Member-only story
Are You Afraid of Your Own Impact?
When I was a little girl, if I got too loud, too rambunctious, too ME, I was quickly pulled aside by my mother and told to stop. It was too much for her.
When I tried to have impact in my family, to be myself, whether it was self-expressing with crayon on the basement wall or being reluctant to practice ballroom dancing (it was a European culture thing), my father beat the shit outta me. And I had the welts to prove it.
The sad irony of it was, the reason my parents reacted this way is because they were scared. Scared of ME, of my impact. And I quickly had to be brought to heel.
Certainly, there were other factors at play. My parents’ own childhood experiences, and how they believed children should be raised.
I quickly learned that the very best thing I could do was to keep a low profile and stay silent. The less attention I attracted, the safer I was.
So you understand why I have a fear of visibility. It kept me from creating and sharing videos, being active in building community, and even sharing my deeper self with the people I love for a long time.
Not everybody (thank heaven) has been subjected to physical violence to squelch their impact, but we’ve all experienced the squelching. Women in particular have been steeped in a cultural tea of ‘too much’…
