How much do I share with you?

Dear EQuipped Leaders,

“We all have a shadow. No one has it all together, and everyone has things they don’t like about themselves.” -From The EQ Intervention

I keep finding myself drawn to the concept of shadow self lately. I was planning to write on a different topic today, but I’m just feeling so darn shadowy. So let’s go with it!

I know that in order to expand the open/free area of myself, I have to self-disclose/expose.

Finding a balance of how much to disclose is tricky for me. How much do I expose my true thoughts and feelings? Who do I trust?

I do this with you too. How much of myself do I share here with you?

I struggled with this last week with the Howdy post when I exposed my shadow part who can be a bit grinchy and my shadow part who can feel shame over Arkansas jokes. Telling you about the Arkansas part felt especially vulnerable for me. As I drove home after writing, I thought about coming back and taking that part out of the post:

Maybe that’s too much me to share. Maybe I’m exposing myself too much.

But that little feeling of hesitation was also met with a feeling of calm groundedness:

I feel more whole when I tell the truth. And I think I can still love that part of me no matter the reaction I get.

I also thought about you. I’ve been writing this weekly blog to you for over a year now, and when you’re showing up here with me to try to apply your own EQ, you are proving trustworthy. You showing up here to ponder emotional topics is also vulnerable. Your presence here is a gift. I don’t take it for granted. I recognize that this is a relationship too, our writer-reader relationship.

This is not super comfortable for me to own. Acknowledging that writing to you each week is a relationship feels vulnerable to me.

For over a decade, I attempted to Apply EQ quietly and in my own head. I read books and listened to podcasts and analyzed all my relationships without consulting the other person.

Some of this was necessary. I needed to learn to get quiet and still and turn inward.

Some of this was avoidant. If I solve our relationship problem in my own head, I don’t have to talk to you about it. I don’t have to make myself vulnerable. I don’t have to risk rejection.

The more I try honesty experiments in my relationships and tell trustworthy people the truth about me, the more I realize I’m actually applying EQ.

For a long time, I was just studying EQ, flirting with it but never putting a ring on it.

Now I’m really trying to apply what all I’ve learned. I think I’m doing it, and I think you’re helping me.

I was a reader for a long time before I was a writer, and I am grateful for the writers who let me read their truth. I want to be that for you, and that feels very vulnerable to me to own.

I hear a voice whisper harshly: Who do you think you are?

I used to curse that voice. Now I know it’s part of me too, and it’s just trying to protect me. I know it’s terrified of me exposing my shadow, exposing myself to potential harm. So instead of getting mad at it, I can be playful and gentle with it. I can wrap my arm around it, and tell it the truth:

I’m safe. I can tell the truth now. I don’t have to be perfect to have something meaningful to contribute. I can be messy and human and still worth listening to.

I learned about the Johari Window and a shadow self two years ago, and it feels good to apply it to my own life. The more I gently nudge that open free area out by telling the truth and gently wrap my arm around my shadow, the more whole and free I feel.

Where does this land for you today?