2949: Halloween Hope: Trading in the Perfect Mask for Something Even Better by Dr. Kelly Flanagan on Embracing Our True Selves

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[00:00:57] Trading in the Perfect Mask for Something Even Better by Dr. Kelly Flanagan of Dr. Kelly Flanagan.com

[00:01:05] Bad news first. It's school picture day and you forgot to get haircuts for the kids.

[00:01:11] And their only colored shirt is sitting in a smelly heap on the laundry room floor.

[00:01:15] And yesterday they were running and they sprawled headfirst on the driveway

[00:01:19] and now it looks like somebody ran over their face with a cheese grater.

[00:01:23] Of course they did.

[00:01:24] They always get wounded above the neck the week before picture day.

[00:01:28] But now the good news.

[00:01:30] You're looking at the school picture order form and you discover

[00:01:33] you can erase almost all evidence of childhood by paying $12 for the premium retouching package.

[00:01:40] It whitens teeth, even skin tone and removes blemishes and scars.

[00:01:46] In my kids' school for a few bucks, you can remove almost all signs of life.

[00:01:51] For a few bucks, you can put an electronic mask on the broken and wounded

[00:01:56] and complicated and messy and tender and vulnerable and lovely humanity of a child.

[00:02:05] The masks we wear.

[00:02:07] But what will happen when the picture comes home and the kid sees his or her pristine face

[00:02:12] and wonders where his road rash went or why she can't see in the picture

[00:02:16] the scar she sees in the mirror every day?

[00:02:19] Deep down here she is going to know what happened.

[00:02:22] They're gonna hear the silent message, loud and clear.

[00:02:25] You're not good enough the way you are.

[00:02:27] Hide your nicks and scratches.

[00:02:30] Hide your signs of life.

[00:02:32] Pretty yourself up.

[00:02:33] Only perfection is acceptable.

[00:02:35] Go ahead wear your Halloween mask this week but when you take it off

[00:02:39] put on a mask of an entirely different kind.

[00:02:42] Put on the mask of perfection.

[00:02:44] Put on the mask of safety and hide your original, beautiful, wounded face

[00:02:49] away beneath layers of protection and pretending.

[00:02:52] Every year when the order form arrives, I get angry at the institutionalized shame.

[00:02:58] Every year I get on my high horse.

[00:03:00] But this year, several nights after picture day

[00:03:03] I got knocked off of my high horse by the whispered goodnight conversation

[00:03:07] of a ten-year-old boy.

[00:03:09] When we take them off.

[00:03:12] I arrive home late on the evening of my son's first group guitar lesson.

[00:03:16] The house is dark and quiet but he's awake in bed as I tiptoe into his room.

[00:03:21] I'm worried because he's the youngest, least experienced guitarist in his class.

[00:03:27] I'm worried he'll act immaturally and be rejected.

[00:03:30] I'm worried he won't be able to keep up with the more skilled players.

[00:03:34] Suddenly, I'm the one who wants to purchase a retouching package.

[00:03:38] I'm the one who wants to make my son pristine.

[00:03:41] I'm the one who wants to erase all evidence of imperfection from his life.

[00:03:45] It's the way I feel when my daughter dresses herself in striped pink leggings,

[00:03:50] a multi-colored checkered shirt, old sandals over woolly socks,

[00:03:54] and a big brown headband.

[00:03:56] And I worry about kids judging her and parents judging me.

[00:04:00] It's the way I feel when one of my children melts down in the supermarket

[00:04:04] and our real face is revealed to everyone around us.

[00:04:07] It's the way I feel when my kids fight in a restaurant

[00:04:10] and my family's real face is revealed in flying bits of pancake.

[00:04:14] At messy times like that, I'm the one who wants a mask to hide our imperfections.

[00:04:19] So I walk into his bedroom and he rolls over to look at me

[00:04:23] and I can see his white-toothed smile beaming in the shadows and he gushes.

[00:04:28] The other kids are way better than me so I made a ton of mistakes.

[00:04:32] It's gonna be a huge challenge but I'm gonna learn so much.

[00:04:36] My son tells me he picked up some road rash and no retouching is required.

