Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies
Danielle Cobo: Have you ever felt that you have to hide a part of yourself to fit in? Do you think that anyone you know might as well? Perhaps you wish that you could be a part of an inclusive community where people can feel seen and heard and different experiences and perspectives are valued. If you said yes to any of these, then you're in the right place.
This is a conversation for everyone. And and it will require you to think about yourself, those on your team and the people in your life in an introspective way. our guest today is an expert on expanding the definition of diversity to be fully inclusive. As a result of a defining experience, she realized that she had spent a large portion of her life in hiding.
This led her to her current journey in Finding Freedom. She is a TEDx speaker and the author of the bestselling book, single-Handedly Learning to Unhide and Embrace Connection. to discuss how to unhide and build your authentic self in an inclusive workplace. Join us in welcoming Ruth Rothblatt.
Ruth Rathblott: Hi, Danielle.
I'm so excited to be here and talking to you.
Danielle Cobo: Likewise, actually, I
watched your TEDx a year ago and was deeply inspired, then watched it again, I think six months after that, and then again this morning. So definitely a big fan. And I believe that when watching your TEDx, there are so many people that can relate to your story.
And that story of feeling like sometimes we Don't feel confident and comfortable in showing up as our authentic self. There's an element of who we are that we are hiding. And so please share with our listeners a little bit about your story and what was this defining moment that you had in your life when you finally said, I'm going to stop hiding.
And I'm going to be
Ruth Rathblott: free. Yeah, And it's so interesting, Danielle, because so many of us are hiding, hiding. I have found in the research and the writing the speaking is universal. Most of us are hiding a part of ourselves. And yet we walk around often thinking we're the only ones that we're the only ones that have to hold the shame the only ones that have something different about us.
And so, as I started exploring it had to look back at where did this all start for me, because as you said in the intro. hid for a really long time. I hid my limb difference. I was born with a limb difference and at the age of 13, I started hiding it and I hid it for 25 years. I hid it in every aspect of my life, from my personal life, in terms of friendships and relationships.
I hid it in the workplace in terms of being an employee and in terms of being a leader. And. I'll get into the defining experience, but I think it's a lot of pain and what I can say is hiding is exhausting and it's lonely. and again, we think we're the only ones hiding, so we don't even think to find solutions to it necessarily until it gets to that place that it's almost like you're burning out.
you don't know what else you can do. Um, and so for me. That journey of hiding was the part I had to look at first is I had to acknowledge it to myself that I was hiding and how it was holding me back and how I wasn't thriving when I was hiding.
Danielle Cobo: Yeah, you said something about The age that you started to hide and I believe that many of us have had those defining moments in our childhood and our teenage years where we take this moment and say even been teased or been commented on and that insecurity it just It starts and then it grows and snowballs from there.
And when you were saying that I'm going to hide, I'm thinking back to a moment that I had when I was younger, where I wore these Coke bottle glasses. I could not see. And I remember kids. throwing my glasses down the school bus and then stomping on them and just completely breaking them to the point where I couldn't see and being in tears.
And it was from that moment forward once I could get contacts, I never wore glasses in front of anybody because it was just that fear of not being pretty and that fear of not being viewed weak or just that insecurity. And so I believe that many of us can really relate to your story and whether we have a disability or not, but there's an element of something that happened in our past that created that
Ruth Rathblott: And hiding is a lot like what you're saying. does snowball. It's a lot like lying. The more that we hide, the harder it is to stop hiding. And so people will share with me, Danielle, And some of your listeners may relate to this too is they'll share that they hide their age. They hide their financial backgrounds.
They hide their religion. They hide their family backgrounds. So in addition to disability, both the visible like mine and invisible disabilities, like mental health, depression, bipolar, anxiety. And neurodiversity space of ADHD and, um, autism and even dyslexia people hide those things. And in addition to that, people are hiding other parts of themselves, whether it be a scar, whether it be, both physical scar or just something about their background.
And again, it keeps us disconnected from ourselves and from others. And what's amazing is. There isn't an accident why it started for me as a teenager, I was going to a new school. Like many people start a new high school. My high school happened to have the middle schools and the elementary schools all pouring into one.
So I was heading to this new school. It was huge. And I remember waiting at the bottom of my driveway for that yellow school bus to even come pick me up. AndI remember being excited, but also nervous. Who was I going to meet? And like you described with your glasses, like people check each other out,
they want to say, Oh, is that person? Am I going to like that person? Do I like what they're wearing? I mean, that's adolescence. we want to fit in. And I got on that yellow school bus. And as we were checking each other out, someone stared just a little too long at my hand. And I immediately impulsively just tucked it into my left pocket.
I had never done that before, Danielle. Like that was not my routine. I didn't, I don't even know where I got the message that I should do that, but it was so instinctive and protective of myself that I tucked it in thinking it was just going to be for that bus ride to school. And then I got to school and I said, well, I'll just keep hiding it.
