Resting and hiding

A couple months ago an acquaintance was going through a rough time. She had just learned that her husband had been unfaithful (more than once) and her worst nightmare was coming true—the marriage she had desperately been trying to save for the past several months was coming to an end. In an email asking for my discretion, she said, "I need to protect myself." I thought: Are you protecting yourself or are you isolating yourself?

It's human nature to put up our defenses when we feel we are under attack. If your physical and/or emotional safety is at risk, you absolutely should do what you need to do to protect yourself.

Many times, though, the instinct to protect ourselves comes from our lizard brain, which is responding to a thought we're having in the moment that may or may not be true. Our lizard brain assumes the worst, so we hunker down and close ourselves off for fear that we'll be seen and judged for our vulnerability. We go into hiding.

Looking back at my own experiences, there were times when I thought I was protecting myself but was really hiding. When I was struggling with my first marriage, I protected myself by putting on a happy face, stuffing my feelings, and going along and making plans as if everything was fine—or would be fine. That behavior only succeeded in isolating me further from my essential self and from the people closest to me. 

I know now that I was hiding out of shame, embarrassment, and fear, and that kept me from reaching out at a time when I most needed community, not isolation. I mistakenly thought I was protecting others from the burden of my pain. In reality I was hiding because I was afraid of admitting the truth about my marriage to myself and being seen as less than and a failure by others. When I did eventually reach out, I found compassion and understanding, and not the judgment I had feared.

However, there are times when we do need to seek some isolation to protect our most tender selves. Recently, I did just that. I was already overwhelmed by the nonstop news of immigrant children being separated from their parents when I learned of a friend and former colleague's death. She was about my age and a single mom with a teenage daughter. Although different circumstances, it was yet another child being separated from her parent. 

That was it. I was done. I had become incapacitated by emotional overload. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to do. So I gave myself permission to do neither. I turned off my phone, logged off social media, and curled up on the couch under my favorite blanket. My soul needed time to rest and process the feelings—the sadness, the grief, the futility. Once rested, I was able to open up to trusted friend about what I was experiencing and that conversation helped me to engage with the world at large again.

I believe that learning to discern between our need to hide and rest is important for our wellbeing. Understanding whether we’re hiding from our truth or resting so we can discover our truth is an essential step on the path to true healing. We can’t have honest connection and healthy relationships with anyone, least of all ourselves, when we’re hiding.

The next time you feel like protecting or isolating yourself, ask yourself this question: “Am I hiding or am I resting?” Then allow yourself to open to compassion—from others but most importantly from yourself.

P.S. David Whyte wrote a beautiful essay on hiding that has brought me great comfort when I have felt the need to withdraw. It may for you as well.