The first email I read today is a friend’s “so-called” business newsletter. She usually hardly ever talks about business in it.
Instead, she’s typically describing her latest break up drama, or how her company is reinventing itself in perfect syncopation with her own internal reinvention, which happens dramatically around every six months. Her newsletter stays juicy.
I love it.
I’ve realized that the three newsletters I read most often are all from women who tell me about their kids, husbands, and lives more than anything else.
There’s the corporate woman with the farmer husband. And the Australian woman who keeps moving houses every year, always searching for the better place to be, dragging her husband and kiddos with her. And the entrepreneurial lawyer who’s a Burning Man devotee.
I realize that even though I’m reading their emails just to find the juicy scoop on what’s going on in their world, they somehow slip in their business messages too.
In fact it deepens their validity that I can watch them build and run hugely successful businesses exactly while all their head and heart drama unfolds.
It’s not a slow train wreck”¦it’s a slow train assembly, and they’re simply handling all the routine fallout from life as they continuously assemble their dreams.
I remember when I used to only teach and talk about Flow, and never about myself.
I hid behind my work, thinking that was only what you wanted to hear about: Flowdreaming.
I felt really uncomfortable sharing my personal self with you, probably for all the same reasons you might feel uncomfortable sharing yourself with thousands of strangers all over the world (fear of being judged, fear of being misunderstood, fear of letting people know “too much” about who I really am, etc.)
But here we are, with me in the middle of cancer treatment, writing to you all about being bald and nauseous, being at an inner crossroads, learning even more about making good choices, being hopped up on a half-dozen drugs at 3 a.m., deepening my understanding emotional self-healing”¦and on and on.
You get to see the end result of Flowdreaming in all the ways I’m living through this.
If I truly live in Flow, and if I manifest and create with the Universe, and if my personal growth and ongoing devotion to my expansion are the #1 things that uplevel my life”¦then the proof of this is what you see happening to me, day to day, in my own life, with what Flow hands me.
Which is, by necessity, personal.
I realized years ago that one of Flow’s jobs in my life is to crack me open and let me spill out like an egg yolk in front of everyone. I used to hate it!
But if I resist it, my life gets small. If I embrace it, my life gets bigger. And I always have the choice.
So I stopped resisting it and finally said, “OK, do what you want with me.”
And this is how I got out of the way of my myself.
I got out of my way, and let Flow use me however it needed so I can share the messages I have about all the Big Themes I embrace.
It led me to M.E. School. It’s led to multiple book deals. It’s led me to a much better work and family life balance. It’s led me to become more open and real and loving with everyone I know. It’s led me to numerous ongoing shifts in how I connect to my Divine self and to the life-changing “downloads” that slip in so constantly and reflexively that I often forget I’m even communicating with these Higher Sources. I could go on for pages”¦
I admire my three business heroines precisely because they let themselves spill out all over the page even more than I do.
So my new scary intention is to add myself to the list: here are FOUR women who’re letting you see their drama. Four very successful women I might add, whose drama doesn’t take them down, but propels them instead.
None of us hide ourselves, or hide behind our material by preaching what we know over what we do and are.
I’m thinking of a lot of coaches out there right now who’re worried about if what they know is good enough for their clients.
I’m thinking of lots of other people, too, in all kinds of other fields, who’re also hiding behind their professional knowledge because they’re afraid of sharing their personal selves.
Are you doing that? Are you hamstringing Flow in your life (and your own growth and expansion), because it might mean sharing yourself openly and bluntly?
It might mean you’ve been writing surfacey, empty business newsletters.
It might mean you’ve been hiding your personal, real self behind your work self.
It might mean you’ve been holding back from the world in any and all kinds of ways.
Try letting yourself spill out instead. See how your Flow responds to you. Does it open doors as a result, or close them?
Can you think of one way you’ve been hiding, and post it below?
Then let transcending that habit be your action step of the week.
(I really want to hear the ways you hide, so I can see if maybe I’m doing it too! Sometimes it takes someone else’s revelation to trigger your own.)
XO with lots of love and Flow!!
