Take Off the Mask; Your Soul is Waiting
Principle #1: To Unmask Yourself Is to Know Thyself.
Somewhere deep inside of you, behind every masked persona you show to the world, patiently awaits your soul.
How true is that …
Intuitively you know there’s an intelligence within that equally frightens and empowers you, a resourceful intellect that guides you in every awakening moment of your physical and spiritual life. A teacher and a student patiently awaiting your instruction somewhere hidden in the kingdom of your soul, with a knowledge of something much more potent than your present moment’s awareness of it.
You have a power and a knowing of what your soul’s calling in life is that no one else around you can explain the way you can.
There, deep inside your heart, your mind and your soul’s kingdom lies a scientist who can bring into the physical world the greatest invention ever created; a doctor who can heal your body and wounds, in a way no one else can. There, deep inside of you lies every version of you imaginable. Learning to unleash this knowledge of your authentic power is what can help you to succeed in unimaginable ways.
What if you could access this intelligence and the power it can unleash in your life, to help you not only to survive but to thrive in every area of life? How remarkable would that be?
Have you ever wondered if what you have learned so far about yourself may be ‘fake news’? A statement former President Donald Trump frequently used when he is being shamed and blamed by so many media channels, and as a result, millions of us globally associate it with the president himself.
So, here’s the thing, what would change in your mind if what’s labelled as ‘fake news’ may sometimes be genuine and at other times not? To see how much of what you know about yourself may be untrue, ask yourself the following:
What would change in your awareness and your state of being if the faces of the billions of people are simply the masked representation of yourself? Would you criticise others if in the eyes of every person you meet you saw an unfakeable expression of the exact same intelligence that lives in you? Would you then be more willing to change your behaviour towards others who confront your values? Or perhaps, would you change your response to- wards those who have a different life ideology from the one you may be holding dear to your heart? Would you agree that if you observed others from a non-judgmental space, you would suddenly become more accepting of everyone around you? That you would feel more inner peace? That you would think you have the power to change things in your life that previously you might have thought were unchangeable?
The truth is, that throughout our awakening lives, we all wear masks that conceal our authentic identity, masking the part of our- selves that is unfakeable, authentic and limitless in its expression.
From birth, consciously or unconsciously, you are taught by others to hide your power masterfully, but at some point in your life, you are faced with the question; for what reason and at what price do I do this?
No matter what you do or don’t do, what you say or don’t say, who you love or don’t love, the soul concealed behind your fake masks is always there to comfort you; to make you face the truth. Unbeknown to you, it knows the role that self-deception plays in your ever-evolving purpose in life. Your self-deceptive persona is so intelligent that it takes many forms throughout your life, and it never stops changing the mask.
It evolves with every fake persona you show to the world, and it has a unique purpose throughout your life. It can make you die, or it can help you to survive, to hide from the abusers, the bullies, the racists, the narcissists, the sadists and the many people you may come across who try to inflict you with unbearable pain. “Why would they do that?” you ask. It’s because they too are living in pain.
While on the one hand self-deception may hinder your growth and cause you harm, on the other hand, the fake masks created by it are helping you to numb your temporary pain until you grow your power, your resilience and your strength. It is often said, ‘What does not kill you makes you stronger’. Even if you have a physical issue, your body heals you. It evokes all sorts of chemical reactions that are necessary to fight disease, to save you and to help you heal.
Think of a moment in your life where you adopted a self-deceptive persona that made you feel safe, robust and unstoppable. It is in that moment of adversity that life throws at you for the objective of growing, that your soul’s voice, hidden behind those masks if listened to, can give you the courage to overcome life’s hurdles and succeed in every vital area of life.
The next time you find yourself in pain, see if you can identify what part of yourself is trying to communicate to you and for what reason. Listening to what emerges from within may help you to determine which part of your disowned persona is con- trolling your choices in life, that you have not loved.
You are not alone in creating what I call a ‘response ready persona’ hidden behind its very associated mask, we all do it, we all have them, and we all use them. As a result, we all find our- selves trying to figure out who our authentic being truly is. We have so many aspects to ourselves, and yet, despite this knowledge, the irony is that we try to ‘fit’ into one ‘fixed persona’, which becomes our momentary ‘favourable’ transient identity. At that moment, it is the mask we show to the world.
