Out of Hiding

It was the middle of a coaching session when everything changed for me.  As I shared my struggle – it felt typical of my life experience. 

This thing happened. 

Someone commented in a way that felt hurtful to me.

I was misunderstood.

But I knew I shouldn’t have been hurt. I knew it wasn’t his intention.

He didn’t actually do anything wrong.

This is my problem.

I should be the one to just let it go and move on.

There’s no point in confrontation when it’s not his fault, it’s mine.

I shouldn’t be hurt over something so silly.

Maybe you’ve had this same internal conversation. The difference this day was that I exposed it. I said these things out loud to another human being. And that human being had a different take than me.

“What if the point isn’t to fix or change anything but just to connect?”

That question shifted everything for me. It set me on a new path of discovery. Of freedom. It caused me to begin my journey out of hiding. 

After a lifetime of living in the space of being misunderstood. A place where I knew most of my problems were caused by me. My thoughts, my beliefs, my judgements. All of a sudden, the very idea of sharing who I was, of revealing myself to others … it wasn’t for the sake of being understood, it wasn’t to change someone’s behavior, it was purely for connection. 

I spent most of my life in hiding. The feeling of being misunderstood, unappreciated, unknown – that’s been my reality. I look back on my life and I see a girl who stepped away from relationship much more than she stepped into them. I compartmentalized and hid myself away, afraid of being seen because to be seen meant to be judged. And I judged myself enough for all of us. I didn’t need that from others. 

I’ll admit, there is a part of myself that likes hiding. So much of my identity has been wrapped around the idea that I was misunderstood, unseen, and disregarded. It’s who I believed I was, so I sat in that place, daring someone to try to find me. If you want to love me, you’re going to have to work. You’re going to have to really want it and you’re going to have to find me and draw me out. 

As I’ve moved from that place of hiding to exposure, as I’ve shifted my desires from being understood to being connected, I’ve discovered some things. 

Relationship is fun. 

Connection is available and easy to find.

I don’t have to be understood to be known and loved.

True connection comes when you disagree but choose love anyway.

I don’t want to give the impression that coming out of hiding is easy. Or that I’ve mastered it. It’s not. And I haven’t. Sometimes it feels easy. Other times even the smallest acts of exposure feel so hard and vulnerable. 

And it is. 

Exposure in its very nature is vulnerable. If you run naked down the street, people WILL see you. Some of those people will judge you, others will cheer you on and maybe a rare few will strip down and join you. Some may call the cops and have you arrested. It’s all part of the risk of exposure. 

But it’s worth it.

You know those relationships you long for, but never seem to get? They are available to you when you stop hiding. Exposure for your soul is like sunshine for nature. You will discover dreams growing that you never knew you had, parts of yourself that had lay dormant for years, finally come to life. The fear of pain, rejection, and loss doesn’t go away, but over time it becomes much, much less. The high stakes that you put on how others see you, the longing for love that never seems met, all these things change when you’re out in the open. Love flows more naturally and easily. You become less about needing any one person to love you and more about finding love in all your connections. And all of this, ultimately, brings intimacy, connection, and love into the relationships you most value and cherish.

I know this feels like a lot of big promises. But I am confident that this exposure that has turned life around for me, shines light on all of us, and it’s available to you. 

I’d love to tell you I’m writing this because I know all the secrets of relationship and connection. I don’t. In fact, I am on a journey of discovery every day. Some days are hard. I find myself wanting to withhold from people that I don’t think deserve me. I don’t always like accountability or want people to ask me about things I’ve exposed. I like to manage and control who gets to see certain parts of me. But, the reality is, when you run down the street naked, you can’t control who sees you and what they think. 

But little wins along the way inspire me to keep going.

I'm not writing about connection and relationship because I’ve mastered it, I write about it because I want it. I want to fearlessly and boldly walk into the adventure of love with nothing holding me back. 

So this is me, running down the street naked. You’re welcome to watch with curiosity. Not everyone will understand. Some will judge me. But my hope for you is that you’ll come out of your house, into the open and maybe, eventually, you’ll join me in the street, naked and exposed.