The Joy of Being Seen
So many of us adults feel shame, and too many of us feel we need to hide something. Maybe we hide how we feel or what we really think. Or we keep something secret. Even as we talk about being authentic and visible, something keeps us from showing our whole selves. Maybe we could learn from our children…
When I owned a children’s business years ago, I noticed something curious about the game of hide-and-seek. Children loved playing it, even in places where there was nowhere “good” to hide. I’d watch toddlers standing in the open with their eyes covered, convinced they were hidden, or bigger kids giggling behind a single mat in a gym. Once on a school bus, my then 5-year-old daughter and her friend took turns hiding their heads in their laps, and bursting into laughter as they “found” each other over and over.
At first, I didn’t get it. Wasn’t the point of the game to find a clever hiding place? But then it hit me: the joy isn’t in hiding. It’s in being found. Kids want someone to point at them, and say, “I see you!”
If you remember playing the game when you were young, if you ever hid too well, you might remember that it stops being fun. You cough, peek, or give yourself away because being left unseen doesn’t feel good for long. And if you stayed hidden too well? You risk being forgotten altogether. The other kids might have gone off and started a new activity.
But then we grow up and forget the lessons of our early games. And we get much better at hiding. We learn to cover the parts of ourselves we fear others won’t accept: the anxiety, the shame, the quiet sense of not being enough. We might look “fine” — successful, sociable, high-achieving — but inside we feel hidden, waiting to be found.
The trouble is, when you hide too well, life keeps moving. Others carry on with the game. You may feel more and more disconnected, even lonely in a crowd. And it can feel really scary to stop hiding. You might not even know how.
Therapy is a space where you don’t have to hide. It’s a place to let yourself be seen — gently, safely, at your own pace. It’s not about forcing confidence or fixing yourself, but about reconnecting with who you are, letting go of old hiding places, and finding the relief of being met without judgment.
And I believe one important goal of therapy is to help my clients feel safe enough to be seen, in the therapy room first, but ultimately in the world. Because at the end of the day, we don’t want to hide well — we want to be found.
If you want to experience the joy of being seen, I offer therapy in Manchester and online.
