How your Core Beliefs Impact your Perception of Masks

Since we are in the days of the coronavirus and wearing a mask has become a debatable activity, let’s talk mask usage from a trauma and behavioral perspective.

First of all, let’s recall that emotion typically dictates our logic, and not the other way around.

Emotion is based on perception and perception is based on our Core Beliefs.

Our Core Beliefs are established in childhood, and are the subconscious operating system through which we experience our daily lives.

This impacts our relationship to things like safety, belonging, power and freedom. I call these our Core Story Patterns (CSPs).

Now, let’s talk masks:

The two primary Core Story Patterns that we are collectively witnessing revolve around Safety and Freedom. So, right there, we have folks operating from a completely different Core Story Pattern. THIS will impact all of their decisions.

Then, the CSP interacts with our trauma responses (fight/flight/freeze/fawn/flop):

When people are stubborn and argumentative, they are in a fight response. Flight shows up as denial and avoidance. Freeze as overwhelm and paralysis. Fawn seeks to connect and looks for advice from trusted friends.

These are hard wired physiological response to ward off a perceived threat, and can be projected onto anything. In this case, this is all being projected onto Covid, and ultimately masks.

I offer this not to excuse, dismiss or defend—simply to remind you that behind all of this, there are many deeper layers, so that you can have conscious conversations, from this place of understanding yourself and each other.