“Masquerade!
Paper faces on parade …
Masquerade!
Hide your face,
so the world will
never find you!”

It was 1994 and I was a clown.

I say that quite literally. I was at Hillsong conference, doing a stream on drama and performance, and one of the available workshops was clowning. It was a transformative day in so many respects. We all put on clown clothes, with wig, full face paint and the big red nose, and I managed to score some of those big red clown shoes too. After the workshop, the facilitator encouraged us to leave the costume on and practice our new skills amongst the unsuspecting Hillsong delegates. So I spent the rest of the day, including riding the bus back to the main convention centre, dinner and the evening concert in full clown costume.

It was exhilarating.

I was painfully shy as a teenager. Actually, I had social anxiety disorder, debilitating shyness. I discovered drama and performance through the church youth group I was attending at the time and it helped me overcome a lot of insecurities and grow in confidence. Still, performing improv style in front of hundreds of strangers was not something I was comfortable with … until I donned the clown outfit. I had the perfect disguise – my own identity was hidden, and my new identity was associated with fun and laughter. I made hundreds of people laugh that afternoon because I could dance around, make silly jokes and sing silly song without fear of personal ridicule. I got three hundred people in the food court at dinner time to all sing Happy Birthday to someone. Sometimes I didn’t need to say anything at all, people just laughed at the shoes. Eventually I had to take off the wig and the shoes and literally wipe the smile off my face, and I was back to plain old me.

From ancient cultural traditions to the modern superhero, we’ve used masks to create new personas or hide old ones. Masks empower a temporary transformation. When you wear a mask, you disguise who you are which frees you from your own limitations, and at the same time, it projects a different persona, empowering you to act within a new set of rules that the mask allows.

I got to hide who I was and clown around because of the mask the clown costume provided me, but it wasn’t the real me, the authentic me. It was a version of me the mask had created. While the mask I wore that day made lots of people happy (including me), it wasn’t sustainable. I couldn’t stay as a clown forever. If I tried, I would have worn myself out. At best, the mask gave a surge of temporary happiness, not long term joy.

Our social connections bear a striking resemblance to my clowning experience. We live in a society which encourages masks. We are consumed with creating the right appearance, from designer clothes to botox injections. We have to say the right words to be liked by the right people, in our on-line and our real world communities. We harshly criticise those who don’t share our beliefs, who don’t fit into our ‘tribe’, and we try desperately to ensure we aren’t treated in the same way.

We fear real connection, because we fear shame and rejection.

We wear our masks, we put our paper faces on parade, hiding our faces so the world will never find us.

I have a wonderfully wise friend who, in recent conversation about this subject, said this,

“Wearing a mask all the time is exhausting. Sure, we all have to wear a mask to get through life intact … but we need to be able to take it off with people we really care about.  Otherwise we disconnect completely and that can be a very lonely place to be in all the time.”

I also love the work of Brene Brown, who has so many applicable quotes, it’s really hard to limit myself to just one … and that’s why I have two!

“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”

and

“Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.”

Shame suffocates deep, sustainable joy. We might be able to use our mask to inspire a temporary happiness, but it’s only through authentic connection that we can experience joy in the truest sense.

Being authentic, being real, being vulnerable is scary! But without authenticity, without vulnerability – without being real – we can’t form the connections to others that allow real joy to flourish.

We don’t have to open ourselves up completely to everyone, but we do need to practice vulnerability with those who are most important to us. By being real, and being vulnerable, at least with those of us who are the most important to us, we can enhance our connection and in doing so, grow our joy.