What Masks Are We Wearing?

I have been a student of the Enneagram for a few years now. The Enneagram is an ancient personality typing system that uses nine ways to categorize peoples’ personalities.

The general definition of personality is our patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting, but in the book, “The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth,” author Christopher L. Heuertz says that our personality is the mask we wear. In this age of actual mask-wearing, it got me thinking about masks in general.

What masks are we wearing every day as we go about our daily lives?

How does that interfere with clear communication, both personally and professionally?

On a more esoteric level, have we accepted the mask that society ascribes to us based on our age and gender?

Many women think they need to be “nice” and communicate only positive feelings. Many men think they need to be “strong” and disregard their feelings. These masks interfere with clear communications and do not allow us to express ourselves fully.

What about your upbringing? Were you a given a role to play in your family, and so your personality developed based on this role?

If we are now aware of this mask and continue to wear it without wanting it, without feeling authentic, then our ability to live a full life and communicate clearly is going to suffer.

It might be time to remove the figurative mask and figure out who we truly are.

It is only when we know who we truly are that we become who we were meant to be.