Hide out, lose out.

Wanting to hide from the world from fear is a certain obstacle to living a life you love.  What makes us do it, then?

Fear:  That’s probably obvious, right?  But there’s more to it than that.  Normally, people have a natural tendency to hang out in their ‘comfort zone’, and if they’ve had to (or chosen to!) step out of their comfort zone then it’s probably generated some kind of fear.  When you step out of your comfort zone you may find it exhilarating.  This is known as the ‘stretch’ zone.  But there is also the ‘panic’ zone, which is beyond the stretch zone and may not have been a step chosen by you.  You may have even been thrust into a situation that feels beyond your control, which reinforces that panic.  Panic can cause you to hide because you want to feel safe, but are you really safe in hiding?

Recently, I was hiding out.  Yes, I admit it.  I was having a little ‘Imposter Syndrome’ episode and not really showing up as my true self.  I was painfully shy as a child, to the point where people believed I wouldn’t speak to them because I was a snob, but I was actually just bashful.  This would make me want to hide all the more.  If I don’t keep this in check, I can slip back into hiding out because I don’t want to draw attention to myself for fear of how people perceive me.  Generally, I don’t care what people think about me but when it comes to others questioning my integrity… let’s just say I’m working on it!  (And there’s no shame in this- when someone questions your commitment to one of your integral values, it’s bound to bring up emotions to work through.)

While I was hiding out, I got a wake up call in the form of a completely unprovoked and unfounded questioning of my integrity.  The details of which are probably for another time, but suffice to say I learnt from this that it doesn’t matter one bit if you’re hiding out.  You might delude yourself into thinking that you’re controlling how people perceive you, for a little while, but somehow you will realise that people still have their opinions of you whether you’re in hiding or not.  You’re actually more in control of how other people perceive you by putting yourself out there for the world to see.  Most importantly, you might as well be doing what you love since people are going to judge you, regardless.