At some point in your life, often when disaster strikes, when the pain within becomes unbearable, you start to question the unquestionable. You begin the journey to unmasking thyself, so you can get to know and grow yourself.
It is on this journey that many of you realise how you’ve forgot- ten that within every one of us there lies a toddler who loves to be held in the arms of our loving parents. There is an inner child that loves to cry, and play in the mud, sand and water; a disobedient teenager who doesn’t listen, who screams, and has no concern about getting drenched in the rain on a cold day. That there is an ambitious adult, who loves to solve problems, and enjoys spending hours daydreaming about life’s most precious gifts.
There, deep within you, lies your authentic individual trying to make its mark in the world. An individual who is a student and a teacher of life, who gives altruistically and takes egotistically, and who loves to bring tears and smiles upon faces. There, somewhere hidden inside, lies a person who loves to give and receive selflessly, who at times hates and at times loves.
And yet, somehow, we fool ourselves into thinking that we are one-sided individuals who need masks to cover this very com- plicated definition of us, a definition that will take infinity to demystify and unmask. Why? – because we are limitless by nature, and because of the wounded persona we hold onto that needs healing, is a people pleaser, and wants to prove a point.
Have you noticed how when somebody comes and asks you who you are, you feel that you need to have an answer? but a voice within is saying: ‘F**ck you, I am not interested. why would I tell a stranger about all of the persona’s I am and can think of ’?
Remember the last time you went on a date, a job interview, networking or met a client? Which persona did you swiftly pull out of your magician’s hat and use to benefit you at that moment? Was it I am Mr. perfect or Mrs I can do it all?
Depending on the situation, whatever stage in life you find your- self in, you may either bring out the self-deceptive persona that exaggerates things about you or the one that minimises and undervalues your true abilities; or a mixture of both.
We have all met people who at times, we feel are not them at all. We label them as fake, and judge them according to our expectation of who they have to be, should be or must be. Why, because we feel we know better than them, and unbeknown to us, we are so used to injecting our values onto them that we don’t even see it as a problem.
There is a part of our brain that creates the very toxic behaviour of injecting our values onto others that we automatically feel resistant towards. If you are in alignment with your authentic individual, you will acknowledge that what you observe in others also exists within you. All you have to do then is to ask yourself this powerful question: In what form does what I judge in others show up in my life.
In my work, I often come across people who describe themselves as introverted and sensitive, but nevertheless positive, lovely people. They would love nothing more than peace for the world, and to feel kindness and sensitivity around them.
However, when I ask them about times in their lives when they felt challenged by someone, their true authentic identity, hid- den by the mask they initially chose to show, is revealed. They tell me how their sole purpose is to go to war against people who challenge their beliefs, ideology, and values. Their warrior persona comes out to vigorously defend what they believe in and value the most.
After asking them few quality questions that can demystify their perceptions of an event, they come to acknowledge how skewed perceptions can hide the truth, the love that is always there, even when challenged. At that moment, they are getting in touch with that part of their being that is extroverted, insensitive, and arrogant.
Break the Illusion of a One-sided Positive or Negative Persona
Throughout your life, you have been told to judge that which challenges your beliefs, philosophy, religion and values, and accept what supports it. It is no wonder that you are afraid to embrace the duality of your actual authentic individual. It is this illusion that sits at the root cause of inner discord, toxic behaviour, and what stimulates the amygdala’s freeze, fight or flight response, which in turn inhibits your frontal cortex function of objectivity.
In a safe space, using a combination of the TJSeMethod® and The Unfakeable Code® principles you are learning, the Demartini Method® and other transformational tools I’ve learned and created over the last 30 years, I assist clients in creating life-changing breakthroughs revealing to them the role their masked persona plays in their ever-evolving life. Through carefully designed questions and exercises they learn to establish an inner equilibrium and create business, professional and personal breakthroughs.
Using what you are learning in every chapter of this book can help you to do the same. You can use them all. I am teaching you to diffuse emotional charges that silently destroy your physical, mental, and emotional being.
