sit with our pain on its own terms. So we find a way to suck it up or dam it up. We put on a mask.
The paradox is that by not honoring the truth of our pain in the moment, we are at risk of internalizing and unconsciously identifying so deeply with it that it develops a life of its own. Some, including Eckhart Tolle, have called the unconscious internal energy that develops the Pain Body.
The Pain Body can take over, masking our true identity, tricking us into believing that pain is our reality or our identity. We think we are wearing an “I’m okay” mask, but it is the Pain Body that’s really masking our own true Light.
The Sufi poet Hafiz said, “I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing Light of your own Being.”
That is also my wish for you. May your own Pain Body be dissolved, may the mask fall away, and may you reveal your true radiant countenance to yourself and to the world.
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