Setting yourself free from the addiction to being invisible [Part 1]

The end of your chameleon era

I usually get some push back when I refer to the attitude of chronically making the choice to be invisible (especially when you’d rather allow yourself to be seen) as an addiction… and I understand why. There is so much stigma and pain woven into the word addiction. My intention is not to paste a label over you or to downplay other forms of addiction such as drug and alcohol abuse.

The reality is that there is no other word that could truly encompass the grip that choosing to remain invisible can have over us. The word just captures greatly an inner dynamics that often causes us to hide our brightness, especially at a time where it is needed more than ever before in the world. So as you keep reading, please keep an open heart.

If you’ve been following my work recently, you may’ve noticed that I started speaking more about allowing ourselves to be seen and to disrupt our invisibility cloaks. Why? The earth demands more transparency. And she is not joking. Repression your authenticity and hiding your brightness is only going to become more painful in this paradigm. That inner divide is just going to be more heavy on the human nervous system.

Choosing to hide, is an unconscious affirmation of the fact that you trust darkness, more than you trust being in the light.

And that is something we are being asked to outgrow. The unconscious has ruled long enough. Would you agree?

Our collective love story with being invisible

Choosing to hide or to be invisible, is one of our most primal survival responses. It comes with the human package. It is what we naturally do when we anticipate that showing up authentically might expose us to a level of pain that we don’t feel equipped enough to resolve.

When does it become an addiction then you might ask? It’s when it starts getting chronically in the way of your ability to express your authenticity, your true intentions, your unique creative endeavors and the gifts you wish to share with the world.

I mean, let’s be real for a second. I hope you are not doing all that inner work just so that you can clear the pain. I hope behind it there is a genuine intent to bring more of your fullness out and to take more of your light out of the dark.

There is actually a compassionate intention behind my use of the word addiction. I would even go as far as saying that being invisible is a collective addiction. I certainly feel it within myself more than I’d prefer.

Why compassionate? Because it’s easy to beat ourselves up when we don’t show up in the ways we want or think we should. It can lead to a spiral of toxic shame. When you begin to understand that the repression you are experiencing has deeper roots, it often commends more grace for yourself. Beneath your impulses to hide, there is deeper pain that is screaming to be addressed.

What lies beneath the surface

I like to think of most addictive behaviors like an iceberg. They usually have something beneath the surface: an emotional conflict they help us compensate for.

Some people refer to the addiction to being invisible as the fear of being seen. Yet as I often say,

What you fear is not being seen… not really. Being truly seen is what you crave. It is your most natural inclination. What you fear instead, is the potential of experiencing any backlash if you reveal yourself. It is the possibility to experience humiliation, alienation, loss or persecution if you allow yourself to express what your heart truly desires, that you truly fear.

The cardinal fears your body remembers that cause you to hide

There are 4 cardinal fears that often cause us to hide. I came up with this classification and of course there might be more. That being said, every time I work with someone who is struggling with ingrained self sabotaging tendencies, the main fears we get to face and dissolve are:

• The fear of humiliation. This fear sounds a lot like “If I show up, I will be humiliated, shamed or ridiculed, and I can’t have that. If I show up, I’m afraid I won’t receive the praise I crave.”

• The fear of alienation. This fear sounds a lot like “If I show up, I will be rejected, abandoned and I won’t belong.”

• The fear of loss. This fear sounds a lot like “If I show up, I risk losing people and things that I don’t think I can live without.”

• The fear of persecution. This fear sounds a lot like “If I show up, I risk being attacked or targeted. If I show up, I’ll be made to feel powerless and I dread that.”

You may not have a conscious remembrance of any of these fears within you, but usually the body remembers. That ancient pain, is what is causing you to hold on tight to the invisibility cloak. Without addressing these core fears and emotional conflicts related, there is very little chance that you will allow yourself to be seen in your authenticity consistently.

If you are not able to feel the fear without allowing it to shut down your expression and your heart, then the fear still has something to teach you.

Illuminating these fears is one of the crucial steps to dissolve the grip of invisibility. I call them the 4 pillar initiations on the journey of self liberation. Meeting them without allowing them to mute you, is what allows you to embrace your individuation.

There are two perceptions of fear that I like to operate from. The first one is: “pain from the past projected onto the future”. The second one is: “Creative energy in endarkened disguise”. When you challenge these core fears, you don’t just clear their grip on your future, you also reclaim a creative energy you didn’t know was there.

Fear itself is a potent creative force that we still get to learn how to harness. It is a great invitation of these times. What we get to release even more, is the fear of being afraid, and the propensity to abandon ourselves as soon as we feel fear. This is where true fearlessness begins. It is not the absence of fear. It is the embrace of fear with an open heart. That is where the alchemy begins.

Introspection

Here is my invitation for reflection. Think about all the ways you wish to be liberated in your expression. Then ask yourself what are the fears and friction that emerge when you ponder that. Let your body participate to that inquiry and feel all the sensations that emerge. Ask yourself quietly: are these sensations and emotions coming from a fear of humiliation, alienation, loss or persecution? And feel the spontaneous answer of your inner knowingness (PS: many of these fears might resonate). Allow yourself to be fully present. You may even ask yourself how long you’ve carried these fears for… Allow yourself to get in touch with the part of you that is carrying that fear. You might even feel it manifest itself somatically. Explore the thought of opening your heart more fully to that aspect of you. Then complete the following prompt: “What this fearful part most needs from me right now is…”

You are illuminating the places where your own love is needed. It is the serum that ignites the self liberation.

What comes up for you as you ponder this? Please leave any reflections in the comment section below.

Of course there is more that needs to be taken into consideration when it comes to dissolving your invisibility cloak. I certainly intend to address it in another installment of undoing our tendencies to hide. So please make sure that you keep an eye out for that.

For now, here are some safety affirmations I’d like to offer to you:

• It is safe for me to fully illuminate the fears that hinder my expression

• It is safe for me to be a clear vessel for my own brightness

• It is safe for me to let go of the comfort that comes with being invisible

Thank you for reading. And if this resonated with you, please share with a friend.

In gratitude and reverence,

— Xavier

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