The word persona (from the verb personare, per-sonare: to speak through) designated in Latin the mask worn by theater actors.
Here we are complicit in our own confinement through the mask of our personality. Going beyond our surface preventing us from touching our true being is the first step in the process of awakening and individualization. In general, we have different strategies to avoid this sometimes painful step: Dissociation Distractions Focus only on well-being Externalizing our shadow through projections But the only way of deliverance and the inner way. The music group Genesis sang in their song The carpet crawlers: “We’ve got to get in to get out”. Everything is already within us, but the approach to interiority requires a conscious choice.
Because facing one’s depths means finding oneself having to awaken and confront one’s memories, past traumas and shadows. But deep within the being also hides the most beautiful treasures, we must kiss the ugly toad so that he transforms into a prince. The outer protection manufactured throughout one’s life and carefully maintained by the world is like armor separating us from ourselves, a mask hiding our true identity. And this external, externalized identity is confused with our authentic self. Facing inner evil is the most difficult part of the path of consciousness. It is much easier to bury it, ignore it and project it outside of us to better detach ourselves from it. And prefer its ersatz surface.
Another avoidance tactic is to take on a new identity based on ideologies and beliefs, and to be able to juggle from one identity to another depending on circumstances and emotional states: conservative or liberal, religious or New Age , sexual or environmental orientation… It is one more strategy to avoid the descent into its depths, to break all identities based on external references. Bringing out the true Me, the Self, means being able to detach yourself from any group, label, movement…
When the being ceases to be designated by external codes, any form of labeling becomes useless. The more the being becomes a unique expression of the divine, the more it can embody its individualized essence. The truth lays us bare, forces us to give up our conditioning and our mask. And this force of truth can take the form of shocks, forcing us to undertake this stage of life and awakening us from our illusions and our personality. This is about divine love and life lessons. The more the being initiates this process on its own, the less the force of truth will need to create shocks.
Paul Levy describes this topic from the perspective of the Wetiko mental virus in his book “dispelling wetiko”:
“Built into the very fabric of the system of wetiko is a progressive disincentive for its members to realize the level of depravity into which they have fallen. What keeps us stuck in denial is an inner self-protective mechanism that shields us from the overwhelming awfulness of the shock that would necessarily ensue if we were to consciously experience and shake off the lies that we have been living, a disillusionment that would be too much for most people to bear. The major obstacle blocking us from seeing through our own self-deception is our unwillingness to consciously experience the pain, shame, guilt, mortification, and trauma of this realization. Part of this realization is dealing with the shock of realizing that we have given away our power to those in positions of power over us who have misused that power; it is quite a shock to realize that those who were supposed to be protecting us were the very ones from whom we most needed protection. These multilevels of realization literally shatter our self-image, our identity of who we think we are, as well as our sense of belonging to a collective, social fabric. It is truly an unforgettable, soul-shattering moment when we have the courage to look in the mirror and see that we have been “out of our minds,” “beside ourselves,” having suffered a genuine “break from reality,” in the sense that we have been unwittingly supporting the collective madness and have been complicit in our own victimization. To see the magnitude of the depraved situation we have been faithfully living in and to realize how sick we have become can be so overwhelmingly traumatic that we shun its onset, as this horrifying realization has programmed within it a counter-incentive to fully experience itself. What is required from us is a courage and clarity analogous to that experienced by cult members who with brutal honesty snap out of their collective brainwashing and repudiate the systems of belief in which they were held in thrall. Realizing our complicity in the collective madness is simultaneously liberating and traumatizing, creating higher orders of freedom while simultaneously inducing a form of PTSD, itself a form of madness. In other words, to realize how we have been part of the collective madness is truly “shocking” and induces a form of madness, just as trauma can literally cause a fever in a person. The fever is potentially the organism’s way of metabolizing and healing the trauma, just as the trauma of seeing how perilously asleep we’ve been can propel us to wake up. This form of trauma can potentially so “shake us up” that it can snap us out of our fear-based, frozen paralysis of feeling stuck and can mobilize and inspire us into empowered action. Paradoxically, it is the trauma itself that activates the response in us which potentially leads to its own; creative resolution. In these moments of shock we have the opportunity to break our habitual patterns, see through our implicit assumptions, snap out of our denial, and step out of our programming so as to literally rewire ourselves. These shocks are like gaps in our awareness that are open doorways to potentially higher orders of freedom. These brief moments in time don’t last very long, however, so it is important to expeditiously go through these portals and take advantage of them when they are available. If we don’t, there are backup systems in place for dealing with shocks within our psyche that can override this potential opening in our awareness and re-install the ruling, reigning mechanical programming within our wetikoized mind.”
The shock forces us to come out of our trance state and begin to walk the path of our inner truth. This painful journey is accompanied as it progresses by deliverances, inner fullness and personal victories. The truth is at this price.