Hide and Seek (Skip the Hide)
On choosing visibility, dropping the performance, and showing up as your whole damn self.
A little over a year ago, I started (kind of accidentally) on a journey that’s now written all over my skin.
I didn’t set out to get both arms tattooed. They’re not full sleeves (yet), but they’re pretty damn close. I’ve always wanted this, but for years I held myself back. I told myself it was something for younger people, or for someone with a more creative job. Not for someone like me with a professional reputation and leadership roles in corporate rooms.
But when I quit that world and stepped into coaching full-time, something in me shifted.
Actually, a lot shifted. I started listening to myself in a new way. I began appreciating what this body of mine has carried me through. The ambition. The striving. The years of chasing goals, pushing through, building other people’s companies, showing up for everyone and everything. I started to love this body not for how it looked, but for everything it has done for me. And one of the ways I honored that? I let myself cover it in art.
Now, I’ve got visible tattoos. (One even creeps down the top of my hand so there’s no hiding it, even if I wanted to…which I don’t!)
That hit me a few weeks ago when I was on stage in a product leadership role. Arms uncovered. Tattoos on full display. I realized how far I’ve come. From the 18 year old girl who got her first tattoo in a discreet spot on the inside of her ankle, to the version of me who has chosen to show up in the room without covering any part of her authentic self.
No hiding. Willing to be seen. And if I’m not someone’s cup of tea, that’s okay. I’m not for everyone.
The freedom to be yourself is powerful. But it’s not always easy.
It takes intention. It takes noticing the moments where I still want to shrink or go quiet. The moments where I feel myself start to perform or edit who I am to fit in.
And when that happens, I check in with myself.
Is this about me?
Or is it about the room I’m in?
Is the urge to hide a signal that something’s off…not with me, but with the environment or the people around me?
Because sometimes it’s not us. Sometimes the problem is that we’re in a space that can’t hold all of who we are.
Reminders everywhere.
Every tattoo I have is a reminder. But there are reminders everywhere. In the way I watch my dear friends battle with hiding. In the faces of my nieces who I am leading by example. Even in the way I hear my voice shift unnaturally when trying to coax a difficult colleague into a new way of thinking.
The reminders are about choices. Choices to stop performing. A decision to stop shape-shifting just to be acceptable or likable. A daily act of saying, “This is me.”
So here’s my invitation to you:
Where are you still hiding pieces of yourself to make others comfortable
What would shift if you stopped trying to be good and started being real
What part of you is ready to come out of hiding this spring?
Want to be done?
If you’re done playing hide and seek, and ready to figure out who you are underneath it all, I’m here for that.
This is the heart of my coaching work. Helping people stop twisting themselves into shapes that don’t fit. Helping you remember who you are—and live like you believe it.
Ready to start? Let’s talk.
leahfarmer.com