Taking Off the Mask: The Messy, Shadowy Art of Listening to Desire

Here’s the thing, Bhessy: taking off the mask is not glamorous. It’s not a perfect morning routine with glowing skin and cucumber water. It’s a sweaty, shadowy, uncomfortable AF process that will stretch your edges and make you wonder if you’re losing your damn mind.

And yet—this is where desire finally gets to breathe.

Phase One: The Seething Silence

You know the one. On the outside, you look like you’re “fine.” Quiet. Reflective. Maybe just “a little tired.” But beneath the surface? A storm of disquiet is building. It’s a theatrical dance between a Raging Beast and a Weeping Banshee. Push you right now? And you’ll unleash intensity sharp enough to cut glass.

The world might label you moody, distant, or withdrawn. But here’s the truth: your silence is holy. It’s the sound of your system recalibrating. It’s the first breath after ripping off a mask you’ve been suffocating under for years.

Phase Two: The Mumble-Fumble of Desire Waking Up

Once you stop pretending, here comes the tidal wave. Disappointment, despair, boredom, loneliness, irritation, confusion, feeling lost. Sometimes all at once. This is the mumble-fumble haze of desire stirring in your bones.

It’s messy. It’s hard to trust. Desire doesn’t always sound like wisdom at first. It sounds wild, instinctual, a little feral. But don’t panic—that’s your aliveness trying to find its voice again.

Phase Three: Permission as Self-Care

This is where the real work is: giving yourself permission. Permission to be awkward. Permission to be clumsy.

Permission to be messy and still worthy of love. Instead of demanding clarity or perfection, try consistency—tiny rituals that let desire keep whispering until you can finally hear its song.

(Optional) Self-Care Rituals for the Unmasking Phase:

• 3-Song Dance (or Walk) Prescription: Pick three songs and move. Let your body take the lead, not your brain.

• Daily Doodle or Word Crafting: Scribble. Sketch. Write fragments. No one ever has to see it. No more tethering your voice.

• Self-Touch Rituals: Havening or Abhyanga (oil massage) to calm your nervous system and remind your body it belongs to you. Saunas too?!

  
  

These aren’t chores. You set them up or something else accordingly. They’re lifelines. Each practice you engage with is a breadcrumb leading you deeper into your own desire.

The Invitation

Taking off the mask won’t make you prettier. It won’t make you easier. It will make you real. And that, babe, is where desire thrives.

So let yourself be shadowy, stormy, awkward, and alive. This is what it means to reclaim the wild magic that polite culture tried to train out of you.

Your only job? Permission. Again and again.

Because under the mask, your desire is waiting.