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The Hearts Hello
Welcome to The Hearts Hello, where we believe our hearts are the foundation of our well-being and happiness. Our hearts hold the key to unlocking a life of purpose, meaning, and fulfillment, as they are the very essence of our being. We aim to uncover the secrets of a heart-centered life through authentic conversations, inspiring stories, and practical advice. We discuss the importance of emotional intelligence, mindfulness, and self-awareness in developing a healthy and vibrant heart. Additionally, we explore the role of vulnerability, empathy, and connection in building meaningful relationships and positively impacting the world. Join us on this journey of self-discovery and transformation as we awaken the heart and rediscover what truly matters. We'll use personal experiences and expert insights to explore the vital role of emotional and mental well-being in caring for our souls. Together, let's create a world where the heart is at the center of everything we do and where love, empathy, and kindness are the guiding principles. Let's learn to listen to our hearts, honor their voice, and live a life that aligns with our deepest values and aspirations. When the heart matters, everything else falls into place.
The Hearts Hello
Breaking Free: The Real Cost of Hiding Your Authentic Self
Have you been silencing yourself, shrinking into rooms, and pretending to be okay just to keep the peace? That invisible tax you're paying—the energy spent maintaining a facade—is bankrupting your spirit.
The journey into understanding our hiding patterns often begins in childhood. For me, it started sitting in my father's closet after my parents divorced, eating sunflower seeds in silence because I lacked the language to express what I was feeling. That moment sparked a pattern: when something gets too hard, hide. Many of us weren't born afraid to be seen—this fear was taught through experiences of rejection, trauma, or cultural expectations.
Hiding takes many disguises: perfectionism that prevents action until everything looks flawless, people-pleasing that has you saying yes when your soul screams no, or staying perpetually busy to avoid sitting with yourself. But what's the real cost? It steals your clarity of purpose, prevents authentic connections, robs you of peace, closes doors to opportunities meant for the real you, stunts your growth, and ultimately threatens your legacy. You simply cannot build something lasting on a false foundation.
The path forward requires radical honesty—first with yourself. Name how you hide. Trace it back to its origins. Take small risks by speaking your truth. Understand you don't need to be "fixed" to be worthy of being seen. Build safety within yourself rather than seeking it externally. Choose truth over comfort, recognizing that while truth will stretch you, it will never betray you. You hold the key to your own cage.
Ready for a challenge? Come out of hiding, even just for a little while. Whisper your truth. Wear the bold color. Say the hard thing with love. You're not too much, you're exactly enough when you show up as the real version of you. You deserve not just to be seen, but celebrated.
Y'all. Today we are diving deep into a topic that I know to will hiding Physically, emotionally, spiritually, mentally. You know the kind of hiding that happens when you silence yourself, shrink into rooms and pretend to be OK, just to keep the peace. See, this one's called the cost of hiding what you're losing by not being you. Now, when I say that some of you all don't physically hide, but some of you do, and I know, for me, I would hide as a little girl, would hide as a little girl After my parents divorced or my dad ended up leaving, I would go and sit in his closet.
Speaker 1:I would sit in his closet, close the door and eat sunflower seeds and for me, understanding who I am now and understanding how traumatic of an experience that could be and I realized that that's when my hiding started, see I could go into that closet, close the door and be away from everyone else. I thought that closing that door would be my escape, that it was almost like going into another place, and so, while I was in there eating sunflower seeds I have no clue, maybe I needed a snack and I didn't want to get hungry while I was on this secret mission that I was on, but I, in that moment, was starting to hide. I wasn't hiding my voice, but I was hiding myself physically because I didn't have the language to say what was really going on with me and I didn't think that anything was going on. Now, looking back at it, I realized, hey, probably sitting in your dad's closet and closing the door and eating sunflower seeds wasn't the best way to deal with their breakup and their divorce. There should have been some sort of conversations about what was going on, why it happened, and I'm sure that while I was sitting in that closet I was trying to process all of what was taking place, just as a little girl. I didn't know what was going on. I just knew that one day my dad walked out the door and he was gone. No one was talking about it. No one said why, who, what, why when and where. But I began to hide.
