The super short version of this post:
- Being visible and putting stuff out there = terrifying. But also appealing.
- And all sorts of biggifiers yell at us to hurry up and get big. Gah! Stressful!!!
- However, there’s a Very Useful Piece of Truth hiding under that pressure.
- We can take that part and toss the rest.
- Things that help sneak around the scary so you can uh, have your safety and eat it too.
- Some stuff about popcorn machines and mustaches and pirate monkeys.
This is on my mind a lot and now more because — excitement! — Camp Biggification is coming!
Being visible and putting stuff out there = terrifying.
So … you resist bringing your thing and your you-ness into the world because it’s freaking scary. Me too. Sometimes.
Totally legitimate.
And then we go more into resistance because there is so much pressure to do it already.
When our desire for the safety of invisibility runs smack into our desire to be seen by the people we want to connect with, we get stuckified.
There’s a way to sneak around this problem, but it can take time to get there.
Partly because of the biggifiers.
The biggifiers. They do a lot of yelling.
You know how it is. It’s supposed to be “motivational”, although it usually doesn’t motivate me to anything other than feeling crappy.
get out there what’s wrong with you be bigger be louder get over yourself why waste your life on fear sign up for my special asskicking service come on you can do it what’s stopping you the time is now go go go go
Of course, for some people this is useful.
And if it happens to work for you, rock on. People vary. So if this is what “lifts your luggage”, as Dan Savage would have us say, that’s great.
Some of us can’t get very far with this school of thought, though, because it doesn’t acknowledge the scary, hard and painful bits involved in stepping out into the sun.
And because it doesn’t recognize that feeling safe is a legitimate value.
Safety is important.
It just is.
You can’t function correctly if you don’t feel safe. You can’t learn, or grow, or be totally you.
And you do not need to be dragged kicking and screaming from your comfort zone. You’re allowed to expand your place of safety instead of forcing yourself to leave it.
You’re allowed to want to feel safe. And there are ways to build in safety and protection to everything you do.
At the same time…
There’s a beautiful, important truth to what the biggifiers are yelling.
And we need that truth too.
Here it is.
As I’ve said in the Blogging Therapy series:
There is generosity in allowing yourself to be seen.
You do not have to be seen by everyone. You’re allowed to find your own way — and your own safety mechanisms (from invisibility cloaks to invisibility hacks).
But it’s vital that you stop hiding from your right people. Because they need you.
When you take that risk and agree to let your right people see you, support shows up.
Becoming more visible to the people who need you the most is what helps you grow.
And that’s the way to nourish a business or a writing career or whatever it is: with safety, love, passion and fun.
And now I’m going to break my own rule and say something motivational.
Actually I’ll just repeat something I said here in ohmygod, February 2008:
You have spent your life accumulating the ideas, information and experience that have made you who you are. You are not serving anyone by keeping yourself small.
Of course it’s scary. Of course you are allowed to have the fear. Just remember: keeping yourself small is not helping anyone; it’s only struggling with your path.
There are people in this world who need exactly what you have. They need your gifts as those gifts are right now. And they are actively looking for you.
They are wondering where on earth the person is who can give them the thing that you have to give. It’s not fair to them that you’re in hiding.
You don’t need to shout from the rooftops, you don’t need to accost anyone or sell to anyone. All you need to do is put up a light so that the people who are looking for you can be drawn to you.
You don’t need to shine your light for everyone. You just agree to shine for the right people. But if you don’t turn on the light, the people who need you can’t find you.
It’s not about claiming that you’re better than anyone else. It’s just about letting your light have a place too.
Yes.
Sneaking into visibility
So. We have to find ways to connect the good parts of visibility to the good parts of invisibility — in a non-scary, mindfully biggifying kind of way.
That means the shining your light part and the being as YOU as you can stand part.
While still getting to keep the I am allowed to feel safe and supported and do things at my own pace part.
Here are the four best sneak-arounds that I know of:
1. Finding your Right People.
Because when you only have to show yourself to them, everything gets safer and easier.
