Lately, I've been thinking a lot about our propensity to hide; to tuck our greatness away in the safe bosom of inaction and inertia. Given the state of the world, some of us are more inclined than ever to hide. Yet, we can't...at least, not if we plan on being true to God and to the gifts that we've been given. Nonetheless, hiding persists.
I am naturally timid; I always have been, and part of me always will be. Like much of the world, I've spent significant chunks of my life listening to an inner calling to express myself, then doing anything -- anything -- not to answer it. For most of us timid types, a warning message always flashes off and on in the background whenever we come close to being seen: Danger! Potential Visibility Ahead! We share a pre-disposition for staying in the background, a love for anonymity. And we have a real need not to be known, because this is the only way we think we will ever be truly safe. Yet, there may also be a nagging need to express ourselves, as if God were making some grand karmic joke For my husband, this shows up as a need to cry sometimes when he runs across stories of social justice, where someone is making a difference in a small but significant way. He cries because he knows this is work he could be doing -- if only he didn't feel such an urge to hide. Deep in our hearts we know that we will not achieve our dreams in life until our tenderest underbelly has been seen. There is simply no other way out. Hiding often shows up as self-sabotage. It's the emergence of our inner thirteen-year-old, an adolescent basketcase who just wishes Mom would step in and take care of things. My own favorite tactics have included sending out elaborate mailings which I never followed up on, being disorganized and losing key phone numbers and papers, and at one real low point, working hard to get important auditions that I never showed up for. Often we hide out in comfy, unchallenging jobs that surround us with pleasant people, provide a paycheck, and seem benign enough, except that we're not expressing ourselves one tiny bit. Some of us even resort to getting sick in order to lay low. The ironic thing about all of this is that we hide because we think it will simplify our lives -- and yet, hiding actually takes tremendous energy. You have to put up with situations you hate, and keep making excuses to anyone who will listen, all the while ignoring the persistent emptiness of your life. Then you have to tune out the guilt that keeps playing at a low, steady hum every time you think about what you really should be doing. There is no serenity, or sense of balance to life. All there is is longing, denial, and shame. For many of us, that shame is all about the messages we got when we were growing up. Some of us, like Alex, a pop songwriter, got chastened to be ladylike when she wanted to climb trees or sing loudly. Alex remembers her own mother as a woman "who never got to express herself, so she felt threatened that I was so expressive." Her mother, and my mother, were part of an entire generation of women in the fifties and sixties who dedicated their lives to their kids, and never got to find out who they were as creative beings. Consequently, a lot of us got shushed, and learned to associate full self-expression with shame and 'inappropriate' behavior. For others, hiding was a coping mechanism we learned in response to stress. In the case of a friend who is now a nationally known television producer, her own invisibility was originally a way to "get some peace and quiet." Coming from a family of seven children, hiding provided an oasis of tranquillity where she could finally be alone. For Sarah, a ghostwriter, hiding was a way to avoid a demanding, hyperactive sister. But it was also a good destination in itself. "In my own imagination I could be who I was, she says, and I needed to be hidden away alone to be that." The good news is that when you finally do expose yourself and let yourself be known, the sky does not fall. I know from my own emergence that there is a certain queasiness at first, and a deep suspicion of going public. But then there comes a lightness -- a kind of 'Aha!' and a sense that you are, indeed, in a very, very right place. Things begin to unfold; miracles suddenly happen. And on the heels of that comes a new kind of security, and a deeper sense of connectedness; one that is not in any way empty, or hollow. Timid types, please take note.
I wrote the following essay for my column in New Age Journal, and am re-printing it here, simply because it says everything I want to say about the power of finally emerging.
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