I can be as judgemental as the next person. No matter how much work I’ve done on myself, no matter how much I’ve renounced judging others, no matter how much I’ve learned to connect with compassion and understanding…
I still judge.
We all do, as even the concept that people shouldn’t judge…is, in fact, a judgment of others.
Lewis Howes is famous for his Podcast and best selling book The School of Greatness. The name turns me off. It sounds arrogant, shallow and I assume full of ego fluffing bullshit.
When Lewis wrote a book, almost two years ago, called The Mask of Masculinity, I made a judgment that assumed it would be the pop-culture version of a book on men’s psychology and that it would have little value. Certainly there is nothing it could teach me…the guy who has been studying and creating healthy masculinity within myself and hundreds of other men for the past 7 years now!
I was wrong. In fact, I was using at least one of the nine masks that Lewis teaches us about. I was fully wearing my “Know It All Mask” and a version of the “Alpha Mask”.
Masks can be a good thing. In our world, sometimes we do need to wear a mask and armor to show up in a certain way at certain times. I’m all for being fully authentic and helping my clients show up with more authenticity and truth but it becomes an abdication when we are always walking around fully transparent.
All of the masks he teaches us about have healthy expressions. It’s not bad to make money, be a good athlete, make people laugh, be good in bed or be a subject matter expert. The challenge is when we don’t form a real identity outside of these ways of being. The problem is when we use these masks instead of knowing our deeper value and receiving love and connection from those around us. We can use these masks to repress who we really are. Or worse, to never discover who we really are and what we want.
While there really is nothing groundbreaking about the book, it’s solid and I’m really enjoying it. I now would consider it one of the books that I’d like more men, and more people who love men, to add to their “must read” list.
One thing that my clients know about me is that I’m not a guru who claims to have it all figured out. I’m evolving as a human and a man right before their eyes. I take a leadership role in the transformational relationship, but that doesn’t absolve me of falling into some of the same traps I’m helping them out of.
It doesn’t mean that I’ve reached some pinnacle of evolution and inner growth. It means I’m committed to the life long journey of inner work and sharing what I know with others while guiding them to do the powerful work themselves.
In an effort to practice what I preach, I will share the way I have worn or still wear the nine masks of masculinity.
The Stoic Mask – This is the mask we wear when we think of the term “never let them see you sweat”. Oh, this is still my go-to mask. While I’m all about fully embracing emotion and leaning into vulnerability, I still try my best to play it cool, calm and collected. It’s difficult for me to admit when I’m agitated or confused. This weekend, this mask got me into a bad situation with my romantic partner. No matter how I tried to hide my frustration, she felt it and it hurt her. Had I just let it out in a healthy way, we would have avoided a lot emotional strife.
The Athlete Mask – This is the mask we wear when we prioritize athletic accomplishment and the image of the heroic athlete, over what truly makes us valuable as a person. In high school, I was obese, well over 300 lbs once I’d reached full height. I was in the choir and acted in the spring musicals. Yet I only liked to show off that I was on the football team and wrestling team. I lost a lot of connection because “drama kids” are probably more “my people” than jocks. This past year, I’ve hurt myself using the stoic and athlete masks combined. More on that soon.
The Material Mask – This is when a man uses wealth and possessions to show off his value. Fancy cars, impressive titles, large homes, shiny watches, and luxurious vacations have never meant much to me. The mask of the guy who doesn’t care about money is also a protection. I do care about money. I want the finer things in life and I know that with my values, they would actually bring meaningful experiences to myself and my loved ones. I spend A LOT of money on high-quality food, entertainment, coaching, and self-care. Yet I hide that part of me from the world. Many of my clients are wearing a material mask. I help them let go of it, while they help me lean into my appreciation of money and material objects. My clients who have been wearing this mask, unfortunately, learn over time, that you can’t buy love, peace, aliveness or connection. Sometimes it takes a divorce or kids who ignore them completely for a man to wake up to this mask. The good news is, this is one of the easiest to drop.
The Sexual Mask – This is when a man tries to become the “player” or “ladies man”. He objectifies and belittles himself while he thinks he is winning some imaginary game of conquest over the people that he wants to sleep with. I did not date much in my teens and 20s and by the time I got married, I was not very sexually experienced. We had a pretty sub-par sex life. When I got divorced and dropped the last 70 lbs of my 160 lbs…boy did I put on the sexual mask. For years, I thought the only way I could be valuable to a woman would be to be the best lover she had ever come across. And I was convinced I needed to “play the field”. I was only hiding how much I was hurt by the rejection from my ex-wife. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that I learned to be a skilled, attentive and giving lover, but measuring my worth in how many orgasms my lovers experienced got old really quickly. Waking up to the same loving woman on consecutive mornings is a lot more fulfilling for me than sleeping with a different woman in consecutive evenings. Most guys who’ve worn this mask, eventually come to the same conclusions.
