Happy Halloween!
Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. There are so many good things about this holiday. It is the first one of the holiday season. You get candy, pumpkins carvings, candy, costumes, scary movies, and candy.
I loved dressing up as a kid, and I love seeing my kids enjoy it now. I even try to hide my disappointment when they refuse my awesome costume ideas and opt for boring princess-ninja-firefighters. (Strike that. Princess ninja firefighter is an amazing costume choice. Well done kids.)
For some adults, Halloween provides an escape from reality. You can be whoever you want to be. The shy get to open up a little more and show their wilder side. You can let loose the monster within. You can be sexier, funnier, cooler then perhaps you are in the everyday. Some of us even get to be the awesome space heroes we grew up idealizing. (Friendly reminder: Han shot first.)
However, there can be an underlying message to playing dress up. Already prevalent in our society, we have to be on guard for the sneak attacks it carries out on holidays like this one.
The message is this: Who you are is not good enough, who you are is not who you should be, and there is a sexier, funnier, cooler version of yourself out there if you’d only have the courage to unleash it.
This message comes at us from multiple angles, creating so many ‘shoulds‘ in our mind and in our heart. We should exercise more. We should manage our money better. We should have mastered relationships by now. We should be further along in our career. Our children should be better behaved. We should like kale more than we actually do.
There are lots of messages in the world about who we ‘should’ be. And if we listen to and believe those messages, we end up wearing a mask all year round. We begin to believe the world prefers the mask to our real face and if this goes unchecked long enough, we begin to prefer the mask as well.
But the battle for mental health often begins with winning the fight to show our own true face to the world. To accept everything about who we are. Strengths, flaws, weight, habits, relationships, and kale opinions. To see all of this and be proud.
I hope you enjoy dressing up this year. I hope you enjoy the parties and eat all the candy. But as you do, I hope you begin to shout back at the voice in your head telling you that you should be someone else.
If that voice gets loud, you get louder. If that voice gets angry, you get angrier. If it sounds reasonable and rationale, remember that ‘should‘ is a liar.
Who you are is enough.
Who you are is exactly who you need to be.
Who you are is exactly who the world needs right now.
Who you are wins the day, every day.
In the words of the esteemable Carl Rogers: “What I am is good enough if I would only be it openly.”
Happy Halloween everyone!
If you struggle with self-acceptance, we’d love to help. We strive to make the first step into counseling the easiest and offer a risk-free initial appointment where we help you determine which of our amazing therapists would be a good fit for you. If you are not completely satisfied, you owe nothing and we will even help you get connected with a therapist outside our practice.
You can schedule online at any time at mathewscounseling.net or give us a call Monday through Friday at 919-587-8018.
