53 | When Feeling Invisible Feels Safer Than Being Seen - Why Stepping Out of Hiding Triggers Fear

You learned to disappear to stay safe—but now that safety feels like a cage. Here’s why being seen feels dangerous, and how to start trusting yourself again. 

Have you ever noticed how invisibility can start to feel…comfortable?

You tell yourself you’re just “keeping the peace,” but deep down, you know you’re hiding.

You shrink in conversations, you second-guess your words, you do everything “right” but still feel unseen—and stepping out of that role feels terrifying.

In this episode of Overwhelmed to Empowered, Lisa unpacks why your nervous system confuses visibility with danger and how to gently retrain your body and soul to feel safe being seen again.

You’ll learn:

• 🌙 Why hiding once kept you safe—and why it’s not helping anymore
• 💛 The connection between invisibility, people-pleasing, and self-protection
• 🌿 How to begin showing up as your true self without panic or guilt
• 🕊 A short grounding practice to calm your body when visibility feels like threat

If you’ve been living in the background, this episode is your permission slip to take one small step forward.
 You were never meant to disappear—you were meant to shine in peace, not in performance.

If this resonates, download the 3-Day Inner Healing Bootcamp (free for a limited time).
It’s your first step from awareness to awakening—learning to see yourself the way God always has.
👉 LisaCovert.com/bootcamp

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🎶 Instrumental Acoustic Guitar Music by Viacheslav Starostin (original_soundtrack),

