Balancing Authenticity with Resilience - In Conversation with Adam Lind (S20E9)

Adam's going to be here in a few minutes, but before he joins, I just wanted to speak a little bit about that term masking.

Now, often in our sort of current use of that term, we can think of it as specifically relating to neurodivergence or to the challenges that so many of us can face when we're operating in a neurotypical environment.

But the root of that word is actually broader.

And so today I'm not specifically talking about neurodivergence, that might come up, but my use of the word is actually in its broader sense.

And how often we can see it playing out where we don't feel safe enough to be our true selves.

You know, often it shows up in the workplace.

You know, colleagues or, you know, leadership team or, you know, anybody sort of like through the organization might hide their true emotions.

And perhaps present a facade of confidence and resilience, because that's what we're talking about.

Even when they're privately grappling with significant challenges or doubts.

And the point about masking is that it can be exhausting.

It's also something that is a very kind of defensive practice.

And if we find ourselves having to mask in many aspects of our lives, you know, for, you know, maybe in all of our interactions.

And, you know, certainly, you know, people who experience neurodivergence, you know, can sort of speak about this, this exhaustion that can come from, you know, having to show up in a way that doesn't feel completely true for themselves because of fear of being rejected or excluded in some way.

And as humans, we have this really innate desire to belong.

And if we've learned somewhere along the line that us being ourselves isn't enough or is too much, then that can lead to us masking some of our behaviors.

And, you know, and again, I'm using that in the broadest sense, because I think it's something that's actually very human.

Many of us experience this.

And one of the challenges with masking is that it can leave us unable to identify how we actually feel because we've become so accustomed to adopting this way of presenting ourselves.

We can sort of see it in kind of psychological terms as an adaptation strategy.

It really makes sense.

It's absolutely a valid response to a world that can feel complex.

And then there are two other terms that are going, I'm sure will come up while we're talking.

One is about sort of performative behaviours.

So these are much more voluntary and they can be contextual.

And it's a way of kind of managing like how we show up in the world.