Cause I want to make friends. Cause I somehow got a message like. if you're different, you're not going to make friends. that first day ended up being that first week I kept hiding it. It was so buried down deep. It was almost glued there. And that first week turned into that first year.
And I think with hiding, there's also a sense of, Just like your glasses. I need to put my glasses on. Like I need to see, I I need to take my handout. I need to do gym class. I need to carry my books. Like, but Icouldn't, I didn't know how to stop the hiding.
And I think that's also what happens is many of us don't know how to stop hiding. And so what happens then is we keep hiding, evenand we. Almost beat ourselves up a little because I should stop hiding. I should get out of this pattern I even went to college thinking I'm gonna be somebody new there.
Nobody's gonna know me I'm gonna start fresh and I didn't know how to stop hiding and it was absolutely exhausting and lonely and every time I tried I kept beating myself up being like, you can't do it now. Someone will think it's awful. Someone will think it's disgusting. Someone will say something and you're making friends.
So if people know they won't like you, honestly at the end of the day, they won't think you're attractive. They'll think you're ugly. So keep it hidden because if they know they'll judge you.
Danielle Cobo: to live a life feeling like you've just got to hide and cannot be able to show up as yourself, as you said, very draining, very
Ruth Rathblott: draining. It's exhausting. It's all you think about. Like becomes almost like you're constantly worried and figuring out how you're not going to be found out.
And it'sWell, it's a little bit like a magician, right? Cause it's constantly trying to figure things out. It's definitely has a creative aspect to it. And I personally thought of it a little bit like a con artist, like always trying to not share that part of myself because people wouldn't want to know that, so trying to figure it out so that people couldn't find out.
and I got really, really good at it.
Danielle Cobo: to hide for that long, I would imagine you've pretty much mastered it, but not necessarily something that would be beneficial to master when in return, it's burning you out. It's exhausting you it's, consuming at a lot of times.
what was this epiphany moment that you had where you basically said, I'm not going to hide anymore.
Ruth Rathblott: Yeah, it was a lot of trials effort, in the beginning in terms of just stopping and starting, like trying to unhide it, trying to stop doing that, and even going to therapy about it, journaling about it, failed relationships about it, saying it to someone out loud, almost hanging up the phone on them when I would tell someone about it, and waiting for them accept me.
And what I had to get to a place of is acknowledging that I was indeed hiding and that it was holding me back specifically for me in dating relationships. And I had to learn to invite someone in. And I really made my best decision when I met someone who kind of had all of the characteristics of empathy and listening and understood difference, um, had actually.
Thought about hand differences his own life, and my best decision was I had gotten so exhausted and so tired of failed relationships that I had to try something different. And that different piece for me was inviting someone in to teach me how to love my hand because I couldn't do it by myself. I had done everything by myself, single handedly my whole life.
So to invite someone in was tough and it required trust. and it was the right person. and so it was about inviting someone in. And they literally showed me how, and I know when people say literally, they don't always mean it, but this time we do literally take my hand out of my pocket and look at it and touch it, Danielle.
I had never actually touched my hand before it'd been buried so deep in my pocket. I didn't allow anyone to touch it. Ithat was not part of routine. And so letting this person also touch it, but I had to touch it. I had to look at it. I had to realize that. In the winters it got frostbite.
I didn't know how to take care of it. And I think sometimes we do that with ourselves is we don't take care of those parts of ourselves that we hold shame around. So sometimes it requires and I would argue it often requires letting someone in to show us how to love those parts that we deem
Danielle Cobo: I would agree with you a lot when it comes to letting people in, because putting the wall up, putting the guard up, hiding does not serve us in life. it's letting people see something in ourselves that we don't see in ourselves. So if we're in a situation where we're feeling like we're hiding or just open the doors just a little bit to let somebody in, to let somebody see the beauty, the confidence.
the unique qualities about us that maybe we don't see in ourselves and help build us up until we start to see it in ourselves. And
Ruth Rathblott: it does that. It does exactly that, which is when you let someone in, it can help you start to change the way you see yourself. And when that started happening, I started letting more people in.
I actually looked for people with disabilities for the first time because. I had spent my life, those 25 years with blinders on. I remember a friend of mine, we were out one night and she saw someone playing pool with one hand and she said, Oh, do you want to go talk to him? And I'm like, no, there's no way I want to talk to him.
I don't want to associate with it. I don't want to be connected to it. And yet when I started to accept that part of myself and learn to love that part, I started to crave that shared experience, the understanding because Danielle. I thought I invented hiding, I thought I was the only one doing it and that I invented it.
When I met others with disabilities, especially in the limb difference community, I realized I wasn't alone and that there was this whole community of people to connect with. And the beauty of the internet is that you can find people, likeyou can find and build your community just by search words.
That's how I found. The group of people with limb differences that I connected with is just through a search and someone saying, Hey, do you know about this group? No. I didn't. and so that building of community, it's really those become the first three steps in this idea of how do you learn to unhide when you say what's that moment?
