Are you the person who always seems to have it together?
The one who stays calm,
Avoids conflict,
Doesn't get too emotional,
Maybe tells everyone,
It's fine,
It doesn't bother me.
Even when it absolutely does.
What if that calmness isn't always peace?
What if sometimes it's a way of protecting ourselves when we actually are feeling?
My name is Lillian and I'm a somatic therapist.
Trained in core energetics.
In Core Energetics,
We work with something called the mask.
It's the version of ourselves that we present to the world to protect the parts of ourselves that we don't want others to see.
We talk about three main masks.
Love,
Serenity,
And power.
And today.
We're talking about the mask of serenity.
The mask of serenity is built around the need to appear calm,
Peaceful,
Unaffected,
And above the drama.
Even when something very different is happening inside.
And like all masks,
There's usually a good reason we learn to do this.
Maybe growing up expressing your emotions wasn't welcome.
Maybe there was so much conflict around you that you learned it was safer to stay out of it.
Or maybe having big feelings.
Felt really overwhelming.
So you learn to disconnect from them,
You know,
To stay neutral and act like nothing really bothered you.
And over time.
You learn to become really good at it.
You learn to keep the peace,
To stay composed.
To not let things get to you.
And those strategies may have helped you in those situations that felt difficult.
But what happens when being calm is something you can no longer put down?
You might be the person who avoids confrontation at all costs.
Someone hurts your feelings and you brush it off or you're angry,
But instead of expressing it,
You tell yourself it's not worth getting upset about.
You might intellectualize your emotions instead of.
.
.
Feeling it and,
You know,
You overexplain it.
Instead of allowing it to affect you.
Or maybe you convince yourself that you're just not an emotional person.
And sometimes,
Especially in spiritual spaces or self-help spaces,
This mask can be really tricky.
Because being peaceful,
Accepting,
And non-reacting can look a lot like growth.
But what if you're actually not at peace?
What if you've just become really good at disconnecting from the things that disturb your peace?
And what is the cost of that?
How many feelings have you pushed aside because they were uncomfortable?
How many conversations have you avoided because you didn't want to create conflict?
How much?
Of your emotional experience?
Are you missing because you learned to stay above it all?
And I want to make an important distinction here,
Because being peaceful is not the mask.
Being calm,
Grounded,
Able to respond,
You know,
Instead of react are all wonderful qualities.
The mask is when you feel you have to present like you're unaffected,
Even when something very different is happening inside you.
Maybe you're hurt,
But you tell yourself that you're above it.
Maybe you're angry,
But you convince yourself that anger isn't something you want to show.
Or maybe you're terrified,
But you maintain this appearance of like having everything under control.
And this is where the mask can begin to limit us because we begin to disconnect from the uncomfortable emotion,
But we also lose access of really important information about ourselves.
Because our anger might be telling us that a boundary has been crossed.
Or sadness might be showing us how much something really matters.
Sometimes fear is just asking us for attention,
But we don't allow ourselves to acknowledge it.
So I want to leave you with a really important question that I come back to very often when working with my clients.
Especially over this layer of the mask.
I ask,
Am I connected to myself or am I trying to control the way others see me?
Am I connected to myself right now?
Or am I trying to control how others see me?
And here's something you can experiment with right now.
Think of a recent moment,
Maybe when something bothered you and you just like brushed it off.
Maybe you told somebody,
It's fine.
And you convinced yourself it wasn't a big deal.
So just take a moment to remember that situation.
Instead of explaining it away.
Ask yourself what's happening inside of me.
Is there a tension somewhere?
Does your breath change thinking about the situation?
Is there maybe like an impulse to move or speak or withdraw or push something away?
And ask yourself,
If I didn't have to be okay with this,
What might I actually be feeling?
Okay,
You don't have to make anything happen.
You don't have to express anything right now.
I just want you to notice what's there.
Because the goal isn't to become less peaceful.
To recognize when serenity just feels like it's something you have to perform.
To avoid uncomfortable feelings maybe.
Because you can be peaceful and angry.
You can be grounded and deeply affected by something.
And you can accept what happened and still acknowledge that it hurt.
Real serenity isn't the absence of emotion.
Having capacity.
To be with what you're feeling without having to disconnect from it.
Because sometimes the most powerful thing we can do is admit that something is bothering us.
Thank you for being with me today.
My name is Lillian,
And I will see you next time.