In your unfakeable authentic reality, nothing is missing, but in your transient persona reality, you tend to think everything is missing and you keep giving in to your one-sided perceptions. Your ability to see the unseen is what helps you to acknowledge both sides of the meaning you’ve attached to a specific event. You come to accept the role that your self-deceptive persona plays in your one-sidedness. It is this recognition that helps you to create long-lasting breakthroughs.
In seeing through the messages that the judgement of others brings to your awareness, you too can start to develop the mind- set needed to own the traits that you either like or despise in others. The more you do that, the closer you get to your real authentic being, the more radiant you become. Thus, it is wise to invest your energy, money and time in a qualified coach, men- tor, or facilitator, to help you to go through this breakthrough process safely.
Invest all you have into all you want to create is the advice I give to everyone who seeks growth, fulfilment and transformation; because I know from personal experience that it pays off in the long run. It is also why many successful people you may know and many of my global clients have invested in being unfakeable; to assist them to awaken their authentic leader, grow their power and give rise to a radiant individual who is grateful, in- spired, and unstoppable.
In challenging these one-sided perceptions of the various transient personas emerging from the countless masks, you too can reveal those parts of yourself that you have abandoned, dis- owned and are calling you to love. Next time you admire an energetic, extroverted, tough individual who can handle any- thing that comes his or her way, remember that they too have vulnerabilities. They may also have a weak, introverted, soft persona inside them who is afraid, drained of his life force and at times feels helpless.
Your job is to break the illusion created by the exterior façade you and everyone around you shows to the world. You can do so by listening to the voice of your genuine, authentic and unfakeable being who knows when you are lying and will keep reminding you that it is your self-deceptive nature that misleads you.
The next time you find yourself in moments of hardship, one of the things you can do is to remember times when you felt so powerful, how, like a volcano, your authentic power emerged from within you. Give it a go, and let your powerful intellect help you to strengthen your confidence, intuition and will.
Sometimes, you might find yourself in situations or with people who waste most of your energy by pretending on the outside to be someone you feel they are not, on the inside. The more you do this as a way to please others, the further apart you will be from your true authentic identity. This inner conflict is also the root cause of your pain, shame, guilt, and the reason why you will find it hard to overcome hardships, get back on track and happily live in the f low of life.
From a very young age, I was fascinated with the masks people wore in my family, in the local community, and even in the black and white films I had once spent hours watching. As an adult, I admired people’s creativity in creating every possible mask one could think of and wearing them in various carnivals held around the world. Don’t forget, I may feel as young as you, although I was born in the winter of 1969 and in the ‘70s and my childhood reality was shaped by James Dean, Charlie Chaplin, Marylin Monroe and Brigitte Bardot.
In 1999, the year after I graduated, I first attended The Carnival of Venice, world-famous for its elaborate masks, gondolas and breath-taking architecture. I remember wearing a costume I bought from a local store and asking myself the questions:
Why do people hide behind the masks called nationality, creed, profession, religion, wealth, etc.? Why are the masks we wear every day generally used as an excuse for arguments, division, occupation and war? Why don’t we use them like the people in the Carnival of Venice do, which is to celebrate diversity and dance in unity with the rhythm of life?
Truth be told, back then, at twenty-nine years old, having survived the atrocities of the civil war, I did all I could to get my life back on track. I did three jobs to pay for my full-time electrical engineering and management studies degree at University College London, and I made sure that I would graduate from one of the top universities in the UK.
To safeguard myself from predators, I lived daily being a people pleaser, hiding my pain, and who deep down, I knew I was. I did all I could to stay away from folks who in my presence, would always throw around xenophobic and hateful remarks about migrants, refugees, and people of different ethnic and religious backgrounds. Each time there was a societal problem, many newspapers would blame migrants, yet they would never mention the positive role migrant models who, like myself, had worked 18 hours a day in jobs not many British people would even contemplate doing.
My frightened penniless being, with no family to turn to for love, help and protection, had to survive somehow. I managed to calm my mind by working long hours, studying late at night, meditating and having on average three to four hours sleep per night. I became excellent at finding ways to fit into a new city that, after the atrocities of the civil war, had become a safe sanctuary and a home for me and for many others like me.
Hidden from my awareness, my identity crisis and inner conflicts gave power to my ever-evolving self-deceptive persona. Whether I liked it or not, I learnt how to blend into environments that felt unsafe, including being around some friends and family members. The fear of not being good enough, being rejected or being killed for being different from others engulfed my day to day life. To survive, I would put on a brave mask and I would make sure that very few people knew, who I was inside.
