TAKE YOUR MASK OFF

Hey heyyyyy my love… you are choosing to wear your mask while you’re out right?!?

So let’s just chat for a little bit about how I wore a mask (figuratively) for the longest time. I’m not talking about the one that we wear now, I’m talking about the entire face covering figurative mask.. I was soooo consumed by what other people would think about me and how I didn’t even know who I was.

Anyone guilty of that?

I would mask my intelligence, personality, how I truly desired to be treated in a relationship, insecurities, desires, dreams, true thoughts and analysis about a lot of topics and the list goes on and on. Am I the only one who would do these things?

I find it so ironic that we are all wearing masks 😷 now… well majority of the people I come in contact with are adhering to the recommendations and advice to stay protected. On one hand, I have become extremely comfortable with wearing my physical mask but on the other hand, I have become completely uncomfortable putting back on my former figurative mask.

Think about mask wearing for a moment. Several thoughts came to my mind when I thought about this topic and how easy it was for me to live a life hiding behind it. One of the major reasons behind masking myself was the unknown wounds of rejection and abandonment and how deeply it was rooted in my heart and shaped my entire identity. Protecting myself was my defense mechanism and it was how I functioned for a very long time. I still have moments where I will go back to wanting to put up those walls to protect myself, but I know how to combat those feelings due to being triggered by a situation by acknowledging it, praying and looking for scriptures to help calm me down.

Let me ask you, do you have your mask on now?

Most of my past experiences with the people in my life held a very strong track record of leaving and abandoning me whether it was physically or emotionally. The results of those experiences left a gaping size hole in my heart which led me to placing bricks to block out more pain. My bricks showed up in my life as distancing myself from people of out of the blue, attitudes, lashing out, sleeping around, alcohol, partying, isolation etc. just to name a few.

What are you bricks composed of?

In my heart I felt as though most people were all the same and had intentions to hurt me by rejecting me and abandoning me if I got too close to them. So, I started to function and mold my life with my brick wall being up around my heart and “protecting” myself from experiencing anymore pain or disappointment which forced my mask to be up at all times.

If you are a mask wearing (figuratively) person… you will start to feel isolated, fatigued, lonely, exhausted and in bondage at some point because you are hiding behind something or someone that will keep you covered. Those feelings may not show up until yearssssss down the line, if ever. There’s also a flip side to it, as I was building this wall around my heart and wearing this mask of protection, I was completely unaware of it because I felt good and lived a really good “perfect” life from the outside. It was not until I was met with multiple experiences and with God who had to rip that mask off to expose my real matters of my heart for me to even begin to see that I was living a masked up life.

*DISCLAIMER* Taking off the mask will definitely open you up to be vulnerable and exposed BUT the power of who you were created to be will have room to be released. Each day it will require you to identify those areas that you are insecure in, doubting, living beneath your greatest potential and hiding behind etc. in order to get you to embracing your uniqueness and power!!

Drop a ‘😷’ if you are choosing to take your figurative masks off!

I have taken mine off and I don’t regret a single thing!

My prayer for each of you is that you will commit to putting in the work to become THAT person who God created you to be and that starts by reading the Bible and praying more.

I truly hope that this has blessed and encouraged you to live a life of freedom and healing in order to become THAT person. Remember that we are all on this journey of BECOMING daily and we will never stop becoming until we leave this Earth.

Love you so much and I can’t wait to hear your thoughts and if you are deciding to take off your mask.