Speaker 1:And in that hiding in that closet started this almost downward spiral of when something gets too hard, just go hide. If you can't find the words, just go hide. If you're not sure what to do next, just go hide until you're clear. And so for some of you all, that's probably not your story. Or maybe, as an adult, you hide in your own house? I don't know, but I need us to get to a place where we can begin to heal what we keep hiding, and for some of us, we are hiding in plain sight.
Speaker 1:See, that performance that you always want to be on Smiling, fixing, helping Even when you are depleted, that perfectionism where you won't move until it looks perfect where that's not high standards. It's really a fear in disguise. Or maybe it may be you people pleasing you, saying yes when your soul is screaming no. What about busyness? Are you staying booked and busy to avoid being still and facing yourself? Or maybe, maybe this one is you, you're, you're silent and you're holding back your opinions, your needs or your desires out of fear of rejection or rocking the boat.
Speaker 1:See, hiding doesn't always look like being absent. Sometimes it looks like being over-involved in everyone else's life except for your own Y'all. I'm standing here and I am holding up my hand as the president of the hiding club used to be president of the hiding club and that was because I thought that as long as I was helping everyone else, as long as I was doing, as long as I was saying yes, as long as I was doing all of the things that I wasn't hiding, but yet I was really hiding who I was. I was hiding the fact that I didn't even know how to sit with me, that I didn't even have the answers to the questions of what I truly liked, what I didn't like, how I can express myself and to say no. So, if that's you, I need you to take some time and just give yourself a big hug for not knowing, because some of us go and go and go and not realize why. And today I want us to get to the root cause of what that is.
Speaker 1:And so, right now I need to ask you what is your hiding costing you? It costs more than comfort. It costs your clarity. It costs your clarity of purpose when you're pretending and you can't discern what you're truly called to do. It costs your connections, where people can't connect with the version of you that has on the mask. It costs you your peace, because you're always having this inner tension when you're pretending. It costs you opportunities, because you miss the ones that you were meant for the real you because you were out here saying yes to everything, not realizing that you saying yes to this was causing you to say no to your true opportunity. It was causing you your growth.
Speaker 1:Hiding stunts your emotional and your spiritual development, and this one is big y'all, because hiding will cost you your legacy. You can't build something lasting on a false foundation. You know how they say. Well, you can't build a house on sand. Same thing applies when you are trying to show up for everyone else and be who you are not called to be. That can't last for so long.
Speaker 1:So I need you to realize that you can't outrun what you refuse to reveal. I'll say that again you can't outrun what you refuse to reveal. And so for some of you, all you're trying to figure out. Well, why is it that I hide? Glad you asked. And it's because, truly, you weren't born afraid to be seen. This was taught. Remember, when I shared that little Kiana would sit in that closet. So little Kiana grew up to be big Kiana that was hiding from everyone, even herself, that was afraid to speak up when she needed something. She would just continue to do more because she felt like, as long as I am doing more, someone is seeing, not realizing that. It was a true cry for help.
Speaker 1:So, for you, why you're hiding? I'm not sure it could be your fear of judgment or being misunderstood. It could be past trauma or betrayal. It could have been childhood conditioning, being you saying you know, be quiet, don't talk back. It could be rejection from people you wanted to be accepted by, or it could be religious or cultural exceptions. Can I share with you all that I was even afraid to share with people that I was going through a separation and a divorce. I know it sounds weird, especially in this time that we're living in, but I began to think about well, what will the church folks say? How will they take me as a minister? Oh, a minister that has been divorced, my gosh. So all of these things are real.
Speaker 1:You have to figure out what is it for you and then, once you have recognized why you are hiding, the ways that you hide, now we have to deal with how to stop hiding and start showing up. See, the first step to stop hiding is to stop lying, especially to yourself, and I say this all the time, and it's because you have to lie to you first before you can lie to anyone else. So how many lies have you told you? How many lies have you had ingrained in your thought patterns that are not true? Not about anyone else, but about you, because the majority of you, all you, are your worst enemy. And let me say it a different way you are your worst inner me, because you talk to you all day long, you hear your voice all day long, you're with your thoughts all day long. So can I just tell you to go ahead and apologize to yourself? I'll wait. You owe you an apology for hiding, and so, now that we understand why you were hiding, we're going to stop hiding and we're going to show up. So, like I said before, we have to name the behavior, call out how and when you hide. Don't lie to you, and if you need to have someone that is going to hold you accountable, then do so, but make sure that it is someone who is going to be trustworthy.
