It’s one thing to have visibility fears that are hypothetical or which you haven’t lived through. It’s quite another to be living them in the moment.

In those instances, what do you do?

(Note that I’m speaking specifically here about visibility fears that relate to embarrassment, shame, being called out, etc. If your worst visibility fear is about be physically harmed by being visible, that’s a whole other conversation which isn’t addressed here.)

Finding yourself in a scenario where you’re feeling shamed, like people don’t understand you, like you’re being misunderstood, called out, cancelled etc is an awful experience and can stop us from speaking up or saying anything at all.

Rather than hiding out though, here are some ti[ps for how to handle things.

Neutralise your emotional response

The first thing I do is I manage my emotional response to the situation. I definitely don’t want to respond when I’m feeling triggered, defensive, and/or angry.

One quick and simple way to do that is to start tapping on how you’re feeling. Another tool  I use regularly is compassion key. I’m saying something like; ‘I’m so sorry this is happening to you’.’I’m so sorry they’re shaming you.’ In short, I’m giving myself compassion for the circumstances in which I find myself.

Once I’ve got that to a point where I feel more emotionally neutral, I then ask myself three questions.

Ask these three questions

The questions are:

1. What is there for me to learn from this experience?
2. What is there to clear?
3. What will I do differently in the future.

In the video below I speak in a bit more detail about each question and what I’m taking from each. Listen in right here 👇