Right People and getting them to come to you — we’ll spend an entire day of Camp Biggification on this. This is what I call the art of hard-to-get marketing. Fun stuff.
2. Accessing safety.
Finding comfortable, unlikely ways to put your stuff into the world, without having to be seen by people who don’t need to see you. We’re devoting the second day to that.
3. Getting out of isolation.
As Barbara says, “isolation is the dreamkiller”.
And as Hiro says, “isolation perpetuates the fear”.
So part of mindful biggification is learning both how to connect to your internal resources and to create an external support network of people who believe in you but won’t make you feel bad when you get stuck.*
Once you have this you can run around in your pajamas yelling things to yourself like ACTIVATE THE NETWORK and it’s awesome.
* Yes! This is what we’re doing the LAST day of Camp Biggification. Without pajamas. Unless you want to wear pajamas, which is completely fine by me.
4. And making it fun.
I so wish you could see my notebook of scribblings for planning Camp Biggification. I’d post pictures but my writing is unintelligible.
It’s just full of craziness, wackiness, wall-talking, meditations and silliness. And excitement for the first thing we’re doing at the Playground.
My notebook says things like this:
Okay. We need a great big circus tent! Of safety!
Hard hats. Metaphorical popcorn machine. Zap the cape.
The announcer needs a handlebar mustache. The ushers should definitely be pirate monkeys. In striped vests! Eating things on sticks.
Eeeeeeeeee! I love this!
Anyway. When you figure out how to have fun with the process of creating (at the same time as you’re making room for the scary and the hard), weird, magical things happen.
What I wish for you.
A spark of possibility.
Room to breathe, grow, experiment, change things at your own pace.
And a sense of what it feels like when visibility helps you feel more safe rather than less so.
It’s a ridiculously counter-intuitive concept, so that’s why I’m wishing you the sensation of it — in the hope that the rest will grow from there.
(And if you can make it to Camp Biggification, it would be a joy to have you there playing with us.)
Comment zen for today.
Mindful biggification is challenging.
And this being seen / not being seen stuff can be super trigger-ey.
So we tread gently with our stuff and make room for people to have their own experience. Big love to all the commenter mice, the Beloved Lurkers and anyone else who winds up here through the magic of the internet.
Follow
…when visibility helps you feel more safe rather than less so.
My inner monster, the Dragon-in-the-Den, is sputtering, “What? What?!” while I whisper, “What if…? Could it be…?”
Oh, and hey, I just had a hot buttered epiphany! Must have been the influence of the metaphorical popcorn machine. Now I’ve got something juicy to blog about tonight…
.-= Kathleen Avins´s last post … The summer of my dissertation proposal =-.
Oh, Havinator. This is awesome. And it’s exactly what I’m struggling with right now. Because today – today! – I posted my resignation letter. And I’m all what now?! about it. And the what-now is partly about starting my teeny biz and that’s scaring the pants off of me.
And even though I won’t be able to make it to Camp Biggification, this is a lovely road map to help me start thinking about this stuff in a safe but also moving-forward kind of way.
(Right people. Where are you?)
.-= Lucy Viret´s last post … People who rock: Havi Brooks. =-.
My inner monster, the Dragon-in-the-Den, is sputtering, “What? What?!” while I whisper, “What if…? Could it be…?”
Kathleen speaks my mind.
I’m terrified of getting big. What if I can’t live up to expectations? What if I’m secretly misleading people? How can I talk myself up like that when I know I’m not that great?
The oddest thing is that I think that subconsciously, I’m thinking of biggification as a zero-sum game. “There’s only so much attention to go around,” my monster says. “If you attract more of it for what’s obviously not worth paying attention to, you’re not only letting down the people whose attention you’re attracting, but you’re taking attention away from people who actually deserve it.”
On the other hand, I – the Core Me – want very badly to succeed.
I wonder how I could couch this to quiet my monsters. More introspection is needed, clearly.
Thank you for this, Havi.
.-= Chris Anthony´s last post … What is delight? =-.
A lovely man (aka Havi’s Gentleman Friend) once told me that mushrooms are the largest living organisms on earth. And that the “fairy rings” of mushrooms we sometimes see are simply the flowers (or is it fruits?) of an underground organism that can grow as vast as a forest.
