if the fear of being seen is holding you back from living the life you want to live then that is a problem and this is something that almost everyone deals with to some extent so let's talk about how to get over the fear of being seen and being visible so that you can step into your Highest Potential hey friends welcome back if you're new here my name is jills and I help women step into their power tap into their divine feminine and become their best self live their best life so if that's something you want
to do you should subscribe and stick around and in case you want more from me besides just my YouTube videos you can check out my awaken your feminine energy course or any of my other digital products like my best-selling notion templates they are all linked down below now if you have a fear of being seen it will negatively impact your life to some extent like this isn't just for the people who one day dream of giving a big Ted talk or being on the cover of a magazine the fear of being seen shows up in
dangerous little ways you might not pursue your creative Pursuits and your passions because you're afraid of what people might think you might hesitate to fully express yourself and be fully yourself in romantic relationships and avoid intimacy because to be loved is to be seen you might miss out on career advancement because you're afraid of the visibility it might force you to have you might be scared to share your talents and messages with the world you might hesitate to go to the gym and start getting in shape because you don't look like everyone else there yet
and you don't know how to use all those machines or you might suppress the true version of you and there's nothing worse than feeling like you have to pretend to be somebody else so in this video we're going to talk about about what the fear of being seen really is where it comes from and most importantly how to heal it and how to work past it and the tips I'm going to share aren't just mindset tips but also some more practical actionable tips as well I really want you to walk away from this video being
like okay I got it I know how to take action I know how to help this so with that said let's dive in so the fear of being seen is not really the fear of being seen it's the fear of being judged and the fear of being not accepted at its core that is what it is that is what we're dealing with and if we knew with absolute certainty that we would always be perceived positively then that fear would likely dissipate or it would have never shown up in the first place if you have a
big fear of being seen let me ask you a question what was your childhood like did it feel safe to be your authentic self did you ever feel judged for being who you were did you feel like you had to pretend to be another version of yourself to fit in to be accepted to be loved or even just to not get in trouble were you shamed for being who you were and what ways did you feel like you were judged criticized shamed not accepted and in what ways did it feel safer to just play small
and be quiet this doesn't have to be us experiencing like full-on trauma most of us experience this in our reality in our childhood at least to some extent whether it's from our family or our parents or the other kids at school or teachers many of us subconsciously learned that if we make ourselves smaller if we just stay quiet if we hide away from attention then we will finally feel safe and I can't get hurt so our subconscious mind programmed this into our brain because our brain is wired for protection and self-preservation right and told us
that it was better to not be seen and to be the type of person that doesn't want to be seen it's not necessarily who we are at our core but it became so wired into our brain and programmed into our subconscious that we start to believe that this is just who we are that this is who I grew up into oh I'm just shy I'm just quiet I just don't want any attention that's not who I am I hate anyone looking at me I'd rather just be alone what if you're not shy what if you
just have a deep rooted subconscious fear of being seen what if you don't want to be alone all the time you just don't want to feel the pain of not feeling accepted we keep ourselves small because our brain believes that that is the safer option that it is safer not to reveal our true selves with the world when I was younger as a kid and also in my early 20s I struggled with the same thing I was the shy kid I was always the quiet one I struggled to express my emotions I struggled to let
myself be my authentic self because I had this underlying limiting belief that who I authentically was emotions and all goofiness and all Flaws and All was not accepted it was not good enough for some reason it didn't feel safe for me to be her and this took me a long time to realize and heal and work through on my own but I'm pretty sure therapy would have helped and probably would have sped up the entire process and that is where better help comes in who is kindly sponsoring today's video better help is an online therapy
platform that connects you you virtually to a licensed therapist what I love about better help is that you can do it completely over your phone or your computer so that means that you can do it over video chat or a phone call or even just messaging it's up to you it's so easy to sign up just go to my link better health.com jills the link is down below in the description you'll answer a quick questionnaire and they'll match you with a professional usually within 48 Hours let better help connect you to a therapist who can
support you all from the comfort of your own home visit better health.com jills or just choose jills Garen during sign up and receive discounts on your first month now the thing is though that as human beings we are all wired to feel accepted if you think back to our Primal days if you were not accepted as a part of the tribe that was bad news you were probably kicked out left to fend for yourself and you'd probably die so that acceptance was crucial it was necessary but times are different now and if you don't feel
accepted it may still definitely hurt but you're not going to die what I'm saying is that that drive we all have for acceptance and positive social connection it's not going to go away it's a part of Being Human but if we have a big fear of being seen that means that we're letting that drive control us and that we somehow learned along the way that it was safer to stay small and stay hidden and we have to rewrite our story and rewire our brain back into safety you have to decide that that need to play
