Hi Reader!

Yesterday, after feeling hurt by two people in my life, I wrote this sentence in my journal:

I am done hiding.

I started hiding as a kid. (And not in a hide and seek kind of way.)

I ran away any time I had strong feelings that I didn’t know what to do with. Desire, fear, sadness, anger…any intense feeling was a reason to run.

It was only decades later that I learned about my Scorpio Moon and began the slow (and still ongoing) process of befriending my deeply feeling self.

You may have noticed (or not noticed) that I stopped emailing you for about 8 months.

I did that because I am in grad school for counseling and my business is shifting into something deeper…and because with an 8-year-old and grad school, sometimes I don’t have the capacity to do the business things I did a decade ago.

But mostly it's because I was afraid to be visible while I'm still figuring things out.

I believe that everything we create in the world has a soul, including our businesses. When I connect to the Soul of my Business, she feels like a middle schooler. Awkward, uncertain, still trying to figure out who she is in this confusing world.

As a middle schooler, I hid a lot. I had braces, an afro, zits, the whole shebang. I had intense crushes on boys who didn’t know I existed…and the reason they didn’t know I existed was because I was terrified of them seeing me.

In middle school, I hid by running away from school and going to a grocery store across the street. I ran away from the boy who actually did like me at a Shabbat dinner at his parents house. I still remember bursting into the darkness of the Denver streets, not knowing where to go or what to do with myself.

Now my hair is (mostly) controlled. I don’t have zits or braces. I’m a whole grown ass woman and a mother.

Yet I still hide.

Now I hide by not emailing you unless I have something wise and fully formed to share. I hide by not publishing the new home page I wrote months ago. I hide by not telling people in my personal life how much their actions hurt me.

Honestly, I don’t know what not hiding really looks like yet.

Part of it is writing this email. Part of it is letting the Soul of my Business be seen, metaphorical zits and all. Part of it is discerning hiding from setting appropriate boundaries. It’s deciding when I need to show my pain to the people who have hurt me, or when I just need to show it to myself.

If you’re a hider too, I hope this email gives you the courage to be seen in all your messy glory (or at least part of it). Or if you have a different safety strategy, maybe it will inspire you to question whether your strategy needs an update.

Or maybe you just read this and thought, “Wow, I feel like I know Daniela a little better.”

Whatever your reaction was, thank you for reading this and for witnessing me on this journey. I feel so lucky to have you with me.

Warmly,

Daniela

P.S. I want to know you better too! Hit reply and tell me one thing you were embarrassed about in middle school. I promise to reply.

🎴 This Week's Tarot Pull:

One of the big astrology events right now is Jupiter moving into Leo. The planet of expansion and hope just moved into the sign of being seen and celebrated for your authentic self.

What is one thing your guides want you to know as you step into an expanded ability to be seen?

Pull a card to find out! 👇🏼