Behind the Mask (Paperback)

This book is raw and honest about our society today and how many of us live life behind our masks. Are you afraid to show your authentic self to your colleagues, family, or even your partner? Are you hiding behind a façade of success and bravado, trying to win approval from people, or afraid to show weakness and vulnerability? Are you feeling like a pressure cooker, worried any moment you may blow your stack and lose your cool? Is this feeling affecting your health and lifestyle?

Behind the Mask is bravely written by Bill Whitting, who openly admits to his personal struggles and lived experiences that affected his happiness and led to depression and feelings of loneliness.

Understanding the importance of asking for help, Behind the Mask is a roadmap to find your authentic self. Using a broad range of topics and lived experiences the author will take you on a confronting journey - an empowering journey and help you discover you - your true self Behind the Mask.

Bill Whitting worked in the construction industry and then spent ten years tirelessly advocating for men and supporting farmers and others struggling with depression and loneliness. A sought-after presenter and speaker at national conferences and men's gatherings, Whitting is known for his compassion, his insight and 'walking the talk'. A constant search for personal betterment and growth has seen Whitting opt for the road less travelled throughout his extraordinary life.

As a long-standing member of the Master Builders Association, Whitting worked extensively throughout the industry for 30 years before leaving to pursue qualifications with the Counsellors and Psychotherapists Association of NSW-a quest, in part, for answers to his personal life struggles. He also joined Toastmasters International to gain a forum to speak, be heard and be evaluated, later becoming president of the organisation. Bill then gained the position as project coordinator for Older Men: New Ideas (OM: NI), working as the key facilitator for men's support groups around the country and, later, founding Crisis Help Assisting Forgotten Farmers (CHAFF), a mobile men's mental health service.

An impressive list of professional experience, qualifications and achievements in both the building and psychotherapy professions masked an underlying turmoil, where childhood and adolescent feelings of inadequacy and pain at not being heard simmered below the surface and frequently threatened to spill over into Whitting's adult life. For Whitting, the struggle was real, and the empathy for others was genuine.

Behind the Mask represents the summation of a life, in which Whitting openly shares his feelings, his struggles, his ideas and his lived learning in the belief that if they help one person navigate a way to finding an authentic self, his efforts will have been worth the journey.

This is Bill Whitting's story-open, raw, opinionated, honest and reflective, just like the man himself.