small and to not be seen is no longer a part of your story it is no longer relevant it might have been helpful for you when you were younger and you can acknowledge that but now it is no longer needed and you can release it so inner child work can be helpful here and one of my favorite practical exercises for inner child work is just imagining talking to your younger self okay so this is easiest to do in meditation but you imagine yourself right now who you are right now talking to the younger version of
you maybe like the seven-year-old version of you and this is where you can just listen to her this is where you can tell her all the things that she needed to hear this is where you can validate her feelings and her emotions this is where you can remind them that they are safe and they no longer have to play small or hide this will help to rewire your brain and nervous system and rewrite that story another way to rewire your brain and your nervous system to get more comfortable being seen is just through visualization okay
so you are going to visualize yourself in different scenarios of you being seen in different scenarios of you putting yourself out there and having eyes on you and notice your body's reactions when you do this maybe your body starts to get a little tense like your muscles start to get a little tense maybe your breath changes and you start breathing much more quickly maybe you feel an uncomfortable sensation or pressure in your stomach or your chest or maybe you even start sweating a little bit and so now what you're going to do is when you
visualize yourself being seen you are going to try to control and calm your body and your nervous system and not react so much and at first it might feel a little bit impossible but the more and more you practice this the better you will get you'll be able to keep your body more calm you're breathing more calm you'll be able to keep your muscles relaxed so basically you visualize being seen and practice it in your mind so you can try to get your body into the new habit of staying calm during those moments so then
when they do happen in real life you're like oh it's okay I've done this before I've practiced this before now here's the thing though when it comes to the fear of being seen and wanting to release this often times we focus so much on the fact that we have this fear that we are scared of people judging us and so rightly so we try to do the inner work to not feel this way to not feel that fear anymore so that we can then then once that fear is gone show up and be visible and
be confident now the inner work is great the inner work is important but here's the problem sometimes us thinking we need to do all of this inner work is a way that we accidentally self-sabotage and hold ourselves back if you want to move past the fear of being seen sometimes you need to stop focusing so much on healing the fear part of it sometimes you need to stop trying to dissect it and analyze it and put all this attention to it sometimes when we focus so much on trying to fix a problem you don't fix
it you actually just end up getting stuck in it you start identifying with it it becomes a part of who you see yourself as and once you start saying to yourself I'm always scared of what people think I'm a people pleaser I'm so shy I get embarrassed easily or I'm this or I'm that or oh I get anxiety when I speak in front of people so that means that I'm just an anxious person that I'm a fearful person once you start saying these things this is the story you'll create for yourself and the life that
you will live right so let's say that you're afraid of putting yourself out there okay so what and I don't say that to invalidate your feelings and your experiences but what I'm saying is so what stop giving it so much attention your fear does not need to be this big problem unless you make it one the secret is is that you don't have to get over the fear of being seen before you allow yourself to be seen because the thing is is that you don't just clear all this and do the inner work by meditating
and visualizing and singing your kumbayas and talking to your inner child you also do the inner work and work past the those blocks by taking action by practicing by showing up by starting small you will heal the fear in the process of taking action you will subconsciously be doing all that inner work in the process of taking action so let me tell you exactly how to do this and start this and what I mean we start by allowing ourselves to be seen in small ways so that we can start building up our energetic capacity to
handle it and to eventually handle more all right I'm going to tell you my favorite way to start doing this because it's easy and it's fun and everyone can do this so when you go out you are going to start putting on more beautiful more bold more put together outfits or just more eye-catching outfits you are going to put in the effort and wear a cute outfit something that you love something that makes you feel good naturally when we wear more of an eye-catching outfit what happens is it catches people's eyes people look people will
look at you I have this dress it's nothing crazy it's just from abber cromi but I wear it all the time in the spring and summer because it's just really comfy but also really beautiful it's this like very vibrant pink color and I just love the color I think it's so pretty but whenever I wear that dress people look because that dress is just a little more eye-catching because the color is really eye-catching so I started doing this when I wanted to get more comfortable being seen and also just when I wanted to feel more
confident and more comfortable with attention I would wear more bold more eye-catching more beautiful more put together outfits and people will look you will be seen right like if there's a girl and she's wearing like the cutest outfit ever she's wearing the cutest dress I know myself I'm going to look I'm going to admire her outfit we all do it and so of course at first it might feel uncomfortable but it doesn't mean that you can't do it if you just keep showing up and practicing this over time you will get more and more comfortable
with eyes being on you and this is just like a really easy fun safe way to practice this right like if you go to the grocery store wearing a beautiful outfit at least here in America we just pretty casual for that then you will be noticed no one's going to say anything usually but people will look and if you keep doing this you'll start building up your energetic capacity to handle eyes being on you and if you start making yourself noticed eventually you'll start to get more comfortable with it so that's one of my favorite
