I’m having a really intense skin breakout, something I’ve experienced many times in the past, something that’s caused me a lot of embarrassment and anxiety. Currently, the skin condition and breakout are limited to the back of my head and neck, and I thought they were getting better. (photos below)
Today I was gonna make a video for Insight Timer. For the past six weeks, I haven’t really shaved my head because of the skin condition. I’ve been trimming it and buzzing it, but today I decided to shave my head so that I could look really clean and sharp for this Insight Timer video.
This morning I woke up, shaved my head, and came out of the shower. I grabbed the mirror, and when I saw the condition the back of my head was in, I immediately felt so sad. It was a pretty bad breakout. It felt like someone punched me in the guts, and all I wanted to do was hide. I wanted to stay away from everybody and everything and hide.
This feeling is familiar to me. All through high school, I had what I thought was severe cystic acne, which I later found out was an allergic reaction to many things.
This morning, as I sat in the kitchen, making my drinks alone, and I thought about all the ways in which I was going to hide myself today: avoiding human contact, avoiding being seen, shrinking down as small as possible.
Then a thought hit me: I don’t have time to hide.
I’ve spent over a decade of my life hiding. I don’t have time to hide. I have things to create, gifts to share, and an impact to make, so a radical idea came to mind. Instead of hiding, I was going to lean into the pain. I was going to alchemize the fear and the anxiety and the loneliness and the sadness into creation. I was going to do exactly the thing that scared me the most. I was going to let people know and see where I’m at and what’s happening. I was going to show people the truth because I was exhausted from hiding.
Hiding becomes harder as you get older.
Hiding becomes harder as your relationship with your soul grows.
Hiding becomes harder when you know without a shadow of a doubt that the gifts you have can help people.
Today, this is where I’m at. I’m having some sort of breakout on my head. It makes me shy, it makes me sad, it makes me frustrated, but it won’t make me small. It won’t push me into the shadows. It won’t stop me from sharing my hope.
My deepest desire is that someone out there will read this, see this, feel this, and recognize something in themselves.
The part that is tired of hiding.
The part that is done is waiting until everything looks perfect.
The part that knows there is still something beautiful, honest, and meaningful inside them, waiting to be shared.
Maybe they will see my scars, my wounds, and my imperfections.
But mostly, I hope they see this:
You do not have to be flawless to be of service.
You do not have to be healed to be helpful.
You do not have to be perfect to begin.
Big love,
D
—
PS: After I wrote this post and took these photos, I shared the story with my Artist Morning Live community.
Then I made a guided meditation inspired by this feeling of being tired of hiding the parts of myself I’ve been keeping in the shadows.
It became a tender practice for loving the parts of us we usually try to cover up, fix, or keep out of sight.
I’m sharing the MP3 below as a little sneak peek, in case this is something your heart wants to sit with too.
0:00
-19:53
PPS: And yes, I still made the Insight Timer video. And it’s freaking awesome!
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