Masks we are wearing

“Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass; it's about learning to dance in the rain.”

Vivian Greene

I was standing in the kitchen of the dormitory, in which I had already lived for several months together with other people from Ukraine, when my colleague said to me: "You know, you are completely different at work. You are so homely and family-like here. I don't recognize you. This is a completely different Yuliia, whom I did not know and had not seen before. At work you are active, and bright, you are a super-star who inspires everyone, but here you are calm." Then she made a long pause and said again: “And here. And here, you are ordinary. Here, you are like everyone else."

It would seem like a simple innocent comment but there are so many hidden meanings, so many patterns and stereotypes, and so many masks and games. But I have already heard this phrase... Once a friend of mine, who attended my parties and always saw me only in dresses, on heels, with makeup from a beauty salon, met me in a coffee bar near my house in a sports costume and without make-up, sickly looking and with a hint of slight melancholy mixed with a depression.

"Yuliia?!? Is that you?!?", my friend said in a quiet and uncertain voice.

"Hello! Yes, it's me!", I said calmly and unemotionally.

Although she silently looked at me for three minutes, her facial expression spoke for her, she was surprised and even disappointed that I, like everyone, like all "normal" people, could be without a dress or heels, without makeup, and even in a bad mood with energy zero.

"I. I. I thought you were some kind of a fantastic and unreal superstar. And you are just an ordinary person, the same as me. The same as millions. We all looked up to you, but you are ordinary."

I looked at her, shrugged, took my coconut matcha latte, and said, "Yeah, sure."

And really in the sense of how I looked, I was an ordinary person, like everyone else, and not the "Hollywood star" people used to see me. But in a deep sense, from the Soul's point of view, I was neither ordinary nor simple... I had and still have such strength and such potential that I can "turn mountains", and I have already stepped on the thorny path of disidentifying myself with masks, images, and roles, that we carry in society because I dared to take a step to get out of the collective consciousness and become a "white crow" for the most people, but allowing myself to be myself and enter into resonance with my Soul. And this path is hellishly difficult. This is a transition through a meat grinder, in which either you will win or you will be won, there is simply no other option.

Plato has the myth of the cave, a famous allegory that he used in the book "Republic". A certain group of people live all their lives in a cave with shackles on their legs and necks that prevent them from walking and turning their heads, and thus they can only see what is in front of them on a blank wall. Far-far behind them is the light from the fire, seeping through the wall in the form of a screen. These people are only able to see the flickering shadows on the wall from various objects carried by other people on the other side of the wall. These shadows were so close and looked so real that they were mistakenly perceived as a reality. Even when these people were unchained and told that there was a completely different outside world beyond the wall, they continued to believe that the shadows were the only possible reality. And even those who have already begun to understand and believe that maybe there is another world, do not want to leave their comfort zone, those that are known and familiar to them.

The exit from this comfort zone, from the so-called Plato's cave, is an exit to another world, which is beyond masks and images, beyond the dual mind and thoughts, and therefore beyond illusion. Whether a person is ready to leave his cave and understand who he is - is an individual choice of everyone.

We all lived and many of us continue to live in an illusory world, in the world of masks, statuses, and roles. And each of us has accumulated so many masks throughout our lives that we have forgotten who we are. For the first time, when the mask falls from a person, he/she feels naked in a crowd of other people, insecure and vulnerable. It seems that someone intervened in his/her inner world and saw something that should not have been seen. But all this is a feeling and antics of the ego. The ego does not want us to take off the masks, the ego does not want us to no longer identify with them, it begins to whine and use all sorts of baits, hooking us, just to turn us back and not allow us to wake up, to wake up from the dream of illusion.

I have clung to various things in my life and I continue to cling because transformation does not end, it is a constant process of self-discovery, self-healing, and expansion of consciousness. But here, in this article, I want to write about how I clung to my appearance and compliance with generally accepted standards of fashion, beauty, intelligence, success, etc. I mocked myself, my body, and my soul, as millions of other people do, especially women, to meet some ephemeral standards, to keep the "face" of a "successful woman" that many other women want to emulate. But the fact is that there is no standard of beauty or success. Any real beauty is manifested in external imperfection, and any success appears in millions of mistakes, falls, and knees-deep in blood. No woman can look like from"the cover of a glossy magazine" 24/7, 365 days a year (unless she's had permanent makeup, a bunch of plastic surgeries, or pierced everything possible with silicone). Each person has different days, different moods, and emotions, a person cannot be happy all the time, such a state does not exist, this is another illusion.