little tips but whatever you secretly desire to do or however you secretly desire to be more visible start small for example in 2018 I think I decided I wanted to get on social media I wanted to like start an Instagram and and start sharing like wellness tips that I learned and healthy food inspo but I was scared to I was anxious about it I was hesitant to like put myself on the internet and so I forced myself to start but I started small I only told three people I told my husband my sister-in-law and one
of my best friends I made a whole new separate Instagram account for it instead of using the personal one that I already had so people that I knew hopefully wouldn't see and I started posting to Instagram and eventually over time it started growing a little bit nothing crazy but it started growing a little bit and then after being on Instagram for like 2 years I decided that I really wanted to make a YouTube channel and I started at zero just like everybody else and my first videos got you know like 20 views 30 views now
I get a lot more but I slowly built that up and I became more and more comfortable being seen and having that visibility over time it wasn't something that I just healed you know like did the inner work and then I was healed I built up that energetic capacity over years to be able to handle that type of visibility did I have a fear of being seen when I started of course I did most people do but I didn't focus on the fear I focused on taking small action I never wanted to be that person
who just went like completely viral on YouTube and blew up overnight because I knew that I wouldn't be able to handle that big of a jump and visibility all at once it would be too much too fast way too many eyes on me all at once and I would not have the energetic capacity to be able to handle that and to be able to hold on to that success and I would push it away what I'm saying is that I started small and I built up my energetic capacity over time and this is how you
release the fear of being seen you show up in small ways maybe that's just you raising your hand in class or showing up to an event alone or wearing an eye-catching outfit or letting yourself be more vulnerable and real with your boyfriend or starting a small social media account to Showcase your art you start putting yourself out there in small ways consistently you get comfortable at that level and then you keep going you build up your capacity it doesn't just happen overnight now moving mov on a book that I read a few years ago that's
one of my favorites is the courage to be disliked it's more of a philosophy book where the whole book is just one conversation between a student and a philosopher and one of the main things that they talk about is our need for approval and how to feel free and how to have the courage to be disliked and be who you are a Core theme in this book is recognizing the quote separation of tasks and basically asking ourselves is this my task or is this someone else's task and let me explain what I mean by this
cuz it sounds weird my actions are my task and my task only what I'm in control of is my task what someone else thinks of me is not my task that's their task it's not my task to figure out what they think of me it's not my task to manipulate their judgments of me it's not my task to try to change their emotional state it's not my task to try to get someone to behave in a certain way that is all their task another way to think of it is like what other people think of
you is none of your business because it's not your task it's theirs people will judge it's what humans do but their judgments is not your task and it's safe to release control of things that are not your task when I make a YouTube video I can't control how people are going to feel about it what they're going to say what they're going to comments But ultimately that's not my task my task is to just try to make the best video I can this is more so just about getting an understanding of what you can and
cannot control so that you can feel free your actions your thoughts that is your task you can control that but you cannot control other people's reactions to your actions you cannot control their thoughts about your actions that is their task and in the book the authors say once you try to intrude on other people's tasks that's when conflict occurs and trying to control what is not yours to manage will stop you from living your best life our fear of being seen is really a fear of being judged right but that is not your task and
it sounds kind of silly but looking at it this way it really helped me to detach from the way people saw me and once I was able to break free from that being seen was not quite as scary so ask yourself is this truly my task or is this someone else's and lastly here's the thing when it comes to the fear of being seen being seen can feel uncomfortable yes but what is not being seen costing you not starting that business not letting yourself be the real you not following your passions not putting your work
out there not putting your messages to the world out there not wearing the Bold outfits you want to wear not allowing for real genuine Intimacy in your life so you push people away all of that is also uncomfortable so either way you're going to experience discomfort there's no avoiding the discomfort it's either the discomfort of playing small not living your best life not doing the things you secretly desire to do or you'll experience the discomfort of visibility of having eyes on you of putting yourself out there putting yourself in the position to be judged so
the thing is at the end of the day it's not about avoiding discomfort you can't avoid it so you might as well choose the discomfort that's at least going to benefit you the most are you willing to accept what playing small and staying hidden is costing you are you willing to sit in that discomfort for me I would personally rather choose the other option now if you want to start putting yourself out there more become more confident and maybe reinvent yourself one thing that is so underrated and so powerful is creating an alter ego and
I know it sounds a little weird a little crazy but a lot of people do it a lot of successful people do this and having an Al ego could potentially change your life it might be one of those only things that gets you past those blocks so I highly recommend you check out this video I really think you're going to like it so I'll see you over there or I'll just see you next time in my next video bye