BIO
For over fifteen years Hilary Franklin has been empowering women in all aspects of their lives. Whether for health reasons or to heighten personal awareness Hilary specifically uses her training as a Voice Facilitator to help women find their own voice in the world giving them the confidence to peel away layers of social conditioning.
She also supports and acts as a spiritual companion to those moving through difficult times with their loved ones or with themselves.
Now in her mid-sixties, Hilary is also a One Spirit Interfaith Minister. She offers bespoke ceremonies including child blessings, marriages and funerals around the country; mentoring the participants, be they individuals or couples, as they pass through the major cycles of their lives.
Hilary lives in Wiltshire with her husband and their dog, Maya.
Peeling Away The Mask
AN OUTLINE FOR AN ARTICLE FOR CYGNUS
“Please hear what I’m not saying. Don’t be fooled by me, by the face I wear. For I wear a mask, a thousand masks, masks that I’m afraid to take off, and none of them is me. Pretending is an art that’s second nature with me, but don’t be fooled…beneath lies no complacence. Beneath lies confusion and fear and aloneness. But I hide this. I don’t want anybody to know it.” Charles L. Whitfield, MD
Fifteen years ago this person Charles Whitfield speaks of was me. It took my body to seize up like a rusty car fit for the scrapheap, to help me look at these masks I was wearing. When Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera first began in London in 1986 I was 36 years old. My love of music across several genres was establishing itself at the time. I not only longed to see it, but was privileged to be taken to the West End to see Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman playing the main parts. I had a strange and completely compelling fascination with the Phantom and it is only now that I realise why. A scarred human being wearing a facial mask to disguise his wounding hides himself away and attracts attention by creating havoc in the opera house. As he falls in love with Christine, the opera singer who is full of light and song, she reflects his vulnerability and the beauty in him, leading the audience to see his true spirit.
Some time ago, I realised that for three decades of my life I had been wearing a mask. It began to form early on in my life, when I was silenced from speaking the truth within my family. The mask helped hide my wounding and ‘fit in’. My laughter hid my shame and guilt filled me with fear, keeping me from breaking free and finding the life I truly wanted. In my teens I felt like a bird imprisoned in a cage and longed to fly free but was unable to find a way out, so I continued to fit in and follow the patterns of the society into which I was born. By early adulthood the mask had become so well established that I no longer knew who I really was.
Aged forty, my body cried out, no longer able to bear the weight of my unexpressed self. It became so rigid and stuck, that eventually I was forced to face my inner being and set myself free. Severe onset osteo-arthritis was attacking my hip joints, which served to immobilise my spine and legs. Within 18 months of diagnosis I was walking on two sticks and had a disabled sticker on my car. How could I alter the prognosis that I would be in a wheelchair by the age of 60? It turns out that the illness was also a mask. Although it all felt so real, my recovery proves that it wasn’t.
Many of us wear masks to differing degrees and sometimes we don’t even know it. The mask becomes so much a part of us. We only wake up to reality when something shocking happens. Teachers teach what they most need to know. So it was with me.
By putting myself through various forms of Healing Arts, the layers beneath the mask began to peel away giving rise to a greater awareness of my true Self, the God within me. By seeing and listening through the eyes and ears of truth, with forgiveness and compassion, through the Love which came from the depths of my heart, the layers of pain and falsity gradually peeled away revealing yet more truth, love and intimacy. Finally, I uncovered the Self which was born free, the Light that I was by birthright. The shadows that had been created by the conditioning of parents, teachers and other authority figures, began to dissolve.
I would love to share with you some of the ways in which I took back my authority over my health and became a conduit of Love. As a result, I am now living a more connected life which serves me, those around me, and the universe. Learning the various practices which led to this healing, I felt called to share them with others. My journey from sickness to health, from grief to joy, and to a future graced with Love, is an open invitation to consider your own journey.
- Getting in touch with my body with which I had disassociated – moving it and loving it.
- Finding my true/authentic voice through Chloe Goodchild’s The Naked Voice through the power of Listening and Silence.
- Then discovering my true/authentic spiritual pathway through walking the labyrinth of Chartres and journeying around the world.
- Finally healing the wounds of religion and stepping forward to becoming a OneSpirit Interfaith Minister in 2012, celebrating all major rites of passage.
Being at peace with myself and the world now, inspired to step forward onto the path of sacred activism, being who I am and shining my light in my community.
Hilary Eliza Franklin
Email: sound@hilaryfranklin.com
author of “Peeling Away the Mask”…..to get to the heart of what really matters