Identity, Indirection, and 3 Key Questions to Compassionately Address the Masks We Wear

How uncovering deep desires can set us free from living lives behind a false self, and how I can work indirectly to influence subconscious parts of me.

Aug 12, 2025

I have played Dungeons and Dragons on and off for the past three years. As a board game guy who loves several “nerd fandoms” deeply, I suppose it was just a matter of time. Don’t get me wrong - I resisted. I tried to write it off and act like I wasn’t super curious. I mean, I was too cool for DnD. I got really into it, though, only to have it fall off as I started doctoral work. If I’m honest, I miss it.

While the mechanics are interesting (I’m a bit of a power-gamer, no matter the game I am sitting down to play), I think what was most striking about playing DnD was actually the role-playing. We would all pretend to be someone else. We would try out weird (and often terrible) accents, and we would try to act as we thought our characters would in a given circumstance. There was something so innocent and joyful about playing make-believe again.

As a would-be theater kid in high school, this aspect resonated with me. Not just the action, but the emotional moments of role play. Seeing how characters connect (or don’t), and playing out those dynamics was not only fun and challenging, but fascinating. The whole experience gave me “food for thought” about how I envision and talk about identity formation.

Memory and Identity

My identity doesn’t come from “nowhere.”

I did not emerge from a vacuum. All of what makes me “me” has come from a lifetime of experiences, and the experiences of others around and before me. Even the fact of my birth – that I was born to particular parents at a particular time who both lived particular lives – has significantly shaped almost everything about me.

However, when I walk into a conversation, a conflict, or a task, I’m not thinking about all that.

When I show up for a talk with my little boy, who, once again, is standing his ground in the face of being told “no,” I’m not aware of everything I am bringing with me to that interaction. I’m not aware of the times when my parents respected me, got on my level, and really “saw” me (which was rare). Likewise, I am not aware of all the times that my parents shouted me down or escalated my “no” into a full-out brawl. I don’t remember how it felt when a youth pastor had compassion on me when I was an angry high-schooler instead of reacting to my reactivity. I don’t automatically recall all the moments when I was isolated and alone because I didn’t know how to express what was going on in me.

While I might not be aware of these memories, each of these memories impacts how I show up in that moment with my son. Each and every encounter I have today – with my son or daughter, a coworker, a spiritual direction client, my family – is conditioned by the life I have lived.

A friend of mine once recalled to me that, in her training to become a hospital chaplain, she was caught off guard by complex emotions coming up for her in response to a patient. As my friend processed with her supervisor, that person said, “So, it sounds like your mom was in the room with you, huh?” It floored her. But after the shock of the insinuation subsided, there was a sense of convicting clarity: regardless of how much you, my friend, or I try, we bring a whole mass of people with us into every interaction. We are, I suppose, made of memories.

That this happens isn’t a problem.

That it happens and we aren’t aware of it is, ultimately, dangerous.

Who Am I Today?

Another tricky thing is that, for what it’s worth, I rarely show up as exactly me.1

In an age marked by an ultimate value for authenticity, our culture conditions us to be authentic quite loudly. There is no context in which we are to reserve ourselves from the public eye and not share our thinking because to do so is at least inauthentic, if not dishonest. If I am operating in “integrity,” then I am supposed always to share what I think or feel about something. Internally, it’s as if a geyser or volcano is preparing to erupt – without sharing, I might explode from the tension!

While there is a lot that could be said about the issue of integrity, authenticity, and honesty, something that is striking to me is that I don’t often question how conditioned my authenticity is.

Said differently, I don’t think about how I arrived here, in this moment, expressing myself. I don’t think about how my authenticity has been affected by others, or which memories are in the background of my expression.

I – we – never express ourselves in a vacuum.

I also don’t express myself in the same way with different people. It may seem inauthentic, but, for instance, expressing myself to my wife is categorically different than how I express myself to a pastor, missionary, or ministry leader sitting in my office. How I express myself to my kids is categorically different from how I express myself to my adult friends. Heck, how I express myself to close friends is different than how I express myself to strangers, coworkers, or my superiors.