The Aggressive Mask – This is when a man feels he needs to be able to physically dominate everything. This leads us to disconnect from our emotions, lose compassion and no longer feel empathy. When I was a teenager, I attached a lot of my value to how scary I could look on the football field, in the weight room or on the wrestling mat. I’ve done a lot of work on anger and aggression. I tend to show up these days with little to no desire to be able to physically dominate anyone. Yet if I’m challenged emotionally or intellectually there are times when the old mask shows up. I bear my teeth and either use forceful and aggressive tones or language. What is this mask hiding? It’s always hiding fear, sadness or a sense of momentary powerlessness.
The Joker Mask – This is when a man can’t have a serious conversation without cracking a joke. He avoids intimacy by being funny all the time. He avoids his own feelings in an effort to elicit joy from others. I pissed someone off pretty bad recently while unconsciously using the joker mask. When I’m feeling like I don’t belong is when you will see me cracking the most jokes and pulling out the false charisma. I love joy and laughter and it’s great to be able to make people laugh but I’d rather practice feeling the sense of disconnection or lack of belonging. I’d rather challenge myself to truly connect rather than play the clown.
The Invincible Mask – This is when a man will take big and unsafe risks to prove himself as powerful. It’s also when we are getting clear signals to stop moving forward but we are too stubborn to concede and change course. This plays out for me with my physical body. I HATE being sick or injured. But what I hate more than being sick or injured is admitting to myself that I am sick or injured. Earlier this year I was upside down in a yoga class and fell really hard on my hip. It hurt a lot and I felt the mask come up. I couldn’t feel parts of my leg and pain was shooting down other parts. I “shook it off” and kept on with the asanas. Worse, I didn’t treat it like an injury. I kept going to yoga, running and doing HIIT. Two weeks later, I couldn’t sit, bend my leg or walk, I had a major glute injury that could have been avoided with rest. It was one of the most painful times of my life and took me off of my fitness goals for over a month. Note to self…I’m not invincible.
The Know It All Mask – This is when a man derives his value from constantly expressing his knowledge and mastery of information. This is not a mask I wear often as I’m informally educated and live in one of the most educated cities in DC. I’m more concerned with learning from others than showing off what I know. But it does come up. When people try to talk to me about men’s psychology or relationship, I have a tendency to think I already have a much deeper knowledge base than them. This leaves me somewhat impenetrable. When I’m not willing to believe someone else’s wisdom can help me, I stop learning and growing. When I’m on staff for a men’s transformational weekend, this gets in my way from connecting more deeply with other men. When I’m in conflict with a romantic partner, I like to think I’m listening but there is a part of me that tries to show her that I know more about conflict and difficult conversations than her. It’s generative or connecting and her knowing what I know won’t help us anyway.
The Alpha Mask – This is when a man decides to model his life after the concept of what an “Alpha Man” is. He disregards his own values and desires and simply becomes a caricature of what the ideal specimen of masculinity would do, say, looks like, etc. I was lucky. Growing up obese and socially awkward, I never tried to wear this mask. There was nothing about a 315 lbs. 11th grader that could claim Alpha. But after my divorce, I started digging into content and programs from dating coaches. And the idea of “be the alpha” and “she only wants the alpha” became an important concept. So what I did was try and fashion my life as the more evolved alpha. Instead of really digging into my own values and inherent worthiness, I thought I could “out alpha” the idea of “alpha”. It didn’t take me very long to overcome this obstacle but it was dangerously close to taking over. The biggest cost of this mask was that I met a woman that I had a long term relationship with when I was still trying to “out alpha” the “alpha”. Without even realizing it, I was less of myself in that relationship than I care to admit. It took a long time to redirect our connection and what had established our bond. Ultimately our time together ended, for many reasons, but this labor it took to drop this mask was certainly one of those reasons
We all wear masks and armor. These are the behaviors we learn to get by in this world when we think we are more vulnerable and when we truly don’t know who we are and what we want in life. Eventually, they have to come down. In my experience that can only be done in relationships, with a good therapist or coach or in a conscious community of folks doing inner work. Unfortunately, for some men, they live their whole life wearing the masks of masculinity.
This is not fate. When you are ready to see what you really look like when you drop the mask, I’m here. Trust me, you are much more powerful, peaceful, alive and loving when you see what is really in the mirror.
It’s Your Turn!