My Secret: Being Vulnerable About My Identity
“Owning our story, owning what we believe, and loving ourselves is the bravest thing we’ll ever do. Do the world a favour: speak your truth. Follow your wild heart.” --Brene Brown
Somewhere along the way, I learned that being strong meant not being vulnerable. To me, showing vulnerability meant being weak. And being weak is just about the worst thing you can be. I think a lot about how that happened. I was a skinny, non-athletic bookworm as a child. Not pretty, not cute, kind of dirty blonde stringy hair. In third grade I got glasses. Then I was “four eyes”, among other things. I don’t really think of myself as having been bullied, but I was definitely teased in grade school and wrapped myself in the armor of my intelligence, and in books. I got contacts in the summer before 8th grade, and I remember completely making myself over that summer, so that when I went back to school in the fall, wearing new makeup on my glasses-free face, I was almost unrecognizable. And I felt different. I felt strong and powerful for the first time--I can literally remember thinking, “I’m finally me.” I wore the armor of that makeup like a shield but it also released my true self, the one I’d kept hidden behind those glasses. That’s when I think it started. To this very day, I feel my most powerful when I’m fully glammed out--face fully covered in that armor. Don’t get me wrong-- I love makeup for makeup’s sake. It’s artistry. I adore everything about it and always have. I think the lesson I learned was “Feeling strong is good. Feeling weak is bad.” But where did I learn that vulnerability is weakness?
I still don’t know. I’ve always been one to try out new identities. For awhile I was “goth”, donned in all black and with my hair covering my face, snake and Egyptian ankh jewelry from head to foot. I was “hippie”, long skirts, birkenstocks, rough knit sweaters bought off of tabletops in the loggia. Sometimes a preppy sorority girl-- khaki shorts and letter shirts with grosgrain ribbon belts. I was trying to figure out who I was. Through all of it, I remember thinking most people didn’t really know me. I didn’t show my real self very often, so afraid was I that people wouldn’t like me. Spoiler alert: I didn’t know myself.
Most people wouldn’t have known I had these insecurities. I was very successful in high school and college, then grad school. President of the student body in high school, in student Senate in college, fully and heavily involved in student activities and leadership. I was colorful, wild, living my best, most crazy life (I thought). But the person I was presenting wasn’t a vulnerable person. She didn’t share her weaknesses or even her most inner thoughts, except with a very few people. I later married one of them.
I find that I’m losing myself in the story. And this is a blog, not a book. Hey! There’s an idea! What’s the bottom line? It’s something about how somewhere along the way, my search for my identity collided with my fear of weakness. I think I’ve spent a lifetime trying to discover who I am, while hiding the fact that I don’t know who I am from everyone around me. Hiding something that big is hard. You find yourself trying to be who everyone around you thinks you are, wants you to be, instead of who you really are. And if you don’t know who you really are, well, you’re fucked.
My marriage ended last year, and I started Women on the Remake with Kristin last year, too. I re-entered the world as Leigh Moody. Free from the bonds of being someone’s wife, and as my children grew into adults, I began the old struggle again. Who am I? My passion for helping women discover and live in their truth is really about my own struggle for the same. Now, at 48, it feels imperative that I know my truth, live in my truth, be my most authentic self, and help others do the same. The problem? I still struggle with vulnerability. It’s sooooo hard for me. I honestly think it comes down to the fact that I really still honestly don’t know my truth and I’m afraid of what that means.
I’m on this journey for myself, and for all of you, too. I am a work in progress, still becoming, still searching, still learning who I am. I guess it’s an act of vulnerability to even write this blog. Through this, I’m admitting my biggest secret. That I still don’t know who I am.
Love,