We all find ourselves going through moments in our lives when we don’t know who we are. When we feel that there is nothing left to live for, when, from fear of judgment and rejection, we don’t show our actual personality and feelings to others; but, we also have moments in our lives when we dare to be all that we can be.
Usually, for many of us, those moments where we show our unfakeability when there is no one around us to see and judge our vulnerabilities. Our self-deceptive nature is what makes us fill the inner voids with uncontrollable drinking, indulging our- selves at a bar or a night club where no one knows us.
For twenty-years, in parallel to my career as an engineer and in- formation technology manager, I spent a lot of energy, time and money on trying to ‘fix’ my broken self and fill the voids that had a mind of their own. I studied long hours, researched and bought the best self-development tools, learned about Neuro- Linguistic Programming, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, the Sedona Method, The Demartini Method, Neuroscience, Quantum Physics, and I trained as a qualified transformational life coach, firstly to help myself.
The more I transformed my life, the more I wanted to assist others with what I had learnt in overcoming challenges to overcome challenges presented to them in any of the crucial areas of their lives. It was while I was on this journey that I was called to dedicate my life’s work to understanding the complexities of human behaviour, the body-mind-soul relationship, and our material and spiritual essence, to work for the benefit of humankind.
The more I learnt, the more my desire to teach others how to un- leash the freedom in their potential grew. My childhood dream to write books, travel the world to speak and to teach others what I was learning became a reality that I now found myself in. I realised that everything I had learnt had prepared me for this moment, and to continuously take inspired action steps to fulfil my heart’s calling; which is to ignite the God-given intelligence in the hearts of a Billion People.
The more I learned about engineering, technology, management, human behaviour, Eastern methods of healing, physiology, psychology, biology and sociology, the more I became aware of how we as humankind use masks to conceal the power and the strength of the unfakeable identity present in all of us.
On my birthday December the 12th 2013, after meditating for a few hours on a decision I had to make, the course of my life changed forever and for the better. I saw the exact reason why our imaginary, transient personas, and the masks we show to the world play in our ever-evolving purpose in life.
They were there to protect us until the moment we unleashed the power within, and could authentically and safely channel the infinite God-given energy for our benefit and for the benefit of all humankind. I learnt how, in those moments, when we are ready to face the truth of who we indeed are, that we grow the most.
This inspired me to share my realisations through writing books, and teaching globally everything I had learnt to first and foremost help people harmonise the relationship between their inner de- mons and angels. The more at peace you become with those two powerful forces within you, the more you start to unleash the freedom and the power that lives in your authentic, and un- fakeable individual self.
In your heart, you know that this power you possess isn’t given to you by whatever creator you believe in, merely to be hidden, misused, and put aside! It is provided to you to be all you can be, to become masterful in navigating your journey to your desired consciously created destiny.
The more entrepreneurs, business owners, CEO’s and people from all professional backgrounds I taught how to channel this authentic power safely and wisely, the more confident they felt; and the more grounded, successful and masterful they were be- coming. I started to see the evidence I was seeking that showed how, in swiftly transforming their transient masks, they would live, love, and lead more authentically. In some cases, if they did not do or continue to do the work, their self-deceptive persona would evolve into an even more egotistical, power-hungry persona.
Just like some of my clients who stopped learning, you too, if you’re not careful, your own false persona’s voice may create the illusion that you know it all. The more you use what you are learning to be playful with observing yourself and taking off the mask that no longer serves you, the more you start to see the presence of something beautiful and powerful that is guiding and transforming you from within.
However, don’t be fooled, your self-deceptive nature can also use the same power to feed the one-sided ego persona that can take you to the opposite side of being a self-destructive, bipolar, OCD, infatuated and narcissist persona. I know in my heart, that if you apply everything you are reading throughout the book, answer every question asked, and embody the wisdom of every story told, it will safely guide you on the journey to share with the world your unfakeable identity openly.
It is up to you to commit to a lifelong process and make it your intention to learn how to unmask yourself so that you can live more of an authentic life; so that life can then expose itself authentically to you…
