I’m long overdue with a new article for Invisible Lives…and today I was inspired by an article I read on another website - The Power of Being Yourself on Urban Monk. I hope you’ll check out the article and really take it in. It’s well written and insightful. Simply put, the article asserts that hiding from ourselves and from others is riskier than really embracing our true selves.

So, what’s the risk in hiding? It sounds so safe, doesn’t it? Well, there is an array of risks that outshines the benefits. While the details differ from person to person, here are a few to get you thinking about it:

• When you hide, you imprison yourself within the walls of fear. You’ve lost your true freedom.

• When you hide, you create internal conflict, that can lead to discomfort and disease (think dis-ease).

• When you hide, you are giving control over to your inner critic, your saboteur, your gremlin - that inner voice that usually stems from childhood experiences of survival and is nurtured by the needy child within us who’s trying desperately to cope with the strains of adulthood. What worked to protect the child was probably an elaborate and brilliant set of defenses that no longer works in adulthood. Think about that one for a while.

• When you hide, you cheat others from getting to know you and to experience the real you.

There’s so much more to say. So, from your perspective, what are some other risks of hiding?

Check out the article, subscribe to Urban Monk, or check out the author’s own website Spiritual Blog.

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