The Birthday Paradox: On Being Seen When You've Spent a Lifetime Not Being

It's late. I'm writing this close to the end of my birthday, and I almost let it wait until tomorrow — when I'd have more time, when I could polish it, when it would be tidier.

But something in me keeps saying: today. While I'm still inside it. While the messages are still landing. While the thing I want to name is still happening in real time instead of already tucked into the past tense.

So here I am. Late. A little tender. And wanting to tell you something honest before the day ends.

The messages have been pouring in today — beautiful, specific, tender messages from people I love. People who see me. People who've walked alongside me through different seasons of this life.

And here's what I'm noticing, in real time, as I read them:

Part of me wants to pull away.

Not from the people. Never from the people. From the spotlight. From the experience of being the one everyone is looking at, talking about, celebrating.

I want to sit with that for a minute, because I think it's worth looking at. Not to fix. Just to notice.

The weight I carried wasn't just weight

For most of my life, I wore weight as protection. That's not a metaphor I'm reaching for — it's the actual function my nervous system landed on, year after year, decade after decade. Weight kept me safe. Weight kept me from being fully seen. Weight was a wall, a boundary, a way of saying don't look too closely.

And it worked. It worked beautifully, actually. That's the thing about biological adaptations — they're not mistakes. They're intelligent. My nervous system was doing exactly what it was designed to do: keep me from being exposed in a world that hadn't yet felt safe enough to be exposed in.

Nine years ago, when my relationship with food and my body started shifting, it wasn't just about food or bodies. It was about what came underneath when the protection started coming down. It was about being seen. By myself, first. And then, slowly, by others.

The work is onstage. And I hide inside the work.

Here's the part that's getting clearer to me tonight:

I do work that is inherently onstage. I write. I teach. I show up on video. I facilitate groups. I send things into the world. The work asks me to be visible.

And I love that. I really do.

But there's a quiet way I've been hiding even inside the visibility. I hide inside the subject matter. Inside the neuroscience. Inside the frameworks. Inside the stories about clients, about research, about concepts. The subject matter becomes a kind of shield — a safer proxy for the person underneath it.

Today, there's no subject matter. Today, the spotlight turns toward me. Not my work. Not my ideas. Not what I can offer. Just… me. And the people who love me are saying beautiful things. True things. Things I believe are true about me.

And part of me still wants to pull away.

This is what unconscious contracts feel like

If you've been around my work for any length of time, you've heard me talk about Sarah Peyton's concept of alarmed aloneness — being activated, and being alone with that activation. You've heard me talk about unconscious contracts — the silent agreements we made long ago to stay safe, stay small, stay hidden.

Today I'm living inside one of mine.

Somewhere along the way, I made a contract that said: don't take up too much space. Don't be too visible. Don't let yourself be fully seen, because being fully seen is dangerous.

That contract protected something real, once. And now it's bumping up against a day where the most loving thing I can do is break it — gently. Not with force. Not by pushing through. Just by noticing. By letting one more message land a little deeper than the last one. By letting one more compliment actually reach me instead of sliding past.

The glimmers

Here's what I want to say, though, because this isn't a post about struggle:

Every time a name popped up on my phone today, I felt a glimmer. A tiny flash of joy. Oh, YOU. A memory. A season. A shared laugh. A moment that mattered.

And those glimmers are the point. They're the evidence. They're proof that I have not, in fact, been hiding as completely as the old contract insisted I was. Somewhere along the way, without quite meaning to, I let people in. I let myself be known. I built a life full of people who know something real about me — not just my work, not just my ideas, but me.

The spotlight still feels like a lot. That hasn't changed tonight.

But I can hold the discomfort and the glimmers at the same time. I can notice the pull to deflect and still let the love land. I can be a person who has spent a lifetime not being seen, AND a person who is, right now, being seen by a lot of people who love her.

Both. And.

What I'm practicing tonight

I'm practicing letting it in. Not all at once. Just one message at a time. One glimmer at a time.

I'm practicing not performing gratitude — not the fast, deflecting "thank you!!" that's really just a way of closing the door. I'm practicing the slower thank you. The one where I actually let the kindness touch me before I respond.

I'm practicing being the thing, not just teaching about the thing.

And if you're reading this and something in it resonates — if you know what it's like to do visible work while quietly hiding, or to carry weight that was never really about food, or to feel a little bit of pull-away every time someone tries to truly see you — I want you to know:

You were never broken. You were biological. Your protection made sense. And there's a version of being seen that doesn't require you to abandon the part of you that's still learning it's safe.

That's the version I'm practicing tonight.

That's the version I'm learning to live in.

Thank you — truly, slowly, with the door all the way open — to every one of you who showed up today. You are each a glimmer. And I felt every one.

💛