UNHIDDEN: The Moment You Stop Disappearing

What does it actually mean to become UNHIDDEN?

Not loud.
 Not performative.
 Not “look at me” visibility.

In this episode, Rachel opens a new podcast arc around what it means to stop disappearing in private first—in your mirror, your self-talk, your tiny promises, your choices, and the places where you’ve learned to override what you know.

She unpacks how self-trust erodes through small moments of self-abandonment, why your brain and body are paying attention to the promises you keep or break with yourself, and how rebuilding trust starts with one tiny honest promise.

You’ll also learn the S.P.E. Framework—Shrink, Perform, Embody—and how to begin noticing which version of you is leading in real time.

This episode is for the woman who is done editing herself down to be acceptable and ready to rebuild self-trust one pinkie-toe step at a time.

In this episode:

• Why UNHIDDEN does not mean oversharing or performing
• How self-trust erodes through tiny broken promises
• Why the mirror can become a place of private rebellion
• The S.P.E. Framework: Shrink, Perform, Embody
• How to use one small honest promise to rebuild self-trust
• Why noticing itself is the first rebellion

Reflection Questions:

1. Where do you most often disappear—in your voice, opinions, body, mirror, needs, desires, or joy?
2. What is one small honest promise you can make and keep in the next 24 hours?

Connect with Rachel:

Visit RachelHarrisOnline.com and follow Rachel on social for more on Rebel Practice™, UNHIDDEN, and The Joyful Rebel Podcast.

Resources:
5 Moments You're Abandoning Yourself (Without Realizing It) https://rachel-harris-online.kit.com/e6b737ec08

How to Choose You In Real Time - Practice Your First Rebel Moves
https://rachel-harris-online.kit.com/stopplayingsmall

Hidden Stories Inventory- Discover the Stories Quietly Shaping Your Choices https://rachel-harris-online.kit.com/hiddeninventory 

The Moment You Abandon Yourself - Catch the Exact Moment You Start Shrinking—and Learn How to Interrupt It In Real Time https://rachel-harris-online.kit.com/costofpretending

