So, the New year kicks in and I wonder what you have promised yourself for the year ahead. What new year’s resolutions (if you have them – I don’t!), what goals (I do) and what hopes. How much time will you give to unmasking the truth?

What does that even mean? Well, what will you be doing to discover, uncover, and create you? What masks will you stop wearing that have only served to satisfy everyone else’s needs? What part of you will you reveal to others so that they might better appreciate the greatness that is within you (whether they like it or not)?

Much time is spent living up to other people’s expectations, trying to do what makes THEM happy. But what about you? What do you need to change so that you can touch the happiness that resides within you; how can you set it free?

There comes a time in life when you just know enough is enough, you no longer want to conform, you no longer want to live by someone else’s rules; you want to take back control of the areas of your life that are yours to control (not everything is but much of it is).

When you decide to drop your masks, it is a decision that marks a turning point in your life. I had one of mine 14 years ago when I was made redundant and decided I no longer wanted someone else to control when I could work or dictate around my ability to work. I wanted to work for myself, not because it was easier (it most certainly has not been) but as a business owner I knew I would be responsible for what went well as well as what flopped, whether I would be working tomorrow or not. It would be the sum of my decisions that provided an outcome, and not a decision made on a whim by some other person.

The masks I dropped were the ones that had kept me believing I was happy with the way things were as an employee. And I believed it because everyone else around me appeared to be happy with it. They were masks that covered my disappointment with my life and showed up as me accepting it was fine being at the beck and call of an employer, that I was okay getting up each day to go to work, to get back home, to eat, to do my motherly duties, to watch TV, to go to bed and start all over again the next day.

The masks hid the sense of failure, that feeling in the depth of me that questioned why I wasn’t making the most of my skills and talents. And I wore each one of my masks well until I decided not to.

As you look at your life today, what are you masking? What areas of your life are you ‘pretending’ to be happy and satisfied with when you know you would change them in a heartbeat if you just knew how to or if you just had the support & encouragement to or if you could just find the confidence required to make the change?

It might be you are tolerating a relationship that is dead in the water, but you convince yourself it’ll work out even though you barely communicate. It might be turning up to your job every day saying, ‘I’m fine’ whilst hating the role and the walls you feel trapped in. It could be feeling alone and cut off but masking the pain of that with a smile and the proverbial ‘I’m so happy’ selfie. Maybe you busy yourself ‘fixing’ everyone else to avoid focusing on you and the needs you have but feel guilty having them.

Each of these situations requires a mask but the mask serves only to deepen the pain, distance you from people and in the end, leave you believing that things are as they are meant to be, and you have no control or way of changing them.

It’s time to wake up! You have more power than you know. You have more choices than you see. And once you acknowledge this, you can begin the process of unmasking the truth, of staring it in the face and doing what is necessary to change the things that keep you small.

Make a commitment to getting in touch with you, who you are, who you want to be because you have the power to create the best version of you. It’s time to be authentic, to let go of being who you think you are supposed to be and embrace who you are. Being authentic is a conscious choice of how you want to live and each day you practice at becoming more of that person.

The greatest fear attached to being yourself is that others won’t like you, they won’t like the change in you. Ask yourself, ‘does it really matter? Am I really prepared to live a shadow of the life I could just to keep the peace, to satisfy everyone else?’

That wonderful poem from Dr Seuss states:

Too true!

And to get on the journey of unmasking the truth, consider the following:

Stop ‘trying’ to be perfect – perfect is not where happiness resides. Perfection tends to bring up feelings of insufficiency, pressure, unhappiness. Instead, decide what your best you looks like, feels like, behaves like and work towards that vision, one small step at a time.

Have richer, more meaningful conversations – enough with the surface chit-chat. Ask yourself and those who matter in your life deeper questions. Start questioning what you have believed to date, why, and how you feel about those things now. Explore you and explore others. Here you will discover and grow.

Be values-driven – know your values, the things that truly matter to you, and live by them. If honesty, integrity and community are your must-haves in life, then demonstrate them in your own life; be those things. And in doing so you will attract other like-minded souls – it is the law of attraction. And when you are clear on your values you will find decision making easier as you make choices that align with your values.

Develop your emotional intelligence – up your awareness of self, others and what is happening around you and how those things affect people. Judge less, seek to understand more. Be in touch with your feelings and find ways to express them without leaving others feeling theirs don’t matter; they do.

It is time to unmask the truth… Here at YvonneB, we are creating a community of women who have decided enough is enough! That it is time to unmask their truth and live the life they dream of. Check out the Women Unmasked Video Intro and Unmasking The Truth Video…

How will you unmask your truth?

Live Blissfully

YvonneB