How to Show Up Online When You Just Want to Hide

Strategies I've used for myself and my clients to overcome fear and be seen online

I’m in a super busy season of work right now with a different 3 to 5-day shoot scheduled every week until the end of June (!!!).

I love immersing myself in these creative projects but when I’m travelling, have lost my centre of gravity and am fully focused on something else, I find it hard to show up online.

I want to hide and stop posting. Even publishing simple Stories and updates feels like too much of a stretch.

But alongside being a photographer, I’m also a marketer, communicator and storyteller. For the past 12 years, it’s been part of my job to show up and promote myself online. And I do the same for the clients who come to me for brand and marketing support.

Over these years, I’ve helped many people share their stories — artists, business owners, teachers, authors, creatives.

They all wanted to be seen, but A LOT really didn’t at the same time. They felt they had to show up online, they understood its purpose, but felt the crippling fear of being seen and judged too. Same.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently after reading this brilliant article by Ali Kriegsman on how female founders and CEO’s are expected to show up online as fully-fledged lifestyle influencers, while the same is not expected of their male counterparts.

As someone who has been blogging and showing up online since 2013, I’ve watched the pressure to be visible online become so much more intense over time.

Now you’re expected to share your entire life — your holiday, your everyday life, your family — on video no less, as well as talk eloquently on camera, face everyone day after day. It’s a lot.

And I struggle to show up and be seen online too.

A major theme in my life is using my authentic voice, out loud, not shying or shrinking away, though I often really want to.

I remember launching my blog, The Travelling Light. Having put the finishing touches on the first few articles, the only thing left to do was hit publish on that first Facebook/Instagram post to launch my project out into the world wide web.

On one hand, I wanted my work to be seen. I wanted to say something so badly, something very specific that wasn’t being said. It was like an itch I needed to scratch. And it all felt very urgent.

On the other hand, I was terrified. What if I had no self-awareness and this thing was actually bad? Or childish, amateurish, embarrassing? What if no one cared? What if all the people I’d accumulated online, acquaintances, people from high school, university, jobs, opened this thing and laughed at me?

Surely it is better not to run the risk of being seen in a bad light at all. Surely it is better to keep your head down, stay small, stay quiet, play it safe.

But I published it anyway, and I kept publishing.

So over these last 12 years, I’ve developed some strategies — a mix of relaxing thoughts, mindset shifts and practical tools — to help me and my clients deal with this tension.

This push and pull — between the fear of being judged and the deep desire to be seen for all you have inside of you — can be approached with so much more chill and compassion for yourself, I promise.