Latest / UNMASKED with Wesley Farnsworth / EP 69 - The Hidden Cost of Living Unseen

Transcript

EP 69 - The Hidden Cost of Living Unseen · UNMASKED with Wesley Farnsworth

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  I think one of the loneliest places a person can live is not
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  an isolation, but by being invisible.
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  It's being surrounded by people and still feeling unknown, still
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  feeling unseen, still carrying parts of yourself that nobody
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  knows exists. And the difficult part is a lot
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  of people learn how to live there.
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  They become high functioning, They become successful,
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  reliable, funny, helpful. They become the person that
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  everybody depends on. But underneath all of it, they
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  quietly wonder, would anybody still love me if they knew the
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  real me? I think there's people listening
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  right now who haven't felt truly seen in years.
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  Not because nobody loves them, but because they stopped letting
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  people close enough to see them. And eventually living unseen
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  becomes normal. Not healthy, just normal.
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  And tonight, I want to talk a little bit about the hidden cost
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  of that. Welcome to Unmasked, where we
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  take off the filters and get real about faith, failure, and
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  finding freedom. I'm your host, Wesley
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  Farnsworth, a dad, veteran, author, and a man who's learned
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  that God does his best work in the middle of our mess.
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  Each episode we have honest conversations with people who
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  have walked through addiction, pain, or doubt, and with
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  pastors, leaders, and everyday believers who are learning to
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  live and lead authentically. So take a breath, pull up a
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  chair, and let's get real. This is unmasked.
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  I don't think many people wake up one day and decide to hide.
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  I think that they adapt. Maybe honesty wasn't safe.
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  Maybe emotions were dismissed, maybe vulnerability got
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  punished. Maybe they opened up once and it
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  didn't go well. And so they learned and kept
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  things private to stay. They learned to stay composed,
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  to not burden people, to not be emotional, or at least not too
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  emotional, to not be needy. And eventually survival became
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  personality. They became seen as the quiet
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  one, the strong one, the independent one, the helper, the
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  easy going 1. And externally, it works.
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  People admire you, they trust you, they depend on you.
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  But internally you're slowly disappearing.
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  You see, there's a difference between privacy and
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  invisibility. Privacy is healthy.
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  Everyone needs a private space. Invisible living is different.
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  Invisible living says that nobody gets access, nobody sees
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  the deeper thing, nobody knows what I'm actually carrying.
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  And after a while, you become skilled at it.
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  You learn how to share without revealing.
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  You learn how to talk openly without actually opening up.
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  You learn to smile without connecting.
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  You become visible externally while remaining hidden
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  internally and eventually people just stop asking deeper
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  questions because you seem OK. And that's the tragedy.
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  The better you become hiding, the less people realize that
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  you're actually lonely. I think there's probably a lot
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  of men that live here because many of us learned early that
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  strength meant constant self containment.
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  Handle it, push through, keep moving.
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  So we became dependable, reliable.
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  The provider, the stabilizer, the guy who carries everything.
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  And honestly, people praise us for it.
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  But carrying everything alone has a cost, because eventually
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  the strong one is going to get tired.
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  The strong one hurts too. The strong one needs people too.
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  But nobody checks on the strong one, because everybody just
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  assumes that they're fine. One of the hidden costs of
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  living unseen is performance, because if people don't know the
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  real you, then they know the version that you present, and
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  maintaining that version becomes exhausting.
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  You become the funny one, the spiritual one, the leader, the
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  helper, the dependable friend, and slowly you become value.
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  And slowly your value becomes attached to the world, not the
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  person. And then a terrifying question
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  starts quietly growing underneath all of it.
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  If I stop performing, who am I? And that question scares people,
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  because many people haven't been loved as themselves in a very
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  long time, only as what they provide.
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  I think one of the saddest experiences in life is being
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  known publicly while remaining unknown personally.
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  People know what you do, but they don't know who you are.
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  They know your role, but not your struggle.
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  They know your success but not your grief.
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  And eventually you start wondering if anyone would stay
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  if the mask came off. That thought keeps people
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  trapped because people hidden, because hidden people often fear
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  exposure more than loneliness. At least loneliness is familiar,
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  but being seen feels risky and so they keep the mask on.
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  I think most hiding comes from fear.
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  Fear of rejection, fear of burdening people, fear of
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  disappointment, fear that the real story is too much and so
