Taking the Face Off: The Masks That Separate Us

By G. Allen Grootboom

One of the challenges man faces is to be who they are at all times.
In this challenge man is continuously involved in processes of
change because of life impacts.
These impacts allow man to evolve towards becoming a better
person. In striving to become better human beings, man plays
out roles. But what role is man playing? How did it come that
you are playing that particular role? Who are you?
In the search of the SELF you unknowingly and knowingly wear
a mask. As you evolve, these masks become who you are. The real
self gradually becomes so hidden behind these masks that you are
unable to find the true self.
It is at this point that you have to learn how to take your face
off - to unmask.
The journey through this book is about that journey back to the
self and complete life’s circle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Feb 3, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469155791

G. Allen Grootboom

Gregory Allen Grootboom is a psychologist. He holds a PhD from the University of the Free State in South Africa. During 2006 he was a visiting scholar to the University of California in Los Angeles and calls this his USA experience. He has also published an ensemble of poetry and a second ensemble is currently in print. He is married to Hilary.

Book preview

TAKING THE

FACE OFF

THE MASKS THAT SEPARATE US

G. ALLEN GROOTBOOM PHD.

Copyright © 2012 by G. Allen Grootboom PhD..

ISBN:          Softcover                                 978-1-4691-5578-4

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4691-5579-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

0-800-644-6988

www.xlibrispublishing.co.uk

[e-mail]

303141

Contents

Dedication

FOREWORD

ONE

Living Behind the Mask

TWO

Where Is Your Stage?

THREE

The Face Behind the Mask

FOUR

Undoing Beliefs

FIVE

Searching For Your True Self

SIX

What Do You Project to the

world around you?

SEVEN

Masking in Hollywood

EIGHT

Scripting

NINE

Changing Consciousness

TEN

Changing Who You Are

ELEVEN

Recreating your realities

TWELVE

What Are Your Realities?

THIRTEEN

The Working of the Mind

FOURTEEN

Changing your Mind

FIFTEEN

Deprogramming: FACE OFF

SIXTEEN

Towards Unmasking

SEVENTEEN

Offloading

EIGHTEEN

Finding the Person Within

NINETEEN

Altering My Actions

TWENTY

Moving Forward By Looking Back

TWENTY ONE

Unmasked: This is who I am!

EPILOGUE

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my wife Hilary and my children who set me free and allowed me to have the USA experience—to be freely me in the land of the free.

FOREWORD

One of the great challenges people face, including celebrities, actors and the person on the street, is to be who they are. This means being authentic. This is a challenge for many as they journey through life. As we travel life’s journey, we are involved in the process of change as things impact on us. We have to be aware of the fact that experiences impact differently on each person. Such as when a family member dies, those who are left behind are devastated, but that loss is experienced and interpreted differently by each family member.

Whether we are actors, professionals or laypersons, we evolve, improving ourselves with each experience. In striving to be better people, we play our roles according to the circumstances we find ourselves in.

But the challenge remains: Who are we? Who are you? This questioning remains central to the journey of life and the changes we experience.

In the search of the Self we have life experiences, some good and others not so good. Many people, in an endeavour to survive and to play out their life roles, put on Masks. As we evolve, growing older and wiser, these masks become who we are. The real self gradually becomes buried behind these masks so that we are unable to be true to the self.

We continue to negotiate the scripts we have been given. These scripts may suppress the authentic self and in the process, we become more and more untrue to that self. Our journey in this life is to find our true scripts and play out those roles.

This book is about that journey back to the self. It is also about understanding and recognising what contributed towards pushing the self further and further behind masks, and to help us in recognising and removing those masks. In our journey back to the true self (who we essentially are) we have to maneouver past those masks to allow us to find our true self.

This book is presented as a three-week programme to journey back to the self. The sincere hope is that you may find out where you could have gone off track in your life. You will continuously map your progress towards the self, as you gradually unmask the layers that hide the true self. In these pages you could find where the life you now live stems from. You might just discover your reality: that you are hiding behind a mask! You are not the person you think you are. However, the mask has become so deeply embedded in your personality that you cannot see the real self. More profoundly, you cannot see yourself as different from the mask that you are wearing. The mask has become the real you, obscuring the self.

Note:

Throughout the book, the word actor is used. Actor will refer to social actor or any person playing a role. The idea behind the book is to assist and guide you (the actor on the stages of life) to find your true self as you work through the exercises en route to rediscovering the self that has become buried under layers of acts, scripts and life situations. In this book you become your own therapist as your fellow actors, audiences, props, costumes and scenes change.

At the end of each chapter, you will find a short exercise in the form of a reflection. This reflection allows you to look back at what you have read and to identify where you are at any given stage of your life. My hope is this book will be used as a guide to help you to follow the route and to map your way back to the self.

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it

Jalaluddin Rumi

ONE

Living Behind the Mask

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;

What is essential is invisible to the eye"

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Life has many mysteries. One such mystery is the feeling you get when observing children at play. They enjoy an uninhibited freedom to do and to be, to discover, to learn and to challenge. Whilst doing this, you may experience a longing for what you enjoyed as a child. Sometimes you are not sure of what you are really longing for; you feel a sense of emptiness and longing to be fulfilled.