A mushroom is vast, not because of its individual flowers, but because those flowers are rooted in a wholeness that is so much greater than the sum of its visible parts.
We need to redefine “being big” so that it’s more congruent with reality. The truth is, we are not just individual beings (which can make us feel like ants trying herd elephants) but the blossoms and fruit of a magical ecology. We’re singers in a divine choir, not soloists trembling alone under a single spotlight.
Being visible becomes a whole lot less scary when you realize the vastness of That which is rooting for you.
.-= Hiro Boga´s last post … In the Center of my Crown… =-.
It is soooo scary to be visible–honestly, I think it’s sometimes harder to be ‘invisibly visible’ online—at least when you engage in a face-to-face, you can read social cues as a gage of your impact…
Thanks for the motivation and support Havi!
Visibility with your right people makes you feel safe? Wow, I never would have framed it that way, even though now I see how obvious it is. Thanks Havi! xo
ps: camp biggification people, I am jealous of you. Especially since you get to eat things on sticks. Like red velvet cake pops. Mmm, yum.
.-= Erin´s last post … My official Cuteness Engineer hat =-.
Havi forgive me … you wrote a lovely, wonderful, transformative post that has just spurred a massive revelation in me.
Seriously.
Thank you.
But …
Hiro’s comment … made me cry. In the good way.
Thank you, Hiro.
.-= christy´s last post … Mind Churn =-.
I really enjoyed this post. I seem to be reading so much lately, on books and blogs, encouraging me to stampede through all my blocks, doubts, and fears. I’ve spent way too much time stomping on those things, and already know how that works out.
I love your emphasis on safety, while still acknowledging the value of becoming visible, and being there for our right people. Just reading it makes visibility less daunting for me.
I also loved your spark of possibility, the idea that being visible might help us feel more safe. Wow. I’ve never actually considered that possibility before. It seems a good thing to hold and contemplate for a while.
.-= Dave Rowley´s last post … The Idea Catcher =-.
Um, uh….WICKED blog.
Isolation stifles. Safety nurtures.
Let’s party!
: )
Havi’s post + Hiro’s comment = YES!
This stuff is so chewy.
Hiro’s comment just totally made my day. And also made me glimpse the safety in being visible. That maybe that is how one finds the support of the Universe. Wow.
.-= Amber´s last post … Having no Plan is Awesome =-.
A big “yes!” resonated through me as I was reading this – I so need those things, and I feel ready to play with them. Thank you, Havi, for this outline: it gives me something to think about and play with while I wait for Camp Biggification.
@Hiro: Those were wonderful words! I’ll never see mushrooms in the same way – what a fabulous image for what you were expressing here. Whenever I need to access the spirit of what you said, this image will help me remember. Thank you.
.-= Josiane´s last post … Middle of the night musings =-.
You are simply awesome. Never stop doing what you do. This blog creates perspective on the craziness of life.
Havi, you are so on target with my head lately, how do you do that? So I am about to make myself visible, but only my right people are going to really see me for what I am. So this is totally resonating. Today’s post which hit the spot! And thanks Hiro for reminding me that I am not alone, I have a whole network, all I need to do is remember that they are all out there with me singing in the choir. Beautifully put! Wish me luck! I’m going visible!
ooo yes Havi. I can’t lie my blog is a little bundle of imperfections and a designer’s nightmare. I certainly could have hidden myself for a good six months more whilst I figured out my preferred medium to communicate (pictures, audio, writing,sticking out of tongue or bum? Or all quite possibly.) I started writing on Facebook and then went a little further with a blog. Now I am looking at ways I can make it look more like me with all the vital gadgets thingmebobs. Bt this is bound to take a lot of time too. Months maybe. Such is life!
