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My friend Lissa Rankin and I were talking recently about what it means to be your ‘authentic’ self. "It means taking your masks away," she said, referring to the roles we play of employee, professional, mom, friend, daughter, PTA parent etc. She has observed (and built a thriving blog around the idea) that many of us get to a point in life where these masks threaten to define us as fractured beings. Perhaps it is in defense - or desperation - that we yearn to break free of the masks and just be ourselves, the "me" that exists underneath all the roles and masks.


The Need to Unmask

When we allow ourselves space to journey into what lies beneath the “selves” we've spent so much energy building our lives around, most of us find that there are hidden and long squashed talents lying in wait to captivate our imagination and attention. I've lost count of the people I know (myself included) who've discovered artistic, entrepreneurial and creative outlets in later life when they took the time to allow buried parts of themselves to break through to the surface. Sometimes there are scary things hiding underneath those masks too, feelings and desires so long repressed that they threaten to undo us unless they can be explored in a safe space surrounded by people who are supportive and at least as interested in our self-discovery as in their own agendas.

I think this is the evolution of the midlife crisis for us older folk. I am happy to report, however, that I know many young folk who aren't waiting until midlife to explore and share their authentic selves.

My Story

For me , it has been a real challenge to explore my authentic self while maintaining and evolving all the myriad of relationships I've built in my various social roles. In the years leading up to my unmasking, I’ve let go of many of the friendships that no longer serve either of us and I’ve brought closer to me those relationships from which we both benefit. But I still haven’t shared all of me with all of my friends. In becoming a more authentic version of me, I’m not trying to fool my friends by not explaining every detail of my journey, I’m trying to protect them from the discomfiting oddity of seeing me take off some masks only to find others beneath and watch me keep digging deeper. I’ve learned in the past that when I do this too haphazardly people become confused, because sometimes even when I know amazing things are happening beneath the surface, it’s better to “wait and become,” more quietly until I’m ready to tell the story of my growth. While I want to grow friendships as I evolve I don’t wan to toss them into upheaval just so I can be free of worrying about other people's feelings; I value their feelings, and I value the life I’ve built with their friendship.

Unmasking Safely

Recently it struck me that the solution to my “how to unmask safely” dilemma lay in storytelling. Not necessarily the fictitious kind (though that can be helpful, too) but in telling my own story so that others could understand the context within which I’m unmasking. For my unmasking to make sense to people around me, the story can’t be about the aspects of me that are being discarded, but about what lies beneath. Over the last six months I have been working very hard to understand how to tell the story of what lies beneath. I could feel it. I could be it. I could even show it to people, but to communicate it has been another matter entirely. And so for a while I flailed. I even drafted this post over two months ago and promptly trashed it because upon reread it was just one big flail.

It became even more important to me to find a way to tell the story when I decided to split my business in two, moving my marketing practice into a partnership I’ve been developing over the last several years and concentrating my own business on what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I can’t really have a business without a web site because I’m a writer first and the web site helps me tell my story. So I set out to retool Magus Consulting. I flailed a bit at that too, at first, but what saved me was a series of exercises given to me by a friend to help me uncover and articulate my purpose in life.

My Purpose

Not really to my surprise, when I took the time to think it through, I discovered I’d been living my purpose for at least twenty years – ever since I met my husband and began to unfold all the happiness our family has brought me in my personal life. But I hadn’t applied it to my work life, the place in which I spend an enormous amount of energy, the place where I arguably have the greatest impact on the world, the place that I thrive and shine most brightly. Once I had my purpose statement in hand the flailing stopped; it all became clear and I wrote my web site in a weekend and had it up within the month.

My purpose statement:

My purpose is to tap into the energy of creation to guide people I value into new, exciting territory and to help them discover their own unique talents and opportunities to change their worlds. When I work together with these amazing people, the world will become a better place.

I am Magic

When I look back on that moment when I first named my company “Magus” Consulting exactly eight years ago - calling my professional magician archetype by its true name - I realize now that it was my purpose guiding me even then; I just didn’t recognize it at the time. All along I’ve been living my purpose personally by using my magical eyes to see the love and the power inside my friends and family, labeling it and recognizing so they can see themselves more clearly and more gently. And I’ve also been living my purpose to some extent with my marketing clients, guiding them through “the next new technology” and giving them plans and strategies to achieve their business goals in these new lands (i.e., the internet, social media, etc.).
    
But now that I’m clear, I’m going to step it up, past just technology marketing and past being a good friend. I’m going to integrate my skills built over a twenty-five year career with the wisdom gained through a forty-seven year lifetime. I’m going to claim my own talent and opportunity to change my world.

The new Magus Consulting will help leaders transform their organizations to change their worlds. I will continue my work with businesses and nonprofits, helping them tap into the power of the vision and energy of their organizations to turn their aspirations from vision to reality. Through strategic planning services and coaching, I will help leaders lead from both their hearts and their heads so that they thrive financially by helping all their stakeholders succeed as well. And if even a fraction of the organizations, entrepreneurs and leaders I work with change their world for the better, than the world will be a brighter place and I will have changed my world too.

I’m so excited I could just pop.

Please visit my new Magus Consulting web site and share it with any leaders you know seeking to change their world through their business.

Thank you for being with me on this journey, thank you for loving me, thank you for bearing witness to my unmasking. I cannot be my authentic self without all of you to love.


~Dana Theus

Photocredit: The Buffy-the-Vampire Tarot deck was actually never released by Dark Horse, much to many fans' dismay. I, personally, have never watched Buffy, but I love this modern-classic re-rendition of the traditional Tarot Magician card and so I claim it as the visualization of my archetype.