examine your habits

the fluidity and evolution of truth

Moonlight (2016)

I don’t show my face on the internet. That truth about myself has been more often on mind since a few months ago when I revised a section on my coaching page to explain why you can’t see my face there:

So, if this choice is not for safety, what is it for? Truthfully, I don't know. This online persona is as it has been for years, but it is not static. Maybe it will radically shift someday. That's my best understanding right now.

Intentionality is important to me, but as I wrote those words I understood that I was adhering to a habit without any intention behind it. Hiding my face was no longer needed to feel safe. I was just sticking with the habit because that’s how it has always been. The habit reflects an old truth, but what is true now?

I’ve taken a few steps to explore the contours of sharing my corporeal form with the internet. I made two blogs (blurry vlogs) where I spoke behind a filter concealing most my visual details. Last month I revealed that a picture of me has already been online for years. Three days ago, I watched myself film a video without concealing my face. Yesterday, I shared it as an unlisted video on YouTube. Today, I made it public.

I had one last bit of resistance behind taking that small step, that giant leap to share an unfiltered video of myself. I had imagined any of a small number of people who were once intimately familar with an outdated version of me watching the video. With the revelation that it’s me, they say: “Him? Him! This guy was an asshole! He was a selfish, ignorant, unempathetic, autistic (derogatory)… bad guy!” But after thinking about it more, I realized that that’s my ego talking, like oh, I’m so… something… that they’ll feel compelled to voice their displeasure with me all these years later. If it happens, I’ll be okay. I will agree with them and then ask them what they’ve been up to since we’d stopped talking. No more resistance. I do show my face on the internet.

So, if you find that you habitually do something without a solid understanding of why you do it, I invite you to gently explore the nature of that action. Slowly experiment with shifting the habit, if for no other reason than to better understand yourself. Let yourself be surprised and delighted by what you discover about who you are right now.