Speaker 1:The next thing is just get honest. Where did this begin? Who taught you it was safe to, not what? Who taught you it wasn't safe to be seen? The next thing take those small risks. Speak up. Show up without the mask. It's OK. Let me say this it is OK to hurt someone's feelings when you are so busy, worried about hurting someone else's feelings, that you end up hurting you in return. No, tell the truth. Say what's on your mind. If someone asks you, what do they think, don't overthink your answer. Give them the real. Either they're going to like it or they're going to love it. But if someone is looking to you for especially constructive criticism and you give them this watered down version, how is it helping them grow? And how is it that you are helping yourself? Speak up when you really know that it's trash? Tell them the truth, because you want someone else to be able to tell you the truth.
Speaker 1:The next thing is give yourself permission. You don't need to be fixed to be seen. This is why so many people are unafraid or are afraid to tell their story. I need you to get to a place where you are okay, and if that means going to see a therapist, go do so. Therapy and prayer work great, but you don't have to be. You don't need to be fixed to be seen. You don't have to be. You don't need to be fixed to be seen. You don't have to hide in your house and think that until you get yourself straight, then you won't come out. Do you know how big of a hole you end up putting yourself in when you begin to isolate yourself from everyone else. The next thing is I need you to build safety within. Learn how to hold yourself without abandoning the truth.
Speaker 1:The next thing is choose truth over comfort. Truth will stretch you, but it won't betray you y'all. I need you to get this. I need you to get this. I need you to get this not just for yourself, but there are going to be people around you who are going to need to see you show up Because they are hiding because you're hiding. Your children may be hiding because you're hiding, and so when you begin to show up and you begin to speak up, you begin to see in others where they are hiding. But you hold the key to the cage that you're in. You're in there thinking that someone else is going to come save you. When the person that needs to save you is, you Unlock the cage, so the healed version of you is on the other side of being seen, first by you and then by the world.
Speaker 1:So when you go and you stand in that mirror, tell yourself the truth about what you see. If you're hurting, say that and go a bit deeper. Why are you hurting? How did you get to this place? We have to stop just sugarcoating everything and we have to get to the root of the issues. No longer can we kind of just have these vague conversations, even with ourselves. Peel back the layers, because when you begin to peel back the layer, you're then able to get to the root of the thing, and when you're able to get to the root of the thing is the only time when you're able to kill it.
Speaker 1:Have you ever just gone outside and pulled up a weed and then you come back out and that same weed is there in a couple days, only because you just took the little flower or whatever it was, off the top? All the while it has this huge root down at the bottom. So while you keep whacking off the top of this weed, the the root is still strong and it's saying oh OK, great, you did that. Well, I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to grow back, because you have not dealt with the root of the issue. And so this is why, when you go back and you begin to ask yourself the very question why, how did I get here? When did I begin hiding? What was the issue that made me hide? You are now getting to the root of the thing. And when you get to the root. That's when you can kill it.
Speaker 1:So again, like I said to you all, I know hiding all too well and because I am no longer hiding, I can see when someone else is hiding, because I begin to recognize the signs and it allows me to give that person a little bit more grace, because I have been there. So I know I know hiding can feel safe. Safe, I know it feels like protection, but the truth is, when you hide, you hurt, you lose, you suffocate the very parts of you that were meant to set you free. You are not too much, you're just enough when you show up as the real version of you. So this week, I dare you, I dare you, I double, dare you, I double dog, dare you to come out of hiding, even just for a little while.
Speaker 1:I need you to whisper your truth, wear the bold color, say the hard thing with love. You deserve to be seen, not just seen, but celebrated. So I want to just thank you. I want to thank you for showing up for you and go ahead and send me those emails. I love to see them. Send me the DMs, I love to read them and text this to a friend that you know is shrinking right now because they need it. You need it, and go ahead and leave a review. If this episode gave you a breakthrough moment, I want to know all about it. All right, until next time, be brave.