W E B S I T E - LisaCovert.com

I N S T A G R A M - @lisamcovert

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

You are still writing your story no matter where you are, no matter what age you're here. What story do you want to write? You just heard a clip from today's episode of the Overwhelmed to Empowered Podcast. And friend, this one cuts deep. Hey, I am Lisa Covert. Welcome to the Overwhelmed to Empowered Podcast, where we stop pretending we are fine and start leading lives we are proud of. No more to-do list, no more burnout, just real talk, real tools, and the reset your heart has been asking for. Let's talk about it. You know what's really wild? Sometimes the very thing that's hurting us is also the thing that feels the safest. We say we want to be seen, but the moment someone looks too close, we shrink. Because invisibility, hiding, it's familiar. It's quiet, it's predictable, it's safe. And for women like you and me, who've lived through chaos, criticism, judgment, misunderstood, safe can feel like the only goal. But what happens when safety becomes a cage? I invite you to be open to this because I'm telling you, I've been here. And I've been I was chasing calm my whole life. And I never realized I was confusing calm with hiding. For years I thought being invisible was maturity. I thought it was being the bigger person. When I didn't argue, or I kept the peace, or chose to agree instead of to a disagree, or to give my opinion when somebody threw their opinion at me or asked for something differently because my needs were not being met. I'm talking in even in motherhood, I wore that invisibility like an armor, hiding the way I really felt because it could offend someone. And that would be selfish, right? I didn't like certain things that were said to me. So keep your opinions to yourself, right? Now and I'm not a big person, I don't think you should throw your opinion out there all the time. But if you're feeling heavy because you're hiding, that's a whole different experience. I mean, when I was doing this, I would tell myself, as long as everyone else was okay, then I was okay. But let me tell you, that was not peace at all. That was pretending. And pretending might keep the house quiet, but it kills the woman inside. I can't tell you how many times I said yes when I wanted to say no. Or keeping my opinion like I said to myself, or even the subtle moments like biting my tongue in a conversation and keeping my body tight. Sometimes people had difference of opinions, and maybe I didn't want to hear it. And I can go now, I can be like, hey, can we talk about a different subject? I'm kind of not feeling this one. I know you're really passionate about that, but that is not something that I kind of want to talk about. It could be politics, it could be religion, it could be education. Let's just talk about something lighter. If you're feeling tight, I hear myself now. I feel that. When you have spent years surviving on silence or keeping yourself hidden, visibility literally feels like exposure. Like you're just out there. I mean, it's like not wearing any clothes. It's not just stepping out of your comfort zone, it's stepping into risk, uncertainty, because suddenly there's a chance you'll be misunderstood or judged or worse, rejected. Your nervous system doesn't know the difference between an emotional danger or a physical danger. So the moment you start speaking up or setting boundaries or even just taking care of yourself first, your body sounds the alarm. How about when you say no to a commitment and immediately feel guilty or panic? That's not proof that you're wrong in the decision you made. That's your body unlearning invisibility. Unlearning that being hidden was safe. I'm gonna have to be honest. You can't heal in hiding. You can rest there for a while. Yes, definitely. But you can't rebuild there. Real peace, real calm, the kind that sticks and lasts, doesn't come from disappearing. It comes from alignment with you, balancing. For letting your insides finally match your outside. So visibility feels uncomfortable. Good. That means you're stretching into truth. It's not danger, it's growth. I'm sure walking the first time was uncomfortable. Talking the first time. Think about learning a new language at whatever age you are. It's uncomfortable to be visible, to be seen that way. But it's not danger. I used to think overwhelm was just part of being a mom, part of life. I mean the stress, the short fuse, losing myself somewhere between the never-ending to-do lists, the laundry, everybody else's needs. And let's be honest, all the things I wanted for myself. Whether it was building a business, finally getting the house organized, or chasing down those personal goals, they always came last. Or worse, I'd try to squeeze them in and it just made everything feel heavier. That's just how it goes, right? But let me be real with you, it wasn't working. I was exhausted, resentful, and waking up every day already behind, and not just behind on my tasks, but buried underneath the weight of it all. Heavy emotions, heavy thoughts, all of it. And I finally hit that moment where I realized I wasn't just disappearing from my life, I was disappearing from their lives too. The people I love most, my family. They weren't getting the version of me they deserved. They were getting a distracted, frustrated, barely holding it all together version of me. And honestly, the only time I'd stop, the only time I'd sit with them and truly be present was after I crashed. After I'd hit my limit and couldn't do anything else. That's not the kind of mom I wanted to be. That's exactly why I created the Empowered Living Six Weeks Course. It's how we went from constantly overwhelmed to finally stepping into ownership of my life, not just surviving, but actually feeling confident, present, and dare I say, excited to show up for my life and theirs again. If you're listening right now thinking, yep, that's me, then this is your sign. You deserve to feel good again. You deserve to lead a life that actually feels like your own, and your family deserves to have the best version of you. Head to LisaCovert.com, click apply now, and learn how to reset from overwhelm to ownership. LisaCovert.com. Because it's time to lead a life that feels like yours again. Growth starts in small decisions. I don't want that gray hair anymore. There's not much in there, and pretty amazing how dark it is at 45. However, I don't want any grays. So how can I still stay on that health journey that I want? But also feel visible in the way I want to be visible. With a little bit of effort, I found someone that would dye my hair without chemicals. Bought nail polish based with minerals. I stopped hiding the way I feel. If I'm in a situation and I don't like how something is going, I can say, hey, I'm sorry, can we chat later? Or hey, today was kind of a heavy day. Can we talk about something lighter? Or hey, I just spoke. Can you really kind of connect with me? I really want to know what you understood. I just want to know that you actually heard me because this was really important to me. There's nothing wrong with that. And again, if that causes another person to feel away that you're feeling rejected, come from that place knowing that we live in a world where people are comfortable with hiding. So being truthful may take a minute for them to decide because they're in their comfort zone. But I promise you, the more you are the kind and real, everybody's got life that's up and down. And when life doesn't go the way you plan to, or let's say your life is opening up to more friends and more people that align with you, that may mean other relationships kind of go away. And that's sad and that's hard, that's grief. But I know that I want to be next to a real person when life doesn't go as I want it to, or I need a little venting. But here's something I want you to try this week. When you catch yourself dimming down, going invisible, biting your tongue, or saying it's fine, or just holding back, pause and ask yourself, what am I afraid will happen if I let myself be seen? Write it down. Then ask yourself, what might actually happen if I let myself show up anyway? Because most of the time, the fear isn't real. It's just recycled over and over and over. And the moment you see that, you start to regain your freedom. Are you like me, where I used to be like, I need help, nobody's asking me for help. Well, you know why? Because when they actually said, hey, can I help with something? I felt more pressure to go, oh, well, what if they don't do it the way I would do it? What if they do it better than the way I did it? What if they want praise from me when I never got it from them when I did it? Those were all the things that went through my head. It was real. But you know what? When I acted it out, I'm like, what am I winning by staying invisible? I have sweat running down my face and my back and everyone else's sitting down on iPads or scrolling or watching TV and being demanding and not appreciating anything I'm doing. That wasn't great space either. So what am I at loss here? And you know what? It was little things at a time. My husband says, Hey, is there something I can do and help for dinner? You know what? Yes. And at first it'd be like, hey, can you cut up these vegetables? And now he says, Hey, can I cut those up for you? Yes. Thank you. And I want to tell him he did a great job. I love how he did it. So most times I learned something from him. And it's sharing it together. I just want you to imagine it that safety didn't need to mean silence. If safety meant peace, being fully you without performing, without any of that, being imposter, if you're telling somebody you want help, and then they ask and you say no, that's performing for what? For who? What if safety meant being loved as you are? Not for how well you manage everyone else, but just you. That's the kind of shift from surviving to sovereign. It's not louder, it's lighter. You can trust yourself to be visible now because the woman you've become is grounded enough to hold it. It's time to break those rules and start over. Be who you really are. If this episode steered up something in you, kind of like a moment where you're like, oh my gosh, that's me, then I know you're craving safety. And you know what that means? You're not broken. You just outgrew the version of peace that kept you small. Come walk with me inside the boot camp. Right now you can sign up and get on the waiting list at LisaCovert.comslash boot camp, where we're going to practice stepping out of survival in small, safe ways that actually feel doable. And if you want to grab something now while you're waiting, you can also go to LisaCovert.com slash triggers, and I have five trigger guide there, and it will help you see what things are working and what not. Because peace is not the absence of fear. Fear is still here. It's the decision to keep showing up, to be visible, to be real. Anyway, it's taking that fear and letting it fuel you to fly. You do not have to stay hidden. You are still writing your story no matter where you are, no matter what age, you're here. What story do you want to write? Okay, my friend, I will see you in the next episode. Did you have fun with my mom, or did you learn something from my mom? Then hit subscribe because we've got way more coming your way. If this episode made you pause, reflect, or even breathe a little deeper, would you do me a favor? Take 30 seconds and leave a quick review for the show. It helps more women who are stuck in the same overwhelm we've talked about today actually find this podcast. I'm not here for everyone, but I am here for the woman who's tired of holding it all together and ready to live a life that finally feels like her own. And hey, if you're feeling brave, take a screenshot of your comment and email it to me at Lisa at LisaCovert.com. Every month I do a little giveaway drawing for listeners who share or review the show. You never know, you might get something special. Thanks for listening. Thanks for being here, and most of all, thanks for choosing to keep showing up for you.