What's Up Wednesday - April 16, 2025

When this year began, I started to have a hard time managing the idea of being seen. I’m the type of person who has always performed behind-the-scenes roles like running the backend of a website, answering customer emails, and even creating graphics from time to time, but at some point, I started to realize my brilliance. I began to recognize that I could do all those things AND there is more that I have to offer the world.

Here's where this quote comes in… to be seen, you have to be willing to be vulnerable enough to receive from everyone and everything. We can’t show up in the world, especially as an authority, and expect we will be loved, nurtured, encouraged, and cared for. There are people in the world who will not like what you have to say or feel a need to stop you in your tracks. Receiving is about the good, the bad, and the ugly. What I had to learn was how to trust myself enough to speak to what I know on any topic. For example, facilitating a topic like gaslighting in a world full of narcissists, gaslighters, abusers, and victims of them all. This is a group of people who have a lot of ideas and points of view, no matter what side of the coin you’re choosing, but then I come into the view telling you that you can shut it all off? But yes, you can!

Now, the other piece of this, what do you do in your life to remain unseen? Do you make everyone mad, so they avoid you? Do you make your body fat or unattractive, so everyone discounts you? Do you stay off social media or never leave your home so everyone thinks you’re dead? We all do insane things to ensure we create the outcome we truly want. If you don’t want to be seen for whatever reason (avoiding rejection, pain, disappointment, etc.), you’ll make sure you stop it all. The only person who could ever stop you is you, and if you don’t believe it, look back over your life at how many times you were told no and you chose something anyway.

What’s required to change it is precisely what Brene Brown brings up in this quote: vulnerability. That doesn’t mean you run outside naked and say, "Look at me, I’m facing all the judgments I was afraid of."

Vulnerability can be a simple acknowledgement of you to yourself. The willingness to reflect on what you’ve been choosing and decide if that still works for you. The ability to reflect at all in my eyes is a vulnerability with yourself.

Do you want a little practice? Try these questions:

• What something in your past has shaped who you are?

• Where are you right now, and what steps got you here?

• What’s one thing you don’t like about yourself, and what would happen if you simply embraced it?

• What’s your biggest insecurity or weakness?

• If you had to say something nice about yourself today, could you do it?