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The Mask of Expectations
Masks.
They hide you from the world — and they hide other people from you.
Expectations about others build up based on your experiences, on your beliefs of what should happen, and on your thoughts about how someone should behave. As those expectations, beliefs, thoughts, and shoulds pile up, they become a mask that’s all you can see — you no longer see the real person. Then your relationship is no longer with the person at all; it’s with the mask built out of your own expectations.
When you’re in relationship with the mask instead of with the person, your reactions and responses, emotional and verbal, have less and less to do with who the person really is. In long-term relationships, especially between family members, the mask that builds up over time ends up bearing little resemblance to the real person. How you speak, respond, and react to that person becomes completely out of synch with what’s actually happening and who they really are.
And so, all unintentionally, you do violence to them and to yourself. It’s violence because expecting anyone to be anything other than exactly who and what they are is doomed to painful disappointment. It’s a diminishment of their humanity, of their potential, and of their innate selfhood.
Dissolving the mask, rediscovering the real person underneath it, and reconnecting with that real person isn’t always easy. Here are a few ideas that have helped my clients.
What feelings are in your way?
In my last article, I talked about how suppressed, underground feelings about past events affect your present-day relationships. Those buried emotions are a big component of these masks, especially the ones you’ve built up around close family.
Letting those emotions out is a key part of being able to see the person for who they really are. This doesn’t mean expressing them to the other person. It means facing them for yourself, with honesty and compassion, so they can stop distorting your view.
Who IS that person, anyway?
As you start to peel back the mask — especially if it’s been in place for a long time — you may suddenly feel that you don’t really know this person. That can be a very odd understanding, especially if it’s a close family member.
Give yourself some time to observe the new reality that you’re seeing, to get to know him or her again — and give yourself some space and compassion, as well. It can be disorienting to see what a gap there is between the distorted image built up over time, and the far more human, more real, person underneath.
Take your time
Just because you start seeing that the masks of expectation exist doesn’t necessarily mean you’re ready to dismantle them. Give yourself time to see what they’re made out of, time to see the difference between the mask and the person, and time to feel your way into what you really want — what’s true for you in this relationship.
Those expectations about who someone “should” be could be hiding a relationship that doesn’t serve you. On the other hand, the expectations about how someone “always does you wrong” could be hiding a vulnerability and an opportunity to create a deeper, more meaningful connection.
Give yourself the time to first see the mask, and then explore what’s under it, before you make any decisions or take any action.
What about yourself?
Guess what? Along with creating masks for other people, you’ve created one for yourself. And that mask can be the hardest of all to see.
What expectations and beliefs about yourself are distorting your understanding of who and what you really are? What deep, conditioned beliefs about yourself affect your ability to be compassionate with your feelings, to acknowledge your brilliance, to answer the call of what’s true for you?
Be gentle
Be gentle with yourself as you explore these questions. As I said, it’s sometimes shocking to see the ways in which your distorted view of someone, especially close family members, have caused your words and reactions to be deeply out of synch with who that person really is.
It’s even more shocking and painful to see how deeply out of synch you may be with who you really are.
Be with the feelings that come up, allow yourself to express them and experience them.
And then set down the masks, and encounter yourself and those you love with clear sight — and no expectations.
“When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability... To be alive is to be vulnerable.” Madeleine L’Engle, American author, 1918-2007, from “Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art,” 1980
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