This could seem disingenuous, I suppose, like I am hiding myself. This is all subconscious, though. How I show up with someone is conditioned not only by my lifetime of experiences, but also by a few present factors:

Relationship: Who am I to this person, and who are they to me?
Power: Is there a power difference between me and this other person? Do they have authority in my life? Do I have authority in theirs?
Context: Is this a shared space with structures, values, and goals that affect this dynamic?
Implicit Values: What does this person think is important? Whose values matter here? To what extent?
Cultural Cues: Do we share a culture? How do their culture and mine impact what’s being said or left unsaid?
Shared History: What does my history with this person tell me about how I need to act and react?

All of these factors, many of which sit comfortably outside of my conscious awareness, affect how I show up. They condition me to project an identity that makes sense for how I am supposed to show up.

I call this my mask.

A mask is an identity that I project to others that gives me what I need. A typical example in Christian circles might be something like “Strong Leader”, “Willing Servant”, or “Peace Keeper”. A silly example might be something like “Cat Person”. Masks aren’t necessarily lies, but they often aren’t the whole truth. Masks are curated ways we respond in particular instances.

But masks aren’t something I choose to put on, at least not most of the time. Masks are automatic and unconscious. They are formed in us by two dynamics: (1) the implicit answers to the questions I listed above and, importantly for our purposes, (2) my personal history.

Masks work a little like this:

You see, our masks are identities that we project, and they are supported by scripts. A script is a way we know we ought to act based on our experiences. Think of scripts like emotional operating systems - they tell all the parts of us how to act or respond when something happens. A script for a “Cat Person” might be that “I own cats because they are low maintenance and low risk.” Alternatively, the script might also be “I avoid dogs, and cats aren’t dogs.”

Scripts are supported by stories we tell ourselves. A story is how we re-tell a memory, and the story often has a “so what” at the end. Because we experienced _______, we know that ______ is true or untrue, for a “Cat Person,” the story under the script “I avoid dogs” might be that “when I have interacted with dogs in the past, I got hurt, so I know that dogs are dangerous.”

These stories, more often than not, come from a memory. This memory might be a specific instance or a series of experiences, but usually, there will be one instance that stands out. The memory is the actual event, as we remember it, out of which a story has emerged. Following through our example, the memory may be that, “I was bitten by a neighbor's dog when I was a kid, and I didn’t even do anything to it!”

I’m not a neuroscientist or a psychologist, but as best I understand it today, each memory is made up of an external circumstance and an emotional response. The external circumstance answers the question, “What happened?” The emotional response answers the question, “What happened in me?” The circumstance can be anything – benign or dire. Ultimately, though, even if the circumstance is innocuous, our response to it might not be. In terms of our running example, the dog biting me would be considered the external circumstance, while “fear and confusion” might be the emotional response.

If we focus on the emotional response, there is often a need behind it. This need is something that I was looking for in the midst of the circumstance. The emotional response here actually clues us into what we might have been looking for. In our example, I felt “fear and confusion.” So, what might I have been looking for? Perhaps I was looking for something to defend or protect me, or something to pick me up so I could feel safe.

Our needs in these memories are often bids for connection. We are looking for someone, not just something.

The Problem with Masks

That’s a lot of complexity, right? How am I supposed to keep track of all that?

Beyond the complexity problem, there is something even deeper: I often don’t realize I am wearing a mask. I am not great at knowing when I am wearing a mask or even if I have a mask at all. Life just keeps me responding and reacting. Over time, masks just become who I tell the world I am.

We all wear masks all the time. It’s not a choice I get to make whether to put on a mask, at least not at first. When it is totally automatic, I don’t have much I can do. In this circumstance, I’m often not even aware of how a mask is impacting how I am showing up.

It’s automatic, subconscious, and beyond my direct control.

I can’t will myself not to wear a mask, especially one that I might not understand I am wearing. I can’t de-mask harder.

If I can’t make myself give up a mask – heck, if I can’t even recognize that I have a mask at all – how in the world am I supposed to do anything about it?

In short, you can’t do anything about it. At least not directly.

Spiritual Formation Principle: Change through Indirection

So often, we strive in life with God because we are trying to use willpower to create change. Willpower, though, is a finite resource. It burns up like olive oil in a hot pan - while it might help for a little bit, when things get too hot, the oil starts to smoke. Additionally, a change to something so out of mind (like the masks we wear) is outside of our control because it is something so automatic.

