Pain. Agony. Despair. Tears. Lonliness. Heartache. Whatever it is that is causing your pain, you still have a life to live. You still need to go out in the world and work, socialize and take care of responsibilities. So, how do we manage? Without even being fully conscious? We put on our happy mask (or as-happy-as-can-be mask) in order to get through our internal woes.
Whether you like others to feel sorry for you or not, we all don a bit of our heart on our sleeve. It is just that some are good at consealing it while others are not. We still remain cognizant of our inner core that we hide from the world. Perhaps we do that as self preservation. Or we don’t want others to think we are as crazy as our inner voice displays us to be. Or we just don’t understand all of our feelings.
We can explain ourselves to others until we are blue in the face and still the message is not clear. Only WE know our true selves. It is a personal and sacred bond between our body, mind, and heart. But then there are the times we don’t even know who we are, how we are moving along on planet Earth, or how we have the energy to get through our days. It’s like we are floating on air galavanting through the phases of life as though on autopilot.
But the interanl pain pokes, jabs, and prods at us letting us know that beneath the strong exterior we portray lives a frail soul needing nourishment to replenish our essence that has been depleted over the years. Whatever stole the happiness from you — your significant other, your childen, your family members, your job, etc. — you still are able to miraculously put on your happy mask.
However, the question remains: How can we feed our soul to fill in the tolls of life and have our happy mask just become our happy?
Let’s pause and go back to basics. Everything we ever needed to know we learned during our first years of school. Remember when we were five years old and pretended the toy cars were in a real race or the plastic, already-been-slobbbered-on food was really scrumptious morsels to devoure, or the swings on the playground were rocketships that would fly us to the moon? Nothing could stop our imagination from flowing until…
…someone comes and knocks over the Lego tower we spent so much time building and our happy mask cfalls off. We cry. We get angry. We make a huge scene. The teacher has the destroyer child apologize and our tears start to dry and we are back being the best Lego engineer that ever existed. Once the teacher announces that it is time to clean up, we take off our pretend mask, whether it was Wonder Woman, Spiderman, the fire fighter superhero, the space alien from Mars, or a famous artist and sit on the rug ready to take on the next challenge. Sounds simplistic. Sounds ideal. Sound like, “Sign me up!”
What if we went back to our 5-year-old selves and accepted that we are creative, fantastic, extraordinary beings? Cried when something didn’t go our way and then got over it as fast as 1…2…3? Had our temper tantrums and then moved on and did not look back? Knew we could accomplish anything without fear? Put on our happy and left the masks for pretend play?
We can! It is all part of self expression to our weary soul. What we tell ourselves is what we beceome, what we feel, what we accept, and what we allow. Be careful how you speak to yourself. You know what you are good at and what you are proud of about yourself, whether it is that you are a kind and generous person, you’re good at negotiations, being a good friend, teaching that class of students, getting things accomplished at work, being able to sing as loud as you can and don’t care who’s listening, belching out the alphabet…whatever it may be, find your pride and wear it proudly.
Most importantly, know you are strong even on the days that beat you down the most. Have faith in yourself as YOU are the most important person in your life. Write your list of things that make you happy and put it in a place you can see it every day, multiple times a day.
We can pretend to others all we want, but at the end of the day all those masks come off as we slip under the sheets in our bed. There, we ponder. Think about our day. Feel happy about some things. Cry over other things. Pain is within us all. We justdon’t see it in all. We are actors prancing through life, taking in the good and the not so good. Focus on the happy, and find solutions for the not-so-happy. Go to the playground. Swing as high as you can on the swings. Sing at the top of your lungs. Dance like you’ve never danced before. Ask someone if they will be your best friend. Share your other half of your peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Have a staring contest. Play rock, paper, scissors. Skip. Smell the flowers.
Or…bring it way back to happiness and bliss! Ready? Here goes: Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. Catch a tiger by it’s toe. If he hollers, let him go. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. Yes, YOU are the chosen one. The chosen one for the game of life. Live it like a 5 year old. Live it like your mask is happy. But, feel your woes. Acknowledge them. Comprehend them. Find solutions. Then friggen smile your best smile you got. Becasue YOU GOT THIS! Life. YOU GOT THIS!
Please share your stories, thoughts, accomplishments, happiness, strengths, etc. Hearing other’s stories are healing. I will respond back to you. So share!
Quote Therapy 101 