What are you hiding?
If something came to mind when you read that question, you’re not alone.
When I ask it in a room full of people, the room gets very quiet.
Then people begin writing their answers anonymously, often on postcards.
A man hiding his accent.
A woman who didn’t receive her diagnosis until she was 41.
Someone hiding that their life looks perfect from the outside but they feel broken inside.
One person wrote:
“I am scared I will find myself alone if I embody myself.”
I read every one.
And what I notice every time is this:
The people writing these answers believe they’re the only one carrying that thing.
But they’re sitting in a room full of people carrying something too.
If everyone could see the stack of postcards, they would realize something powerful:
They’re not alone.
Why hiding feels so lonely
The hardest part about hiding something isn’t the thing itself.
It’s believing you’re the only one carrying it.
Managing it. Protecting it. Working so hard to keep it invisible.
And once you start noticing it, you begin to see it everywhere.
In workplaces.
In relationships.
In the quiet moments we don’t talk about very often.
The places we recognize it
Sometimes we see it in stories first.
A character in Bridgerton hiding her class status like survival depended on it.
Queen Charlotte navigating what she couldn’t say about her husband’s mental health while an entire court watched her closely.
A K-pop idol hiding her scars in Demon Hunters because she feared being truly known could cost her everything.
None of those stories are exactly mine.
And somehow all of them are.
Because the instinct to hide shows up everywhere.
The moment I heard it somewhere else
Everyone was talking about Heated Rivalry, so I binged it.
A character who had hidden his sexuality for years said something I couldn’t believe I was hearing.
“When you have a secret that you work as hard as I did to protect, it’s exhausting. It’s a nonstop effort. And it’s really, really lonely.”
I grabbed my phone and recorded the screen. I re-watched it many times.
Because those are the same words I use when I talk about hiding.
Exhausting.
Lonely.
A nonstop effort to manage what people see.
I’ve said those words from stages. I’ve written them in books.
And hearing them somewhere else reminded me again:
This experience is far more universal than we think.
The quiet after being seen
This week, I got off the phone with another professional speaker.
She travels constantly. Does the work. Gets the applause.
Then she mentioned something we rarely say out loud.
Sometimes, after the talk ends and everyone leaves, she goes back to a hotel room somewhere in the world and feels lonely.
Not because anything went wrong.
Just the quiet that comes after being seen by so many people.
I know that room.
I’ve sat in that room too.
For a long time, I thought I was the only one who felt that way.
Until she said it.
Where unhiding begins
Whatever you’re hiding right now, someone else is carrying it too.
And sometimes all it takes is hearing someone say it out loud.
That moment when you realize you’re not the only one.
That’s where unhiding begins.
P.S.
Every time I ask, “What are you hiding?”, the room gets quiet.
Not because people don’t have an answer.
Because they do.
If something came to mind while you were reading this, reply and share it with me.
I read every message.
Thank you for being part of the UNHIDING community.
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