Well, it's a series of moments. It's about acknowledging how it's holding you back and that you're holding back. It's about inviting someone in. That's step two is how do you invite someone in? And I imagine Danielle, some of your listeners, when I say that, and when we've talked just now about it, somebody pops into their mind, Somebody, a trusted friend, coworker, uh, somebody in their, company or on their community that they can trust with something. It doesn't have to be on a platform where you go on a podcast and talk about it. It can just be one person to start. And then starting to build your community, starting to find other people who have that shared experience.
that's the third step. And then the fourth step is sharing out your experience. And again, it doesn't have to be on a podcast. It can just be with several people. I met a young woman recently who told me that she shared her anxiety at a retreat and she was not even sure she should share it out. She wasn't sure.
And someone came up to her after and said, by you sharing your story of anxiety, it allowed me to share my story of ADHD. We see each other in other people's stories. And we see ourselves in other people's stories.
Danielle Cobo: that's such a great message to share with people to really open up and share your story and, and start with, you've typically been hiding, whatever it is that you're hiding, but to open up and at least just to one person, somebody that you trust that loves you, that's going to create that safe space for you to just open up and share whatever that is.
It could be a. fear that you have. It could be a disability. It could be just something that you're struggling with, but to talk to somebody openly and honest about it and have that person support you is the first step. and then as you said, expanding out from there. And I don't know about you and your experience.
If if you found this, but when I was recovering from postpartum and I remember First, having one conversation with one person and I remember it was my neighbor at the time. We had kind of talked in passing, Hey neighbor, how's it doing? How are you? But I remember the moment when I, needed to be driven to the hospital.
I was so dehydrated from just not taking care of myself. I need to be driven to the hospital. My husband needed to stay home with my kids and I called my neighbor, but it was that defining moment of asking for help that completely changed our relationship. This woman sat next to me for a week straight every single day and took care of me while I was on the road to recovery and that connection and that friendship will last forever.
when you started having those conversations, do you feel like that's where the real friendships fostered?
Ruth Rathblott: I think there's two things that happen. the first is when you share part of yourself with someone, they can start to relax with themselves, right?
you're perfect, but you're not perfect. because you're not hiding anymore. And so there's. An exhale that happens and people's shoulders drop when I have found that I've shared out and people have told me this happens to them too is when you share out something, it's a relief, it's letting the oxygen out.
It feels good. And the second piece is unhiding is the key to connection because when we can actually unhide. We find ourselves connecting to ourselves, so we're, actually present and we can then be present with others because when we're hiding, we spend so much time preoccupied with the thing that we don't want anyone to find out that we're actually not present and we're not connected.
we may be great and showing up on the phone, we may show up in person, but if we're not actually unhiding, we can't really be there for other people in the same way. We could do a good job trying, but. We can't. And I think, the reason I wanted to connect with you and talk with you is because I think that's what real grit is about is when we're willing to face some of the things that are holding us back and then find a path toward next level of what I call freedom.
it's truly freeing to unhide.
Danielle Cobo: Yeah, that is great is that's the willingness to unhide and to step into your power and to connect with people by releasing that guard.
Ruth Rathblott: And to feel seen and to feel heard and to feel like you belong. and that's the greatest gift that We can give ourselves and that we can give to others because even if I imagine some of the people listening are saying, well, I'm not hiding anything.
That's great. Then you can be there and that friend that drives you to the hospital that does that helps the other person unhide because that's how it works because this becomes a loop like those four steps by me sharing out my story. It helps somebody else think about what they're hiding so they can do the same steps and help someone
Danielle Cobo: else on hide.
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for joining today and sharing your story about unhiding and helping other people and empowering other people to do the same. You have written this beautiful book. Please share with our listeners, your book, where they can find you so that they can keep this conversation going with you.
Ruth Rathblott: thank you for having me on today to my book is called single handedly learning to unhide and embrace connection. And a big reason why it's called single handedly is because I tried to do spend my whole life. Working. And when we think about single handed, we think about strong. We think about doing it on your own, getting it done.
And the truth is you can't live your life single handedly. You need the connection. You need the support. You need someone else and some other community and the connection. And so my book is on. Everywhere you typically find it. It's on Amazon. It's in print. It's on Kindle, and it's also inclusive. I did an audio book of it.
you can find it anywhere there.
Danielle Cobo: I'll be sure to include in the show notes for those of you that are listening, go ahead and go to those show notes, there'll be a link where you can purchase her book. And also invite you to watch her TED talk too, because she does go in a little bit more into what that defining moment was and some more learning lessons along the way.
So I definitely invite you to go to her TED talk and watch that. And for those of you listening, if you know somebody. Who you believe could just benefit from this empowering episode and helping them be seen and heard, acknowledge, and you see some spark in them that maybe they don't see in themselves.
Please share this episode. You get to be the ripple effect and helping somebody be unstoppable. Thank you.