[00:04:42] I reflect to him,

[00:04:44] sounds like you're okay with making mistakes in the group lesson?

[00:04:48] He looks at me like I'm crazy and he says,

[00:04:50] of course I am.

[00:04:51] Last year Mrs. Stevenson taught us that mistakes are a part of us

[00:04:55] and that's totally okay because we'll get better at them.

[00:04:59] Our mistakes are a part of us and that's okay.

[00:05:03] We'll get better at them.

[00:05:05] Daddy, I'm not perfect.

[00:05:07] I'm gonna make mistakes and the world is gonna see my nicks and my scratches

[00:05:11] but no worries, my face is good enough.

[00:05:14] No masks necessary, daddy.

[00:05:17] Born again without a mask.

[00:05:19] Mumford and son sing, quote,

[00:05:22] I know my weakness, my voice

[00:05:24] and I believe in grace and choice

[00:05:27] and I know perhaps my heart is fast

[00:05:29] but I'll be born without a mask, end quote.

[00:05:34] I wonder what would happen if a generation of parents said,

[00:05:37] this is enough because my child is good enough just the way they are.

[00:05:41] They were born without a mask and they will live without a mask.

[00:05:45] The Halloween of our shame is over.

[00:05:47] We'll scratch that because we can't do that for our children

[00:05:50] until we can do it for ourselves.

[00:05:52] I wonder what would happen if we all said,

[00:05:54] enough because I am good enough.

[00:05:57] Today for a moment or two,

[00:05:59] I'm gonna take off my mask

[00:06:01] look in the mirror and I'm gonna behold my original, messy, lovely face staring back at me.

[00:06:07] I think it'd be a moment of honesty and weakness,

[00:06:11] a moment of freedom,

[00:06:12] a moment in which we find our true voice,

[00:06:15] a moment in which we fall into the arms of grace

[00:06:18] and know we're okay just the way we are.

[00:06:21] I think it'd feel like meeting an old friend

[00:06:24] long forgotten beneath the layers of time and hiding.

[00:06:27] I think it'd be like coming home to a place where the light is always on.

[00:06:32] And I think our days might begin to feel a lot less like Halloween

[00:06:36] and a lot more like Christmas morning as we discover the gifts we are

[00:06:40] beneath the masks we wear.

[00:06:47] You just listened to the post titled,

[00:06:49] Halloween Hope,

[00:06:50] trading in the perfect mask for something even better

[00:06:54] by Dr. Kelly Flanagan of drkellyflanagan.com

[00:06:57] Thank you to Dr. Flanagan.

[00:06:59] It's all about embracing imperfection.

[00:07:02] This is especially true now when social media takes up a huge part of our lives usually

[00:07:07] and we're always seeing the perfectly curated versions of other people's lives

[00:07:11] often our closest friends and family.

[00:07:14] So easy these days to mask our flaws and insecurities.

[00:07:17] I think one thing that often brings us together

[00:07:20] is that exact thing,

[00:07:22] seeing someone else feel what we're feeling

[00:07:26] or having flaws like us.

[00:07:28] It's kind of ironic that we go to social media for connection,

[00:07:32] supposedly only to paint this perfect picture of ourselves

[00:07:35] which does the exact opposite

[00:07:37] making us less relatable or endearing and less vulnerable

[00:07:41] when vulnerability is one of the biggest things people need

[00:07:45] to feel connected to someone else.

[00:07:48] I'm far from perfect myself.

[00:07:49] I try to keep that in mind with this podcast

[00:07:51] so that I don't paint myself as some sort of wise guru

[00:07:55] that has all of this figured out.

[00:07:57] I hope I don't give that impression.

[00:07:59] But in any case, hopefully we can all go against the stream

[00:08:02] and try to share more of our true selves

[00:08:05] and show authenticity rather than perfection.

[00:08:09] Thanks to Dr. Kelly Flanagan for the reminder.

[00:08:12] Thank you for being here.

[00:08:13] It means a lot.

[00:08:14] Have a great rest of your day and I'll be back tomorrow

[00:08:17] where your optimal life awaits.