Beneath the Mask

I was having a conversation with someone the other day, and she said something that made me pause. She mentioned how coaches and well intentioned people are always telling women to “remove your masks.” Myself included.

And I had to sit with that.

Because just moments before, I had asked her a question I ask women all the time: When was the last time you told yourself you were proud of yourself?

Her answer was the same one I hear over and over again.

“I don’t know.”

Not her response, but how so many of us are quick to advise about masks removal, but have no answer about healing, (re)building and learning to love their authentic selves.

It made me wrestle with how well intentioned the phrase “remove your masks” really is, and yet how rarely we give real instruction on what happens next. What do you replace the mask with? What do you do when you peel it back and there is not some glowing, fully formed, healed version of you underneath?

Because let’s be honest.

When all you have known is the representative you, the strong you, the agreeable you, the high achieving you, the unbothered you, the self sacrificing you, beneath one mask is often another one.

Sometimes what is under the mask is not authenticity. It is survival. It is coping. It is the version of you that learned how to function in environments that did not feel safe.

So yes, remove the mask. But then what?

We tell women to be authentic.

To stop performing.

To show up as themselves.

But who are you when you have spent years being who you needed to be just to make it?

Removing the mask is only step one.

Building the woman underneath it is the real work.

That means learning how to speak to yourself with pride.

Learning how to acknowledge your effort.

Learning that you do not have to earn your space in every room you walk into.

Authenticity is not automatic. It is cultivated. It is practiced. It is rebuilt in quiet moments when nobody is clapping.

And maybe that is why so many women cannot answer the question, “Are you proud of yourself?” Because pride requires presence. And presence requires safety. And safety requires a self that has been nurtured, not just exposed.

So here is what I want you to consider today.

When was the last time you told yourself you were proud of yourself and meant it?

If you do not know, do not shame yourself. Start there.

And if this resonated with you, share it with another woman who is learning that she does not just need to remove the mask. She deserves to rebuild the woman underneath it.