we all hide parts of ourselves. this is why we should stop.
Photo by Felicia Buitenwerf on Unsplash
I was nervous. Uncomfortable.
I second guessed myself. Huge imposter syndrome, “who am I to do this?”.
My confidence was luke-warm and what I did have felt fake.
The pull was strong. And even though I wanted to ignore it and stuff it down, I couldn’t.
Believe me, I tried. I back-pedaled and busied myself. I rearranged my house, cleaned out junk drawers and Amazon’d cat food. I made lots of excuses.
I have small kids! How can anyone do anything when they are in charge of raising humans?
I had so many reasons why I could not do the thing.
That’s where it gets tricky. The reasons (excuses) are technically real. They are facts. And yet. I still knew it was all BS. I was mis-using the facts of my life to avoid growing. To dodge getting out of my comfort zone. To put off doing the Big Things I felt on the inside. The things that pushed me to enter into the unknown, to absorb myself in deliberate work and study. To care for Me. To remember Me. To be with Me truthfully, wholly.
Not the version I think I’m supposed to be for the world.
Not the version I think my family, my friends or my kids want. The actual version. In Real Life.
And if I keep on waiting to do/start/engage in my stuff, well then I’ll be on my death bed wondering wtf happened to my life?
For me, right now, that thing? It’s teaching yoga. To saying yes, taking action, doing rather than thinking about doing.
Why is that leap so terrifying? Because when we take it we are no longer watching life from the sidelines. We are in the game. And we can both soar and sink when we finally roll up our sleeves and take action.
For you it could be changing careers, public speaking, starting a business, becoming a parent. Whatever it is, big or small, it matters and you need to do it.
Yoga transformed my life. It woke me up. It lit a fire in me that has not stopped burning.
When I stopped getting on my mat because of babies, busyness, Covid. It never left me. Because it’s not something you do on your mat or in a class, it’s how you live your life. You do yoga while you’re doing everything else.
It waited and welcomed me back. That’s where I am now, tip toeing in. Returning. Starting again.
“Oh my God, what if you wake up and you’re 65, or 75, and you never got your memoir or novel written, or you didn’t go swimming in those warm pools and oceans all those years because your thighs were jiggly and you had a nice big comfortable tummy; or you were just so strung out on perfectionism and people- pleasing that you forgot to have a big juicy creative life, of imagination and radical silliness and staring off into space like when you were a kid? It’s going to break your heart. Don’t let this happen.”
The quote above is taped next to my computer. And in my bathroom. When I first read those words, I panicked.
No. No. Nooooooo I thought to myself. I think I even said it out loud.
Nothing scares me more than that scenario. Filling my life with minutia because I’m scared. Avoiding stepping into the fullest expression of who I am. Willing to share 90 percent of me but keeping that final 10 percent hidden, secret. Certain that if someone truly knew all 100 percent of me they would reject me. My darkness, my insecurities, my failures, my not-enoughness.
I toed the line of surface (its shiny and bright up here) versus intimacy (ugly bits and all).
Intimacy is a willingness to be truly seen by another, to be witnessed in your totality.
Because that sliver of secret shame, that final 10 percent, it will always contaminate the whole. It will unman you.
Until you are willing to be seen, as uncomfortable and impossible as it seems, your secret fears and insecurities will dominate your life. When you are real with yourself, you build a foundation on which you can do anything because truth is your freedom. Your liberation from a false self.
One version of you. No stories, no masks. From that place of self-acceptance and transparency you can launch.
That’s why I write. To tell the truth. To share things that instinctively I want to hide or “make perfect.”
Because I know that any amount of hiding, no matter how small, keeps me stuck. Immobilized. Small. Disconnected.
Hiding in my life has looked like an eating disorder, people pleasing, over-drinking, perfectionism. Seeking answers Out rather than In.
Living split feels awful, terrible, shitty. I’ve tried. It doesn’t work for me or you. So I write. About infertility, miscarriages, fear, perfectionism, booze, parenthood, marriage. The words free me. They clear the path ahead, shine a light for me to see clearly, patiently, wholly.
It is so tempting to pretend to be the version we think the world wants.
Because we think the thing inside us that we keep locked up, secret, will make us an outcast. Will be the cause of our ruin and rejection.
But its the opposite. That 10 percent we keep hidden is what will ultimately connect us to the whole.
It will open the flood gates to love, because truth always, always, always leads to love. As long as we keep it buried, we will live in loneliness and cut ourselves off from the big full life we are meant to live.
These words are me saying I see you. All 100 percent of you. And you are beautiful and worthy of wholeness. Of stepping into your light.
Read Anne’s quote again. And again. And again. Write it out. Read it daily. Live it fully.
Always, I am here to journey with you. Everything is better with a wingman, sara@sandycocos.com