The Courage to Be Known

There is something that comes after listening.

After someone asks the second question.

After they put down their phone, look you in the eye and give you their full attention.

After they create the space for you to tell the truth.

You still have to decide whether you will.

I’ve been thinking about this as a continuation of my recent conversations here about connection.

First, I wondered how many people really know us.

Then I began thinking about how well we listen to one another. How rarely we ask the deeper question. How much connection might be waiting for us if we became more curious about the person sitting across from us.

But there’s another side to all of this.

We can long to be known and still spend much of our lives making sure no one gets too close.

The versions of ourselves

I think most of us have versions of ourselves.

There’s the version we bring to work.

The one we bring to dinner.

The one our family knows.

The one old friends expect.

The one we offer when we walk into a room where we don’t quite feel like we belong.

Maybe this is especially true for those of us who are sensitive to the people around us.

We read the room.

We notice what makes someone comfortable. We sense what is expected. We know when to be quieter, when to be funny, when to keep something to ourselves.

And somewhere along the way, adapting can become so instinctive that we don’t even realize we’re doing it.

We’re not necessarily pretending.

We’re editing.

Offering the pieces of ourselves that fit.

And then wondering why we sometimes leave a room full of people feeling strangely unseen.

Being liked is not the same as being known

This is an uncomfortable distinction.

Because being liked feels good.

Being known can feel terrifying.

To be liked, we can show someone the parts of ourselves that are easiest to love.

To be known, eventually we have to show them the rest.

The uncertainty.

The contradictions.

The opinion we aren’t sure they’ll agree with.

The dream that feels a little ridiculous when we say it out loud.

The thing we’re struggling with even though, from the outside, everything looks fine.

The parts of ourselves that are still becoming.

That’s different.

There is risk in it.

Because once someone sees the real thing, we no longer have the comfort of thinking, Well, they would understand me if they really knew me.

They know.

And now we wait to see if they stay.

Maybe that’s why being known requires courage.

“I’m fine.”

How many times have you said it?

I know I have.

How are you?

I’m good.

Conversation over.

And sometimes we really are good.

But sometimes someone has unknowingly opened a door and we close it before they ever have the chance to walk through.

Maybe because the grocery store isn’t the place.

Maybe because we don’t trust that person with the real answer.

Both are completely reasonable.

But sometimes?

Maybe we simply don’t know how to answer honestly anymore.

We’ve become so accustomed to the polished response that when someone genuinely asks, No, really—how are you? we don’t quite know what to do with it.

There is vulnerability in being asked a sincere question.

But there is vulnerability in answering one too.

Not everyone needs to know you

I think this becomes clearer with age.

Being known doesn’t mean becoming an open book.

It doesn’t mean sharing your most intimate thoughts with everyone who asks.

And it certainly doesn’t mean everyone deserves access to you.

There is wisdom in discernment.

Some people have earned the deeper story.

Some haven’t.

Some people know how to hold what we give them.

Others don’t.

Maybe one of the gifts of getting older is realizing that we don’t need to be understood by everyone.

What freedom there is in that.

I don’t need every room to get me.

I don’t need every person to agree with me.

I don’t need to explain myself into being accepted.

But I do think we need a few places where we can take off the armor.

A few people with whom we don’t have to translate ourselves.

What are we protecting?

This is the question I’ve been sitting with.

When I notice myself editing or pulling back, what am I protecting?

Sometimes it’s privacy.

Sometimes it’s intuition telling me this isn’t a safe place for something tender.

But sometimes it’s fear.

Fear of being misunderstood.

Fear of being too much.

Fear of saying something awkward.

Fear that the person sitting across from us might see us differently.

Fear that if we reveal what we actually think or want or feel, something between us might change.

And it might.

That’s the part we don’t like to talk about.

Authenticity doesn’t guarantee belonging.

Sometimes becoming more ourselves changes relationships.

But what is the alternative?

To belong somewhere only because we have become very good at being who the room expects us to be?

I’m not sure that’s belonging at all.

Maybe we have to stop reading the room

Or perhaps not stop.

Maybe we just stop allowing the room to decide who we are.

There is a difference.

Sensitivity is a beautiful thing.

To notice another person. To sense when someone needs space. To understand that not every thought needs to be spoken.

But sensitivity shouldn’t require self-erasure.

We can be thoughtful without disappearing.

We can be kind without constantly adjusting ourselves.

We can belong without performing.

And maybe this is part of coming home to ourselves too.

Learning to remain ourselves even when we’re in the presence of other people.

The people who keep discovering us

There is another piece of being known that I find beautiful.

We aren’t finished.

The person I am today isn’t exactly the person I was ten years ago.

Hopefully she isn’t.

We’re still changing.

Our desires change. Our priorities change. Our beliefs deepen. Things that once mattered tremendously become less important. Things we overlooked suddenly become precious.

Which means truly knowing someone isn’t something we accomplish.

It’s something we keep doing.

Maybe one of the greatest gifts we can give someone we love is refusing to assume we already know everything about them.

Ask your husband the question you’ve never asked.

Ask your longtime friend what she’s dreaming about now.

Ask your grown child who they’re becoming.

Let people surprise you.

And allow yourself to surprise them too.

Tell the truth to a few people

I don’t think the answer is to share more with everyone.

I think it’s to share more honestly with a few.

The people who have shown us they can listen.

The people who don’t immediately try to fix us.

The people who can disagree with us without withdrawing their love.

The people who are curious about who we are becoming rather than committed to who we used to be.

Those relationships deserve our courage too.

Because intimacy can’t survive forever on carefully edited versions of ourselves.

Eventually, someone has to say the real thing.

I’m scared.

I’m changing.

I don’t know.

I want something different.

That hurt me.

I’m happier than I’ve been in years.

I miss you.

I need you.

This is who I am now.

Perhaps that’s where true connection begins.

Not when someone finally asks the perfect question.

But in the moment we decide to give them an honest answer.

So maybe the question isn’t only:

How many people really know you?

Maybe it’s also:

How knowable have you allowed yourself to become?

Not to everyone.

Just to the few who have earned the privilege of knowing the person underneath all those carefully practiced versions.

Because being seen is one thing.

Allowing yourself to be seen is another.

And perhaps that is one of the quietest acts of courage there is.

 

-Natalie