But I wouldn’t be even started this process of experimenting and putting myself out there if it wasn’t for you here and your very clear communication – a juicy, tricky call to take risk but on our own terms. To create lots of safety as we venture out, but to venture out nevertheless. It’s been a good decade since I’ve been as brave as I am now. Really it is. But boy am I grateful to have stumbled upon this space and to have a feeling of travelling further towards my home, my heart, my essence. I’ve a million miles to go yet. But it’s ruddy marvelous to be on route to something fun and meaningful and Leila-ful. So love, hugs and cups of tea from London to one and all. Thanks as always for the huge cup of inspiration! Happy, happy Playgrounding!
Leila xxx
.-= Leila Lloyd-Evelyn´s last post … WHAT QUALITIES MAKE YOU GO ZINGGGG & OOO LA LAA? =-.
Havi, you always say what I’m thinking and feeling(and you say it so elegantly)! How do you do that?:)
Havi,
I have been reading your blog for a little over a month and I am so inspired by your quirky authenticity.
I’ve just started putting myself out there so my people can find me and I’m already being found in profound ways. Your encouragement has helped along the way.
Thank you for being your Divine Spark in the world and helping mine burn brighter.
Blissings!
.-= April´s last post … Speaking the Truth & The Work of My Heart =-.
“You know how it is. It’s supposed to be “motivational”, although it usually doesn’t motivate me to anything other than feeling crappy.”
That line finally made me come out of the mousehoule I was lurking in. It’s really nice to know that I’m not the only one that doesn’t get motivated by yelling. In fact, I’m far more likely to not do anything because I get angry with the should/have to nature of the shouting and just go as fast as I can in the opposite direction.
This is why I love your blog. You tell people it’s OK not to be a lighthouse and shine for everyone to see, but to be a lantern and light up the path for those who need it.
Thanks
.-= Gareth´s last post … Are you avoiding things because they’re painful? =-.
Dear Havi,
Your latest comments couldn’t have come at a better time. I am in the middle of an academic conference with hardness and burnout and no safety and your posts are soothing and wonderful and helping me move through.
so thank you for writing all of that.
Hannah
.-= Hannah´s last post … Hannah_savannah: learning about patent strategy in a lecture by Bronwyn Hall of the famous Hausman, Hall Griliches econometrics paper =-.
You said “lifts your luggage”. Eeeeeee! *fangirl fit*
When I first read the motivational thing you quoted here, I thought: that sounds really good. I can believe that.
And since then, I’ve been working on finding my right people and getting unisolated, while really not having any idea that that was what I was doing.
So reading this, I’m thinking: right, exactly. That must be why I feel so much better off today than 6 months ago!
I still have a lot of work to do, but knowing I’ve been working on the right things makes a big difference. Thanks for all the way-pointing you give me!
Hi,
I´m one of your regular lurkers. I don´t usually feel comfortable writing in english so I just bow my head in agreement from the distance/closeness.
I just needed to tell you that I´m amazed how this whole week you´ve posted Exactly what I was needing to hear in this road I´m in.
After reading your blogging series for the eleventh time and doing some internal work for what seems like ages, I just couldn´t help my self. I felt I had so much to give. I was overjoyed with love for humankind in general and for my country in particular (Dom. Rep.) that I just needed to do it.
So I went and opened this blog and started little by little, just told my husband who´s my biggest fan. And when I thought I was ready, with a couple of decent posts that came happily dancing out of me, I sent some emails to my friends and family. You know, my inner circle, just to broaden my horizon and see what it feels to be read by
more people.
And it just stopped.
The happily flow of ideas and feelings I was anonymously sharing, is no more. It feels observed. Like a horror movie with a lady in a dark forest who can´t pin point exactly where the danger is coming from.
I guess, all this rambling is to tell how much I appreciate you sharing your light with us. It sure helps me find my way out of the forest or enjoy it enough to make it my home.
Huge internet hug for you my dear friend
.-= Carolina´s last post … La posibilidad de ser…..lo que somos. Y ya =-.
ooo… The scary of leaving a comment, putting my ignorance out there for all the world to see… yikes!
Here it goes…
Havi, I LOVE your writings! I’ve been lurking for about a week now, spending WAY too much time on the computer because each of your posts leads me to several others that I just *have* to read. I’ve learned so much already.