Of course, when I heard for the first time the phrase that I was ordinary, like everyone else, and they looked at me like an icon, and now I no longer inspire them, it hurt me, although I already perfectly understood that voice was the voice of my whining and defected ego. But I chose a different path I realized that all my images and roles, whatever they were before, are not anymore me and have never been and do not shape me as a person, so I allowed other people to make their choices about me. Someone wrote that I had become uninteresting, someone said that I disappointed them, someone even dared to accuse me, someone simply unfollowed me on all social networks, not forgetting to write me a private letter with a lot of crap and negativity... I cried... I cried a lot and for a long time, because the outside world was still very important to me... But I already understood that I was going the other way and allowing people to play their roles and their games. I realized that I no longer wanted people in my environment to love me because of my appearance or because of my hyperactive position in society, I no longer wanted anyone to look up to me or praise me, I did not need hidden envy under "various guises sauces". I just wanted to be myself without conforming to anyone's standards or expectations and I let people leave me and free up my space, because very few people wanted to go further with me and just accept me as a Soul and not as a "glossy magazine cover", and there were few who wanted to help me in the darkest days/months/years of my life without subtext or ulterior motives. For many of them I became useless and uninteresting, and for some even uncomfortable, because I took off all my masks and became naked and vulnerable and began to speak openly and truthfully, and no one likes the truth. And in this bottomless emptiness and darkness, I formed myself and walked towards the Light slowly, with difficulty, with inhuman tests one-on-one with myself. But I knew for sure that I no longer wanted to depend on masks and roles and obey them. I felt that I no longer wanted to motivate or inspire anyone, to waste my precious energy and time on people who, in the end, were just using me. I realized that I no longer wanted to create an image of a woman who I was not, like millions of others who played and still play in the game of "perfection" or "success". No one ever thinks about the question "And what is the price of this success or perfection?". It is not free, we pay with our energy, which then materializes in illnesses, professional burnouts, depression, or other problems and difficult situations. Did my colleague, whom I mentioned at the beginning of the article, know what price I paid for all those high-profile and fashionable events and projects that I conducted? Did she or other people think that there was something behind the beautiful picture of "success" or "relative success" and "that something" had to be paid a high price? Some pay with money, some with family, because "success" leaves no time for family, and some with health. But there is such a trap here that you pay, as a rule, not immediately, but according to an accumulation scheme, and then one fine day, when you seem to be at the peak of your "success" or "beauty", you suddenly receive a huge bill: "Ordered - Pay". And after paying such a "bill" little by little the stage of enlightenment comes, but, unfortunately, not everyone, "especially intellectual ones" need to receive several such "bills" to understand that they need to reevaluate their lives and rebuild themselves from inside.

And now, for the first time in my entire life, I allow myself to be a fool and look ridiculous in the eyes of most people, because I have gained wisdom, before when there was only a lot of intelligence, it was difficult to look ridiculous because arrogance and pride suffocated and prevented from living freely because it was constantly necessary "to hold the bar", to meet standards and expectations, to be this standard. Now I don't need it and I don't care who and what others think, say, or write about me and I'm not going to prove anything to anyone, my people, my real ones, will always be with me, because they love and appreciate me not because of my external beauty and appearance, they see and feel my Soul.

Indeed, when all the external tinsel falls away, when the tsunami destroys all masks, a person remains naked alone with himself/herself, and then everything false and not true falls away. And it turns out that for most people "without a dress and cosmetics" you are simply nobody. Because they still live so deeply in the material world that they can only see through the masks.

And yes, I still love beauty in all its manifestations, I love beautiful clothes and dresses, but I no longer depend on these external attributes and I am very okay to be in a hoodie or a no-name t-shirt and not meet the generally accepted standards and mainstreams.

November 4, 2022.