Children live freely without constraints. They are truth and innocence personified. As they grow older, the constraints give way to societal rules and pressures that damper their movements and development. The freedom of movement and development becomes more restrictive. Gradually, children become more careful and measure their play, especially in the presence of adults, peers and the outside world. Children start to adjust to the situations they find themselves in. Soon, they start trying to please, seeking confirmation and approval of their activities. Some, however, can continue to live freely and fight the pressures to conform. This, however, is the exception rather than the rule.

Can you remember the time when you could live freely? A time when there was no fear of criticism or rejection? The time when you first started to walk, talk, laugh, get angry and show your anger?

Do you remember when you were given a spanking as a child? Most times the spanking resulted in more acceptable behaviour, forcing behaviour that was acceptable to others. Once you learned what acceptable behaviour was, you started to follow the example set by your parents as a result of the spanking. So you started acting contrary to your feelings to please your parents. You found that you gained greater acceptance once you acted in a way that was pleasing to them.

What did you do? Despite the feeling that you may have had, your new actions of acceptable behaviour became a first mask. You do what is expected, but this is not what you are on the inside.

We could take a different path on this journey of life. Have you ever been called names that you disliked while you were growing up? Do people sometimes still call you names that you would rather forget? Are you still plagued by the memory of a childhood incident or incidents that you are suppressing?

Through the years you may have been carrying a childhood name that you would much rather forget. Many people are burdened by names that were at times given childishly as a form of camaraderie or as a way to belittle. Some names were given because people liked you. Be that as it may, many of us still carry those names around our necks.

Everyone knows that name calling and assigning nicknames frequently involve humour and are at times ambiguous. These names may convey messages about friendship and affection or on the other hand, aggression or rejection. This ambiguity can make it difficult for you on the receiving end to respond, especially when you did not like the name. Many times you may be unsure how to respond. Should you be angry, frustrated or dejected?

You know your response could perpetuate the use of the name. The most common types of names refer in a hurtful way to the person given the name. The name may be based on physical appearance, particularly the person’s weight or height, their nose, teeth, hair colour or hairstyle, freckles or warts. All these things can evoke name calling and these names can leave an indelible scar on the person’s self-esteem and self-image. Being given derogatory names may cause the person concerned to avoid others or activities for fear of running into their name callers.

Just imagine a successful actress or businesswoman who gradually starts suffering from an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia at the height of her career. Could it be that in a moment of quiet reflection she is haunted by memories of a name she was called at school that referred negatively to her weight? Or an actress who undergoes plastic surgery as she tries to surgically remove those negative and painful references to her nose when she was at school?

Although the degree of hurt reduces significantly over time, some people may carry the scars for a lifetime, while others are able to forget it as if it never happened. Those who were affected by derogatory names may not have been affected in their social life, but nevertheless may have been affected psychologically.

The question you may rightfully ask is why does name calling hurt or change us? One reason why this might be the case is that a person’s name is central to his or her identity. It is no accident that your parents gave you the name that you have, they saw characteristics in you that resulted in your name.

The word Identity refers to a firm sense of self. A sense of being free in one’s own body and mind, being comfortable with your accomplishments and a sense of knowing where you are and in which direction your life journey is headed. The development of your identity is about finding your place in the world in relation to others like you and different from you.

During the course of your lifetime, you have to identify where you fit in, in the journey of life. This process of knowing who you are, starts early in life. However, the real process, of finding out who you are, starts during adolescence. Adolescence is the life stage that is usually identified with the formation of an identity. Accepting your physical appearance like being tall, short, your nose structure and the colour of your eyes or hair type constitutes the physical identity.

Hence when someone calls you a name, which compares you to an animal like Piglet or Piggy, it can be dehumanising. The person, who is name calling, is aware of how it could anger you. On the other hand, they could be totally unaware of the psychological hurt and consequences that the name could potentially have on you and your development.

The humour that accompanies name calling or teasing can also be embarrassing. This hurt is carried over to adulthood and can affect the behaviour you display. The easiest way to escape from hurtful names is to pretend they do not exist. However deep, the scars could remain. The carriers of these names begin to put on masks to hide the pain. You could smile, a mask being put on, but under the mask, every thought, every incident, people, life situations, could bring a flood of emotions to the surface. Although you could appear to be at ease, the self could be on a knife’s edge.

Let me now present you with a different set of questions that essentially indicate what we will all experience on life’s journey. No one is spared this questioning!

How many young people have been subjected to the dreams of their parents? No, it is not wrong for a parent to have dreams for their children; this is embodied in the names that parents give their children. But it is also not right for parents to dictate the lives of their children because of unfulfilled dreams of their own. There could have been legitimate reasons why their parents could not fulfill their dreams. They would like to see their children navigate the journey of life more successfully than they did. Maybe their parents did not have the opportunities that are now available and they