Intimacy: Into Me You See
Nearly two years ago, for the three days leading up to my pre-GSB Colombia trip, I cried. Meeting 250 future classmates with no deliverables but to celebrate, dance, and get to know each other would be, by any normal standard, a dream. But as I began preparing for the trip, I kept breaking down. Every day, without fail, I cried. I was terrified of how I would show up, and if my new GSB community would accept me. I was especially afraid of people discovering my oddities and imperfections, and the shame I would feel.
Growing up, I led a pretty isolated life. Rather than going to the movies, I performed Shakespeare plays. Instead of a wide collection of friends and acquaintances, I graduated the 8th grade knowing just four people my own age. In my small town, values and spiritual beliefs were strongly enforced, and we were physically removed from outside influence. The nearest streetlight or grocery store was a 60 minute drive away.
I had no close friends. Rather than realizing this was because I hadn’t let anyone see me, I assumed it was because people did not like what they saw.
When I left home at 17 for college at UCLA, I was fundamentally unsure if anyone could understand much less accept me. I pretended to get cultural references to Star Wars or the Kardashians, and hid my ongoing anxiety around social norms. I blended in enough to avoid standing out, and kept everyone at an arm’s distance. The result: I had no close friends. Rather than realizing this was because I hadn’t let anyone see me, I assumed it was because people did not like what they saw. I became ashamed, and hid my true self even deeper.
In August 2015, I remember arriving at SFO, on the lookout for GSBers heading to Colombia. This was not to make sure I could say hello, but rather to give myself time to duck and hide. When I literally ran into Aram, Yazeed and Apoorv, each wearing GSB t-shirts, there was nothing I could do — I had to introduce myself. Twenty minutes later, I was at a bar trying to subtly eat my quinoa salad while the group — now about 15 people — ordered pitchers of beer and snuck rum into coke cans. I remember thinking, “What the heck have I gotten myself into?”
Within 24 hours of arriving in Colombia, however, my fears of rejection, inadequacy and shame started to fade away. I found people excited to dance goofily with me on the dance floor; those who didn’t want to stay at the Casino until 4 am, and instead shared a taxi home with me at 10; wanderers who wanted to travel in smaller groups to feel the spirit of Cartagena. In short, I found people with similar interests and values, and who were curious to learn about all the things that made each of us different, the things that made us interesting.
Colombia came and went, and I survived (as did all of you) — in fact, I thrived. I had never been part of a community that seemed so open and accepting. And so I decided to test the level of acceptance by volunteering to give the third TALK of the year, just weeks after the Colombia trip. My story is colorful, and not in the way most people would expect. I knew from experience that what I was preparing to say could label me as the “other.” But I went for it.
In my TALK, I shared how I had grown up in a spiritual community— if you want all of the details, email me and I can send you a link to the video — and in that community, I was trained to be grateful for, rather than challenge, the overwhelming rules and isolation of that faith. In sharing my story, in giving my TALK, I was doing the opposite — I was embracing intimacy, or, “into me you see,” as my mom likes to say. But I knew I had to do it to let people see the real me, and to build true friendships.
When I finished speaking, I wasn’t sure what the response would be — this was an entirely new experience, and much scarier than Colombia had been.
For the first time, I was able to release my shame.
After the TALK, I was flooded with hundreds of messages, dozens of requests for conversations. Working through them all, I built a community of new, real friends. People empathized with where I had come from, respected my decisions, and admired the person I had become. For the first time, I was able to release my shame. I was struck again, as I was in Colombia, by how fully the GSB community embraced me.
These past two years have been my happiest. Telling my story — the first time I truly shared everything, with anyone — was one of the most healing experiences of my life. Allowing people to truly see me — from Colombia, to TALK, to this very letter — has given me incredible confidence and has inspired me to make a commitment to transparency at all times.
What about you? What will you gain when you share your full self?