And now I have a question – How do I know which thing is *my* thing? There are so many things, how do I choose? Hmm… I see fear lurking in the corner… perhaps we need to have a conversation… (wanders off, pondering her fear…)
Thanks!
Great Big Circus Tents FTW!!! Ok, now that’s out of the way…
I’ve read this about 5 times, before realizing how well it reflects what I am doing *right now*, with my own Circus Thing. And I have to share the revelation that you, Havi, Selma, and every last one of the Commenteers have been for me.
It’s that whole Right People thing. See, I didn’t know you all existed. Really. I had no idea that there were significant numbers of people who would relate to the sort of stuff Havi writes. (Which is disturbingly like what I write, when I’m not hiding behind being someone else)
Oh, I’ve caught glimpses of you all before in various creative/spiritual communities, but your isolated voices seemed to get drowned out, and I lost track of you too quickly.
So if I were limited to thanking you (Havi, Selma, the Commenteers & Lurkers) for one thing, it’s for helping me to find you. Helping me To be less alone. Not isolated. More visible. Less afraid of the spotlight.
This is SO cool.
So very, very cool.
.-= Tori Deaux´s last post … A Trip To The Circus, Courtesy of Mighty Metaphor Mouse! =-.
I really needed this today; thanks for posting. I did some more work on an idea from March last week- and over the weekend; my monsters shot it down because they fear my safety.
-prints this out-
Thank you for sharing this with those of us who can’t make it to Camp Biggification.
And I so vote for pirate monkeys. They’re under-rated in this world.
.-= Rose´s last post … VPA # 3 – The Patience of Patterns =-.
Yes yes yes!
Havi you’re the only person who writes about biggification in this way. Everyone else, the ‘motivators’ make it seem so well BIG +intimidating, and therefore un-doable.
I struggle to recognise myself in their words, as in I’m not that fearless, over-confident, crusher of fears entrepreneur that they’re describing.
I LOVE the idea of shining a light for my Right People. And yes, since I’ve been building my tribe slowly but surely I feel safer and more willing to share as much me-ness as I’m comfortable with at the mo’.
What I’m finding difficult is seeing how many of the people in my real-world social circle aren’t actually my Right People. (Hard, awkward)
Hiro’s prose is breathtakingly beautiful
Besos xx
.-= Nats´s last post … Unleashing your inner eccentric fashionista =-.
Havi,
“People in this world who need exactly what you have.”
Me? Really, are you certain? OK, well maybe I know one thing that not EVERY soul on the planet already knows. And then maybe I can think up one more, then maybe one more. Baby steps until confidence comes, right?
Thank you for showing me the baby steps!
Laurie L.
.-= Laurie L.´s last post … How to Organize Your T-Shirts =-.
Hi Havi, I really like what you wrote here about finding the right people, so I wrote a whole post about finding my people and shared your long quote:
http://happymoonmoon.blogspot.com/2010/08/finding-my-people.html
Thanks!
.-= Elisa´s last post … Finding My People =-.
Hi Havi,
Finding this (much of your stuff, actually) a while after originally posted, but your posts have been helping me biggify (I’ve restarted my blog! Under my real name! ACK!!) and *this* post just helped me with the whole ‘I don’t REALLY have anything to say of VALUE’ thing that slapped me upside the head right after I’d restarted said blog (of course).
I was looking at the people I admire, doing stuff kind of like my stuff but not exactly like my stuff and thinking, ‘Man, they have it WAY more together and on the ball that ME. Who’s going to listen to ME?’ And, I’m not even quite sure how I want to put forward my stuff yet, which was freaking me out even more.
But gosh it’s helpful to know it’s all just a ‘thing’! And I come here, to you, on a regular basis now that I’ve found ya to remind myself of that in the very kind yet subtly butt-kicking way you do that.
Thanks, Havi. Huge, heartfelt, warm hugs of THANKS.
You might hear it all the time, but I just need to say that you’ve been making a really big difference in my day to day life. You’re a gem of a being and such an inspiration for what can happen when you just do your thing out loud. Wow.
With love,
Orilea