Are YOU A Joyful Rebel? https://rachelharrisonline.com/joyful-rebel

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Hey friends, welcome back to the Joyful Rebel podcast. The last few episodes have been about courage, the kind that starts inside you before it ever shows up in your mouth. The kind that sounds like a whisper, but changes your life anyway. And today, today is a threshold episode because we're stepping into a new arc, one I'm calling unhidden. Not look at me visible, not performative, not loud for the sake of being loud. Unhidden means visibility without performance, truth without theatrics, faith without self-abandonment. It means your outer life starts matching your inner knowing. So the woman the world sees is no longer a stranger to the woman inside. And if you've ever felt like you've been editing yourself down to be acceptable, this episode's for you. So let me start here. There are a lot of ways women disappear without ever leaving the room. I call it good girl ghosting. Sometimes we disappear by saying yes when we mean no, or by laughing something off when we actually feel hurt, or by making ourselves easy and low maintenance. So nobody has to deal with our humanity. Sometimes we disappear so selectively, we don't even realize how many rooms we've abandoned ourselves in. And sometimes you're fully yourself at home and nearly invisible in the rooms that taught you that belonging costs authenticity. Sometimes we disappear spiritually, calling it humility, peace, wisdom. When what it really is, is fear impersonating peace. And sometimes we disappear privately in our own minds, in our own mirrors, in the way we talk to ourselves when we mess up. Unhidden begins when you realize I'm not doing that anymore. When you start noticing where you stopped feeling like you, room by room, relationship by relationship, and you decide to come back. Not perfectly, not dramatically, not with a full makeover montage in a win machine. Just honestly, a little more truth, a little less pretending, one pinky toe step at a time. Because pinky toe steps of courage compound. Here's the part I don't think we talk about enough. You didn't lose self-trust overnight. You trained yourself out of it. Not because you're broken, but because you adapted. You learn to second guess. You learn to over-apologize. You learn to over-explain. You learn to swallow your voice before anyone else had time to silence it. You learn to read the room before you read yourself. And after a while, your system started to believe, I'm not safe with me. Because self-trust is built through evidence. And so is self-distrust. Every time you know something and you override it, every time you say it's fine when it's not. Every time you pretend you don't care when you do. And every time you call fear wisdom, because wisdom sounds holier and it requires less confrontation, your inner world is paying attention. Your brain is listening. Your body is listening. Your spirit is listening. And eventually, intuition starts sounding fuzzy. Not because truth disappeared, but because you got used to trusting the room more than yourself. Intuition and discernment can feel far away. Joy can feel conditional. And you begin looking outside yourself for the final word on things that you already know. You don't do this because you're weak. It's because you've practiced abandoning your own knowing. And the way back isn't shame. The way back is stewardship, not wow, look how often I disappear. But I see it faster now, and I can start choosing differently. That is rebel practice. And that is unhidden. So let me tell you one small, practical, mildly embarrassing way that this showed up for me. One of the most tangible changes that I made during my sabbatical season, the year I spent learning how to listen and learned who I truly am, was the way that I interacted with my own reflection. Because I realized something kind of brutal. I was standing in the mirror, looking at a whole human being created by God, carrying a whole life, mothering, creating, healing, trying, becoming. And I was treating her like a problem to solve. I wasn't just noticing, I was scanning, hunting flaws, making that face in the mirror. You know the one. The one that says, well, that's unfortunate. The face had words attached to it. Words that I would never say to someone I loved. I wouldn't say them to my daughters. In fact, I'd go mother bear on anyone who did say that to them. I wouldn't say them to a friend, and I wouldn't even say them to a stranger in traffic. And let's be honest, traffic has tested my religion, but I was saying them to me. So I made a decision. Not overnight, not perfectly, but intentionally. I started changing what I looked at in the mirror. I started changing the words I used about what I saw. And I also started changing how I talked to myself when I made mistakes. Instead of, well, that was stupid. I started practicing, well, that was silly, Rachel. I swear to God, I did the voice too. That was silly. Or, okay, well, that didn't go how I wanted. What do we do now? Or even, well, we just learned something new. And listen, that might sound tiny, but tiny doesn't mean insignificant. Sometimes the first rebellion isn't a speech. Sometimes that first rebellion is looking in the mirror and refusing to join the committee that's been criticizing you for years. Because contempt doesn't create transformation, it creates distance. And I couldn't reclaim a woman that I was treating like an enemy. Remember, the noticing itself is the first rebellion. This sounds simple, but for me, this was the missing piece that let everything else click into place. Every time you break your word to yourself, big or small, your inner world makes a note. And those tiny, it doesn't matter moments, they compound. I'll start Monday, and then I don't. I'm gonna drink more water, and then I don't. I'll call her back and then I forget. I don't care when I totally do. I don't have an opinion when I absolutely have an opinion, but I'm trying to be the chill girl because apparently I auditioned for that role in 2004 and forgot to resign. It's fine. When it's aggressively not fine. And the wild part is, I thought that those were no big deal. Everyone does it, right? But your system is listening. And if you've spent years disconnecting from what you actually know, rebuilding self-trust is gonna take some time. Keeping it real, sometimes it'll feel like an uphill battle, but it's worth it. For me, some of the biggest shifts came through walking, not for cardio, but for mental health. Stretching, breath work, silence, stillness, solitude, slowing