Living All Our Faces

When I first came to the U.S., I learned that being “two-faced” meant being a liar. That never made sense to me. We all have many faces. Wouldn’t showing them be more honest? Isn’t it more honest to admit that, laughing with a friend after your grandmother’s funeral, you felt both grief AND joy? Isn’t it more honest to admit that, in the face of world events, you’re in touch with both intense anger AND profound hope? And all that there is in between?

We feel so much pressure to have one face, one opinion, one favorite color, one passion, one personality, one lover. This one-ness is neither real nor helpful for living a full and fulfilling life. When we hide parts of ourselves, we’re actually submitting to the idea that we’re too much. But what if we accept that we ARE a lot, and find people who don’t want less than our magnificent fullness? What possibilities for ease, acceptance, validation, healing, and growth might come from living all our faces?

I know that trauma can make it hard for people to show all of who they are, especially at once. Growing up, I learned to protect my abusers in order to survive, which meant pretending they had only one face. And I, too, pretended to have only one face: a kind, gentle, forgiving person who enjoys putting everyone else’s needs before her own. But through many years of therapy and healing, and becoming a therapist myself, I have retrieved other lost faces: faces of anger, faces of insecurity, queer faces, gender-fluid faces, and childlike faces.

Many people have helped me along the way. Most of them, the ones I look up to, have many different faces of their own. They are professional, but also playful. They are beautiful, but also willing to show what doesn’t please or attract others. They are strong, but also vulnerable. Being able to see their faces is what makes me trust them, and I try to model the same for the people I work with.

Whoever you are reading this, my wish for you is that you don’t submit to the false idea of oneness. Be a lot. Be as big or small as you want to, on different days. But let all parts of you have a chance to live your life.