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  people just decide to hide. Not because they're deceptive,
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  but because they're protecting something.
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  Usually it's pain or shame or a wound.
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  And honestly, I can understand that because being seen requires
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  trust, and trust feels dangerous when life taught you otherwise.
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  Living unseen though has consequences.
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  Real ones. Because hidden people often
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  struggle with connection, not because they don't want
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  relationships, but because intimacy requires visibility and
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  visibility feels unsafe. And so relationships stay
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  surface level. They stay safe, controlled,
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  predictable, and overtime loneliness grows.
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  This happens inside of marriages, inside churches,
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  inside friendships. You can sit in a room full of
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  people and still feel profoundly alone.
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  There's a moment in Genesis after Adam and Eve sin, where
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  they go and they hide and God asks, where are you now?
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  Obviously God knew where Adam was.
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  The question wasn't informational, it was
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  relational. Be seen.
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  Stop hiding. I think God still asks that
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  question, not because he doesn't know where we are, but because
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  hiding is something that we keep doing.
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  We keep hiding behind roles, performance, humor, success,
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  ministry, busyness. And underneath it all, He just
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  keeps asking, where are you? Because being seen means risk.
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  People may misunderstand, they may reject, judge, leave.
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  And those fears are real. I've experienced them myself.
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  But there's another risk too. The risk of spending your whole
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  life hidden. The risk of never letting anyone
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  know you. The risk of being admired but
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  not known, respected but not loved.
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  Deeply needed but not understood.
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  And that is a heavy price. But there's a moment when things
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  start to shift. I think healing often begins
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  with just one safe person, one moment, one conversation, one
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  place where you stop performing. Not just the whole story, but
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  just with honesty. Some place that you can say I'm
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  struggling, I'm not OK, I've been carrying this alone.
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  Those sentences look small, but for hidden people they are
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  enormous. Because honesty breaks
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  invisibility. One thing that I have seen over
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  and over again in recovery was what happens when people stop
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  hiding, when the masks come off, when the stories come out, when
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  those things happen, shame loses its oxygen and suddenly people
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  begin to breathe differently. Because there's relief in being
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  known, not fully fixed and not perfectly healed, just known.
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  And I think a lot of people underestimate how healing that
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  is. So I want to slow down here for
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  just a minute, because this matters.
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  You cannot be deeply loved as someone you pretend to be.
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  You can be admired, respected and needed, but real connection
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  requires reality. Eventually the mask that you're
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  wearing has to come off because hidden people don't just hide
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  ping, they hide themselves. The beautiful thing is, though,
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  that God, he already sees all of it.
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  God sees the part that nobody knows.
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  He sees the grief, the fear, the insecurity.
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  He sees the version of you underneath the performance, and
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  he still chooses to stay. Think about that.
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  God sees it all, and he still chooses to stay.
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  And that matters because many people live afraid that being
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  fully known means abandonment. But God shows us the opposite.
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  God shows fully known, fully seen, still love, living unseen,
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  feel safe until you realize how lonely it is.
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  And maybe some of you listening aren't actually hiding from
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  people anymore. Maybe you're hiding from being
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  known. Those are two different things.
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  And maybe today God is inviting you out of hiding.
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  Not dramatically, just honestly. So as with tradition, here's
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  your action step. This week, I want you to ask
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  yourself this question. What part of me have I stopped
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  letting people see? Not what do people know, but
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  what do say not no. And then I want you to take one
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  small step towards visibility this week. 1 honest sentence,
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  one safe conversation because healing starts the moment that
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  someone stops hiding and starts to take off the mask.
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  Thanks for joining me today on Unmasked.
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  If something in this episode spoke to you, don't let it stop
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  with you. Share it with the one person
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  that God put on your heart while you were listening.
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  You never know whose breakthrough might start with
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  just a simple message from you. If you want more encouragement,
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  you want to work with me one-on-one, or you're interested
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  in having me speak at your church or event, you can find
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  everything@wesleyfarnsworth.com and make sure you join the
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  Unmasked community by connecting with me on social media so that
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  we can keep walking this journey together.
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  Until next time, remember that grace is greater than your past,
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  and real freedom, true freedom, begins the moment that you
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  choose to live unmasked. God bless you.