So how do we change? What can we do?

Dr. James Bryan Smith talks about it this way:

We cannot change simply by saying, “I want to change.” We have to examine what we think (our narratives) and how we practice (the spiritual disciplines) and who we are interacting with (our social context).2

What we cannot change directly, we can affect indirectly.

We can make changes in how we think by paying specific attention to how we are feeling and what we are thinking about. We can take on practices that help us form new habits around our thinking and doing, creating space to interact with God. We can cultivate connection with people to whom we can tell the whole truth and be radically honest.

Let’s look at an example.

Something in my life that is a pretty significant driver of conflict is that I tend not to react well automatically when I don’t get what I want. I am easily frustrated and, in my worst moments, I even feel slighted or disrespected. I get angry.

No matter how hard I try, I can’t just decide not to get frustrated when this kind of thing happens. I’ve tried, and it’s exhausting. It also hasn’t helped.

Now, what I can do is think about my thinking. When I don’t get what I want, there is almost always an angry emotion that comes up, and with just a little bit of reflection, I can say that this anger is coming from grief. I feel, at some level, like I am being let down. My history has shown me that when I don’t get what I want, it’s because I am not being cared for. I can begin to retrain my thinking by remembering that I am cared for by the most powerful, caring being in the universe who looks on me with delight.

From there, I can practice by choosing not to get what I want, traditionally called fasting. I can choose to skip a meal or go without my phone, and, when I feel frustrated, I can practice remembering that I am cared for and safe. I can practice off the spot to build a habit of remembering God in these moments.

Finally, I can talk to my wife, my friends, and my spiritual director about all this. I can talk to them about what’s going on with me. There’s something healing about telling the truth to one another (James 5:16). By telling the truth and, hopefully, being received with compassion, the automatic response may, over time, become less sharp and rigid.

Taking off the Mask by Finding the Need

Now, this is all well and good, but what we are talking about here is a little more complicated than getting “fussy” when I don’t get what I want. This isn’t about something so easy to identify, nor is it about something that you or I can work with so quickly. Similarly, the mask itself is not the thing we need to be thinking about. Remember, the mask is built, ultimately, on top of a need - the mask is the way we automatically try to protect ourselves or get what we need.

To take off a mask, we have to practice getting to our needs.

Basically, we want to follow the whole process backwards towards the need:

As you can see from the blue arrows in this diagram, we need to work backwards by first identifying a mask that we commonly wear. From there, we stay curious, asking questions as we go until we reach the emotional response and the underlying need.

Discovering the deep desire or core need isn’t an easy process, and it is one that I am not good at - at least not in the moment. It takes some self-observation, paying attention to myself as an act of love and not an act of judgment, when I set aside the time to simply pay attention, noting my patterns (even ones that I would consider sinful), I can choose to be curious rather than critical.

When I acted in ____ way towards that person, what was going on? What was I hoping for? Was I afraid of losing something?
When I let myself down in _________ way, what was going on?
Who did I feel like I needed to be in that conversation? Why was that?

These kinds of compassionate and curious questions can help us identify the masks we wear by opening up a conversation with God about what we see. Rather than beating ourselves up about behavior, we can begin to dialogue with God about motivations and patterns. In that space, a lot of exploration is possible.

That last question in particular is helpful for identifying masks, I think. Who I feel I need to be to someone else is particularly important when I think about identity projection - am I trying to convince someone else of something about me? What might that be?

Once I have that, I’m well on my way to working backwards to the need.

Role-Playing Desire

One of the most fascinating aspects of playing something like DnD is that you don’t just play the mechanics. You play the character. Each session is like putting on a play - the goal is to get into the mind and heart of the character you are playing, making decisions that make sense for them. The character creation process helps you do this, of course, but gives you a place on your worksheet to note any bonds or attachments - things that connect and draw your character to the world in which you are playing. These connections and deep desires are the bedrock of your character’s decisions.

One of my characters was a widower who lost his family to an unknown disease. He was a loner, and reverted to being a loner when he lost his family. His bond to his family served to motivate him to stay alone once they were gone because he didn’t want to be hurt again. This backstory and the bonds/attachments (needs and desires) of my character set up some really fun and engaging conflict in the campaign.

Bonds become the motivation for your character.

It’s almost like real life.