Mindfulness for Women Who Mask

“It is impossible to become like somebody else. Your only hope is to become more fully yourself.” –Jon Kabat-Zinn, Full Catastrophe Living.

Many women I’ve worked with in therapy or coaching have developed sophisticated masks, covering their true selves to fit in, meet societal expectations, or avoid conflict. These masks become so intricate and ingrained that one grows to hide not just the self from others, but also the self from the self.

When someone has spent years or a lifetime masking, the advice to “be yourself” can be terribly out of reach and almost cruel in its over-simplified expectations. It is a close cousin to telling someone living with anxiety to “just calm down.”

Masking and Mental Health

Masking is common for women with mental health conditions such as depression or anxiety, and for women with natural brain variations, such as ADHD, autism, and dyslexia. It’s also common for many with marginalized identities such as women, LGBTQ+ individuals, and members of racial minorities. It’s a response to the message, “You’re not quite right as you are.”.

Social animals like us humans have evolved to experience connection as the key to safety — even if it comes at a cost. A threat to connection is typically experienced as danger, especially when we are young and forming our identities.

And so often it works: It may be at a cost to the self, but if it didn't serve some purpose, we wouldn't see so many brilliant women doing it. As the Taylor Swift lyric goes, "I'm so depressed, I act like it's my birthday every day."

The need to heal from masking, or even the notion that it’s possible to heal from masking, is discussed too little in the clinical mental health world.

To be clear, masking isn’t something to judge as wrong or bad; it’s a natural response to a world with unrealistic expectations. It’s a survival strategy that individuals use to navigate and thrive in a world not designed for them. And it is completely and utterly exhausting.

By the time someone enters therapy or any journey of bettering oneself, there’s usually a great desire to re-establish a connection with oneself. The tricky part is knowing where to begin.

This is where mindfulness comes in.

The Journey Ahead

Connecting with oneself after years of masking can feel painful and frightening, until it becomes the sweetest salve on a soul bruised too long by trying to fit itself in a box created by someone you never met.

When you reconnect with the self, there can be grief at having kept her down for so long. Nervousness or anxiety may come forth as the world has told you that doing so is unsafe. But eventually, on the other side, the benefits include:

• Increased energy, because masking is exhausting
• Authentic connection, because it’s hard to really connect with another from a place of not being yourself
• A sense of freedom, because masking, conscious or not, is stifling

After her own journey of coming back to herself, Glennon Doyle wrote: "I will never abandon myself again. When I feel that there's something wrong — I will no longer just assume that there's something wrong with me.

“I will not stay, not ever again — in a room or conversation or relationship or institution that requires me to abandon myself.”

One Step at a Time

For a woman who masks, certain overused phases send the BS meter ringing:

• "Just be 1000% yourself." The BS meter says, “1000% isn’t a real percent, and I can’t be 1000% of someone I don’t yet know.”
• "Bring your whole self to work." The BS meter says, “Um, that’s great advice for someone whose identity thrives here. I've repeatedly see that mine is judged or punished.”

So instead of going from zero to 1000, from full coverage to full exposure, I recommend a gentler way to experiment safely.

Identity is constructed one moment at a time, and so is the path toward feeling like oneself. Moments of success build upon each other. You don’t jump suddenly from not knowing how to swim into a vast ocean without a lifevest. You take one step at a time, titrating between the thrill of the unknown and the safety of the shore. Eventually, with practice, you grow strong enough to swim in the open water.

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Here are four steps you can take toward feeling like yourself again. Remember, the goal isn’t zero to 1000; it’s finding brief moments of being with yourself, as you are, without judgment.

You can do these all at once or out of order. They are organized into the acronym "MEET" because they are all ways to meet yourself one small step at a time.

1. Mindfulness of the present moment. Modern mindfulness is often described as paying attention to the present moment, on purpose, and without judgment. Through mindfulness, you can shift how you relate to difficult thoughts and feelings, including difficult thoughts and feelings about yourself. Many find that with continued practice, they still have difficult thoughts, feelings, and urges to abandon themselves, but they can observe them with a little more distance and a little less believing them as fact.

Try this as a first step: Take your mind’s eye inside and tune into your breath. The wavelike natural rise and fall. Without changing anything, watch it go in, down toward your center. And watch the exhale, out into the world. Repeat for a few cycles.

It may *sound* small, but this simple practice of being with your breath is one simple way to be with you.

2. Examine what doesn’t feel like you. Grab a journal, piece of scrap paper, or notes app and set a timer for 5 minutes.

After years of masking, it may be hard to know what feels like you, but it’s generally easy to identify times when you did not feel like yourself. Typically, these are moments when you are in conflict with your values. Go ahead. The only rule is no judgment. You’re not alone.

3. Exceptions: Identify times you did feel like you. Grab a journal, piece of scrap paper, or notes app and set a timer for 5 minutes. Then, take a deep breath and let your mind wander to a time when you felt a little more like yourself. Perhaps you go back to a moment of free play in your childhood. Many feel most like themselves when least self-conscious, lost in creativity, play, or imagination. Perhaps you have certain friends or colleagues that make you feel just a little more yourself.

Remember: The goal isn’t 1000%. The goal is noting times you felt just a little more like you.

Write as many moments as you can recall.

4. Tell one tiny true part of yourself to another. I love that mindfulness is a safe way to begin to meet yourself. But ironically, feeling yourself doesn’t tend to happen by being only with yourself. A strong sense of self is formed in relationship to others.

Mindfulness sets a strong foundation. Research actually shows that mindfulness can decrease attachment anxiety, or stress about authentic connection to others.

One tiny step toward feeling like yourself with others is sharing one small truth — something that’s maybe a level 2 out of 10 in terms of risk: low risk, but a little further than you’d typically go. This invites one small step toward authentic connection, without fully giving up your safety raft. This series of small steps toward others, as yourself, over time builds up into genuine relating.