October, and Halloween — oh what memories! Wearing costumes with a mask that you wanted to fool a friend with. In those days that was a fun kind of mask.
Now, as a grieving adult, you discover that masks take on a different purpose. Such as the metaphorical mask to avoid the sadness of grief with family and friends, when you don’t want them to know how you really feel.
Maybe the mask is for the anxiety about being with others who may not understand what you are going through. If someone says, “You are looking so good,” or “You are amazing,” or “You are so strong.” The mask says, “I’m okay.” So, you buy into what people want you to be, at least for that moment.
Perhaps a mask disguises your fear of how friends or family will respond if you don’t show positive emotions, so it may feel safer to wear the mask. Family and friends are so eager for you to be “okay” that they encourage you to be positive. Well-meaning, yet what does it do for you? Perhaps it minimizes you and your grief, so you say to yourself, I can’t be here, so you choose to be in your quiet space at home instead. Or, maybe you might stay, and keep the mask on tightly, while walking on eggshells and avoiding the real feeling in the moment.
What can you learn about yourself, when the mask is not on? What does it mean to be authentic and vulnerable? To be seen? It’s not easy. Yet, to reach out without a mask… what might be gained?
Learning how to manage grief feelings requires sitting with the feeling and naming it, then you may begin to know the feeling as not so scary. We don’t think of a feeling of love as scary. Yet, we often see feelings associated with love that way, so we push the feeling away and mask the true feelings.
There is a lot of love mixed in with those feelings.
There can be a lot of healing in sharing. A group can be the one place that feels safe without the mask. It can also be a safe place to practice being you, to find your voice, and use it to share and be authentic. Without your voice, others will make assumptions and create their own narrative to define you, rather than you redefining yourself. Your voice matters, and so do your feelings.
Please take off your mask… and we’ll join you.