Summer
P.S. This is the very best playlist for letting yourself out to the world: Reclaim My Power and Speak My Truth Playlist
i have been hiding the last 2.5yrs, i come from a family of six children and live in a small country town where everyone knows everyone,s business!!!!! my three baby sisters died from non related cancers i helped each one through their journey. so when i was diagnosed with a tumor on my bowel 2.5yrs i wanted my journey 2 be mine i did,nt want people saying i was going 2 be the next 2 go. i shared with close family and friends . when i think about what u were saying yeah i was hiding but felt safer xo lorraine
I hide in many ways and the truth is no one pushes me to be my true self. I know I have pushed a few friends to be more of who they are. I do have one good friend who I feel comfortable about exposing my true self to her and she loves even more for it and she does the same for me. Today, I feel that I go through the motions of being responsible for my life but I always have feeling of running away from my responsibilities and being free to be me.
Hi Summer and fellow people, I’ve recently started listening to your work and hear how genuine and inspiring you are and I thank you. And now as you are with cancer, I’m in awe and hope never to be caught complaining of trivial matters like the weather . May you heal quickly in highest and best way Summer.???? I’ve been following a spiritual path for quite awhile but also living life too. Feeling a huge transition over the last couple years. . Wow. And it’s been one incident after another, including a big ‘wham’ of car accident and then no wages for a year and a half so I hide a lot as there is no money . Pride perhaps, I don’t want people to know. And I’m older with young kids.. a lot of reality comes forth . And such feel fear. And these sessions help to flow out of fear. Having a chance at life is so huge as I could of been injured as badly as many are. But it has led me to get back on my ‘happiness crusade’ lol. I never thought of my need for privacy as hiding in life and from the flow but wow ! Thank you for sharing and I am enjoying the other shares as we bare out souls a little .
You are such a good writer. We read those who can share well. You’re fascinating and uplifting. Those who share honestly can be trusted. We have the choice to delete or keep and when I learn from others I keep open to hearing from them. Thank you for being real and I’m praying for your quick recovery.
I hide all the time. I don’t do Facebook. I was in a awkward marriage and hid that fact from my friends. Then I met the love of my life. And that too was a secret, as we are same-sex. I rarely comment on anything on the internet. What if….someone searches my name and see’s some comment and then my ‘secrets are out’. I am also metaphysical and I am not involved with religion…football (the other religion)….or school…and I have no children. Keeping secrets takes a lot of energy. Not speaking my truth is tiring. Not letting people know you have a medical condition might jeopardize your job / insurance.
I don’t feel safe in a world where everyone comments on what I say or write….or my difference in beliefs. I am not asking for opinions or approval…I just want to be heard….without criticism. I want to show up and believe that no one is looking at me and saying I am not the right size or my clothes aren’t stylish….or why am I wearing a hat….do I have cancer or just losing my hair. Some people are not very kind. Fortunately I know lots of great people who love me the way I am.
And something that makes me really angry…is when someone is diagnosed with cancer…I hear people say things like ….well you know he smoked in his early twenties. Or someone is diagnosed as having diabetes…and people say….well no wonder did you see how many donuts she put away at coffee break. I could go on and on. Its like people just look for ways to blame / shame people.
These are some of the ways I hide….and some of the ways other people make me ‘want to hide’. I know I ‘should not’ let other people’s opinions matter….but words do hurt. I also know, I have said things that hurt others. For that I am deeply sorry.
I think we all want to be heard, loved and celebrated.
I celebrate you Summer for your courage to be who you are !!!!
I have been hiding behind my weight. I hope you’re doing well Summer, you’re in my prayers.
Thank You for this assignment. I’m taking it as an assignment because you are the teacher and I am the student (wave 2). I’m taking it as an assignment because it is exactly what I need to do. I am hiding from expanding myself as a healer. I know I am, except I don’t “think” I have a modality to disappear diseases, cure headaches on the spot, or enlighten the minds of the unsuspecting. I am hiding from the modalities I have found to learn to expand my capabilities. I found one system where it’s all laid out in a computer program, how simple is that. I have yet to make the investment. I am not hiding my intention to heal and to be a healer. I realize I may be healing/a healer in other disciplines, such as listening, making observations and suggestions that have powerfully affected other people positively. Thanks for this assignment, for maybe I’m not hiding as much as I thought!
I have spent the majority of my life being afraid of revealing who I am for fear of being rejected as I was when I was in grade school. I now realize how much of my life has been wasted fearing others.Do you use SHY as your excuse for seeking Security by Hiding Yourself?