My higher self, my lower self and my mask
By Nathalie Khalaf, Holistic Counsellor
One of the most challenging things I had to learn about and go through while working with my counsellor was the topic of the “mask” I wore and hid behind since childhood. This mask was used to hide away all the pain I did not want to show family, school or society.
My mask
I hid behind a mask I did not even know I had on until I became so tired of the way I lived my life. I noticed the heavy load I carried by pretending to be someone else, in order to please others all the time. It was then that I realized I had to face everything within me, all the pain and suffering, with acceptance and love, in order to set myself free and create our wellbeing.
Most of us have moments in our lives when we feel just so tired and fed up of ourselves, relationships, or society and may blame the world for the way we are feeling. Some sufferers even start alienating themselves from those they blame for their suffering.
Well, these moments are actually good teachers which can show us that we may have most likely been living a life of pretense, hiding behind a mask to please everyone else around us rather than living in accordance to our truth.
Divine and earthly connections
Let me explain: We all arrive as souls (our connection to the Divine) and live out our human experiences on earth. We naturally have our Higher Self traits which come directly from our connection to God, as well as our Lower Self traits as part of our human experience on earth.
As children we live out both, purely and honestly, but as we grow up, some of our traits from both sides are judged and not accepted or are feared. We end up creating what is known as a ‘mask’. This mask is an energy mask; it is our false self, everything we hide behind in order to hide from pain and the fear of not being accepted or loved.
The Lower Self comes up in our experience of polarity which has pain and suffering. Thus, the mask gets created to protect the self from this pain and suffering. The mask effect is fake, denies fear, is submissive, defending and defensive, has no contact with its true inner self or others and lives in exclusion.
Our needs and looking within
Now, the mask may be used to hide and disguise both lower as well as higher self traits. When we have been made to feel ashamed of our need for love as children, we may hide it behind a mask of power, expressing strength and pride in rejecting others!
We may create a mask of serenity if our emotions of anger and disapproval are punished. If we were made to feel ashamed of our inner power, jealousy and anger, then we could create a mask of love, and hide behind pleasing others or overdoing it with expressing our love and affection. All this to ensure we manipulate others into loving us back!
As children, when our lower selfemotions are rejected, shamed or made fun of, then a mask gets created to hide them and the child starts pretending not to have them, in order to protect the inner self from the painful experience.
As adults, this could turn into love of control, power and even sadism. We may become bitter, dependent on others and perhaps identify with being a victim, punishing others for our misery.
A solution is always to look within ourselves and becoming aware of how we feel; what triggers our emotions and work on releasing all pain and suffering. Working with a professional counsellor like I did, really made me become aware and learn how to love myself. I released all unwanted pain and emotions from within, in order to create wellness at all levels of my life.
“All our life experiences are a creative manifestation of our higher and lower self-energies which create our lives in opposite directions. The higher self leads us toward our divine center and the lower self leads us away from it, towards a false identification with our defenses, our separatist ego and our unconscious demons”
Therapist Susan Thesenga, author of The Undefended Self
Some Lower Self traits are not speaking the truth, hatred, separation, being egotistical, laziness, pride, selfishness (when it can hurt others), being defensive and closed-off to feelings because we fear pain, being greedy, being immature, living in fear, wanting control, power, bitterness, having negative intentions and having an attitude of ‘I want it my way’.
Some Higher Self traits are:
Truth, love, communion, self-awareness, spontaneity, joy, patience, creative flow, not fearing or being closed off to pain, accepting ourselves and others, being fearless, being able to question, accepting other’s points-of-view and being open-hearted.
You can contact Nathalie Khalaf at [email protected]
