Hiding is What We Do

An outside observer of the human race would note that the obvious and most characteristic habit of the human personality is that we hide. We are continually hiding from each other, and we are continually hiding from ourselves.

Fear is the universal motivation for the diverse endeavors that we anxiously pursue every day. We are afraid of death and shame in all their forms. We are afraid of missing out, of being left out, of being “gypped.” We are afraid of looking foolish, of being taken advantage of, not having enough, or worse — of not being enough. We are afraid of feeling awkward, of being embarrassed. We are afraid of illness. We cannot stand the thought of being trapped with prolonged pain or incapacitation. We are afraid of sudden or impending loss. We are afraid of being wrong or guilty. Many of us are even afraid of displeasing our mother or father, even if they are no longer in our lives.

The list goes on — fears in so many forms. We live under apprehension that some well-known or totally unpredictable direction life will catch us off guard and bring us to unforeseen regret, shame, or pain. So we hide. We hide our faces from others so often that we lose sight of the fact that those around us have become, like us, unknown. In our hiding, we become unknown to ourselves as well.

A Safe Face & Place

A trained therapist is a safe face, in a safe place to come out of hiding. Here fears can be recognized and named.  Here is a face and here is a place where you can be safely known by another and to yourself.  We begin to see that our hopes are the inverse- the replacement for — our empty fears. Those rediscovered hopes, when validated by biblical realities, lead to new, suddenly sustainable vistas in the endeavors of everyday life.

And so therapy becomes a hunt for those places of hiding that are waiting to be entered into. More often than not, the clues that lead there is the very fear, regret, shame, or pain that we are trying to ignore even now. Do you want to work through your fears to find the place where your hopes have been waiting? A trained therapist can help you get there.