Hiding…is not beautiful.
We think it is.
We think we are hiding away what is unlovable, unforgivable, ugly.
We think we can edit our wholeness.
We’re so often wrong.
In the hiding we botch what is often most beautiful…
our humanity, all our parts.
So stuck in the beliefs that puncture us…
Energy leaking, vitality spilling out…
During morning meditation today, sitting up in bed in the dark, against big pillows under piles of white blankets…this stream of thought came in about women hiding.
It’s not a new idea, of course.
It’s not mine particularly.
We all know we do it to some degree.
My clients, and my close friends, talk about this a lot.
I have been reflecting on hiding.. what it looks like, what it serves, and in some ways how unnatural it is.
To not show who we are, to not share our hearts, our gifts, our unique nature.
And since hearing recently the piercingly beautiful John Hiatt song “Nothing In My Heart”(definitely go listen to the lyrics, but maybe read the rest of the post first…)
and also since an intimate tender talk with my man.
I’ve thought about the ways we hide our hearts.
And the ways I personally do. Allllll the ways.
And why?
Most of us agree at least on paper and when Brene Brown says it, that our vulnerability is beautiful.
All this hiding.
Of our tenderness, of our hearts, of the beauty of who we are.
And the ways this causes such misunderstanding and confusion.
And how much courage it takes to show our most tender self.
I watch the women in my Wednesday women’s-group.
I love them so.
And watch the ways they love and are drawn to each other.
Right in the middle of the mess, and the tender, and the vulnerable. They call each other close.. without any victim stories, without any fancy look-at-me… the opposite really.
They truly have NO idea of their beauty, of their
magnetics, of how the true nature of all their parts, offered up
each week, of how moving and compelling it is, and how much they are loved in the being that and only that.
Many of them have renewed their place
in this intimate group container since we began, right when covid hit.
How do we not know this beauty in the deepest ways?
How do we not trust this?
How do we not apply the same love and space for our own mix as we do for others?
Why is it such a leap of faith for women, or men also of course, to imagine they don’t have to ‘do” anything to be loved, wanted, admired, treasured?
The why doesn’t matter so much. We all know
some of the reasons.
The psycho babble the whatever. It’s not that interesting, the why-questions… I have been sort of cured of that kind of curious.
I am more curious about the shift.
Making a choice to be true to ourselves.
The feeling of the pause when we might choose to hide, or
divert or create a decoy… and in that moment, we don’t.
We stay put, we stay with where we are and whatever is there.
We just be.. whether raw and ragged or magnificent powerful beautiful wise.
Both take such courage.
And we get so habituated to the hiding and the covering and the
masking.
These are changes that are possible only in the tender single moment.
Only in present time.
Only in the deciding to become conscious, to stay with the self, to stay with whatever feelings and aversions and fears are coming up and to just stay there… to be there, no tricks or sleight of hand.
In that moment, you just let yourself be.
All of it. Even and especially the pieces you want to pretty up,
What if.
Can you?
Just once today?
Try… report back.
all my love to you xo lisa
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