What makes you hide your best parts?
Hide in your Disguise
One of the first skills we learn is how to hide. Peek-a-boo is a universal game played with babies. It is supposed to be for enjoyment, but it is probably scary for the baby. The sudden disappearance of a caretaker shows up as distress on the infant’s face and the reappearance of a human face brings delight. The real benefactor of this game is the human. They are entertained by having the ability to change the emotions of the infant. Sometimes this works as a distraction to stop crying but the odds are good that the baby wasn’t crying because it wanted to play peek-a-boo. Over time, this game morphs into hide and go seek which also often gives the disadvantage to the younger player because they don’t understand how to hide well enough. Plus, most adults cheat and keep their eyes open a little. The good part is often the squeals or chuckles of the younger players as they are being found. That is a precursor to what we want as adults too.
You Can’t See Me
This is a lifelong game. Who we dress up as in our many roles can get confusing. Thoughts about how professionals appear don’t overlap with parenting yet. Siblings stay disguised at the age they last interacted with family members for life. The doorway to many childhood homes is a mysterious portal that turns grown adults into little children if there are parents around. Against our best judgement, we revert to who we were in the past knowing that our childhood bedroom is just down the hall but not the refuge it used to be. The only way out of these circumstances is a safe return to the world we traveled from. It is shocking to think that most adults feel safer in the artificial world of business over the supposed bosom of a family. It’s no one’s fault. The disguise changed and everyone was comfortable with the old one. There isn’t time to get to know the new you, so you just stay hidden.
Hide in your own sight
This month, you have loosened your grip on life, started to devise to-do lists and even surprised yourself by trying one-word journalling. Your notebook may start to look like a plan book when we define ourselves with more emphasis. When you go through your to-do list, identify what feelings hide behind the entries. If you can define the feeling you seek from exercising, jot it down next to the activity. If you want to determine what you get out of bringing donuts to work, write it down. When you have your why it is easier to choose whether to keep each item. Knowing what feeling you are seeking is gold. It is perfectly acceptable to keep doing what gives back to you and dropping items that are hiding out as duties if that pleases you. If there are assignments disguised as requirements and you can’t skip them, elevate the feeling that they are supplying. Challenges can be growth opportunities. If you can dismiss the things that don’t spark joy and no one will miss them, what are you waiting for?
Seek what is hidden
Once you have uncovered the feelings that make up most of the emotions you home-grow every day, add in some that create the same delight of Peek-a-boo. If it turns you on to be an occasional people-pleaser, get coffee for someone else. If you know that you want to feel that you are more invested in parenting, add something fun like game night. If you know that you will just fall into the disguise of a zombie when you turn on the TV, don’t turn it on. Go deliberately into another room and read, or text some friends, or investigate how to build a canoe, or bake a cake. Anything other than that autopilot activity will grow some new brain cells, feed them some dopamine and give you the chance to write down a new feeling. Seeking yourself can supply plenty of delight. Check behind the drapes.
Hiding? Where do you go first to hide? Why is that your safe spot? What new feeling would you like to have?