down enough to hear myself again. You can't reclaim what you don't yet recognize. And self-trust erodes every time you practice not listening. But this truth loot piece, this was the thing that made me realize if I want to trust myself again, I have to become someone I can trust. Not through perfection, not through hustling harder, not through becoming a glittery little productivity machine with a Bible verse on it, through integrity in the small, through micro promises, through tiny evidence, through those pinky-toe steps of self-trust. So let's define unhidden in a way that's actually usable. Unhidden is not oversharing, it's not attention-seeking, it's not saying everything you think at all times. Some thoughts need a journal, a walk, a snack, possibly the Holy Spirit, before they become public commentary. Unhidden is telling the truth inside yourself, honoring what you actually feel. It's keeping your word in small ways, and it's speaking with integrity, letting your outer life match your inner knowing a little bit more each day, each week, each month, and each year. It's not about being dramatic, it's about being more integrated. It's not about becoming louder, it's about becoming less divided. And this is where my S P E framework comes in. At any threshold, you'll usually do one of three things. Shrink, perform, or embody. Your shrinking self says, stay quiet, stay small, don't make it weird. Your performing self says, make it perfect, prove it, explain it, polish it, delay until it's impressive. Your embodied self says, what is true? What do I know? What is mine to do? And what is mine to do today? That's the shift. It's not becoming someone else. It's recognizing which version of you fear is running and then choosing differently. It's asking, in what rooms do I shrink? In what rooms do I perform? And where do I feel safe enough to embody? Freedom isn't becoming someone else. It's recognizing which version of you fear is running and choosing different. That's unhidden. Okay, here's your tool for the week. And it's deceptively powerful. I call it the one small, honest promise. This isn't about maximizing productivity. It's not self-improvement Olympics. This is self-trust repair. Self-trust isn't rebuilt through intensity, it's rebuilt through evidence. Not 10 promises, one. Make a tiny. So tiny your nervous system doesn't panic. So tiny you can't fail without really putting your back into it. Examples. I'll drink one glass of water before coffee. I'll take a 10-minute walk. I will text her back by 3 p.m. I'll even put a post-it note on my computer. I'll stretch for five minutes before bed. I'll put my shoes by the door tonight. I'll stop saying, I'm so stupid, and replace it with, that was silly, Rachel. Then, and this is important, keep it. And when you do, pause and let that register. Put your hand on your chest and say something like, see, I'm with you. Or I can keep my word. Or we're rebuilding trust. Because that's what you're doing. You're becoming someone your own soul can rely on. That's not about self-discipline as punishment. It's about self-trust as restoration. And if you want your intuition to get clearer, if you want to discern God's nudges with more confidence, if you want to stop outsourcing your knowing to everyone else with a pulse and an opinion, this is part of that foundation. It's not the only part, but it's a big one. Unhidden starts here. Integrity in the small. So here's your rebel minute. Ask yourself, which version of me is speaking right now? My shrinking self, my performing self, or my embodied self. Another powerful question is: do I recognize the woman speaking? Oof. Y'all, that's fire right there. Sit with that one. Don't turn it into shame. We're not doing spiritualized self-bullying with better vocabulary. Your shrinking self probably protected you. It was a survival story. Your performing self probably helped you to survive, succeed, belong, or stay safe. Honor the self that protected you, but don't let her keep leading. So today, just notice. That's it. Notice when you shrink, when you perform, when you overexplain, when you swallow your voice or your opinion, when you make that face in the mirror. Notice when your embodied self quietly whispers, actually, I do know. That noticing, that's rebellion. And now your pinky toe practice. Choose one small honest promise for the next 24 hours. That's it. One. Not because the promise itself will change your life, but because keeping it gives your system a little piece of evidence. I can trust me here. And evidence compounds, just like pinky toe steps of courage compound, pinky toe steps of self-respect compound. And that is how you rebuild self-trust. Not all at once, not through grand declarations, through repeated micro-proof. So let me ask you honestly, where do you most often disappear? In your voice and opinions, your body? Your mirror? Your needs and desires? Your joy? In which rooms do you feel most like yourself? In which rooms do you edit yourself the most? Where have you confused belonging with self-abandonment? Do you miss yourself anywhere? That last question is big and it's important and it's hard, just like all the other questions. But doing the hard work, asking the hard questions, especially of yourself, is where the real work begins. Here's your permission slips this week. You're allowed to stop editing yourself down to be easy. You're allowed to belong without betraying yourself. You're allowed to tell the truth without turning it into a performance. You're allowed to rebuild self-trust one tiny promise at a time. You're allowed to begin again if and when you mess up. You're allowed to say, I see the pattern now. And instead of collapsing into shame, you're allowed to ask, what will I choose next? Because this isn't about perfection. It's about presence. It's about integrity. It's about becoming a woman who doesn't keep betraying what she knows in order to keep everyone else comfortable. It's about becoming unhidden. Next week, we're talking more directly about the mirror, the faces we make, the scripts we repeat, the contempt we've normalized, and how to shift it without becoming fake positive. Because unhidden women don't just change what they wear or what they do, they change what they say to themselves. And friend, if you're realizing you're done disappearing, but you don't want to figure this out alone, this is exactly the work that I do. You can find me at rachelharrisonline.com or come say hi on the socials. Until then, notice where you disappear. Keep one small, honest promise and practice living possible again. I'll meet you back here.