SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Undoing. Women on the Threshold in the Journey and Beyond. I'm your host, Jeannie Duncan. This is a space for the brave and the becoming. Women who are redefining success, power, and purpose on their own terms. Each week we step into honest, unguarded conversations with women who have dared to pause, pivot, or completely unravel what no longer fits. These are women who are standing at the threshold. They're deep in the messy metal, and they're emerging with something truer, deeper, and more aligned than what came before. Together, we explore what happens when we let go of old identities, untangle the narratives we've inherited, and choose to trust the parts of us that are still taking shape. Because courage isn't about holding everything together, it's about letting yourself unravel so what's real can rise. This is Undoing. I'm so glad you're here. Hi everyone. Today on Undoing, I'm hosting a session with Lynn Kuntz, my partner both in life and in business. We call our duo episodes Colab, where together we explore topics that we're curious about. We think of it as a laboratory where we share and test perspectives and points of view. Today we're grappling with the subject of hiding. As in, what times in our life have we hidden who we are, or hidden from who we are? And what was the impact? And today, in what ways might we be hiding now? How might this be holding us back both individually and in relationship? So I think it it bears giving a little background of where this all began. I want to say a little bit about the impetus for this podcast topic. I remember back to when I came out in 2017. I was 47, and I had recently separated from a marriage of 25 years to my husband Chuck. And as I sat in my own emerging awareness of my sexual identity and no longer hiding who I was, I wondered what Lynn's journey had been like. Lynn and I had met in 2016. She was my guitar instructor. So more on that later. I knew that Lynn had a knowing far earlier in her life than I did about her sexual identity, and I had a curiosity about what it had been like for you to hide all of those years. Even after coming out to your family and close friends at age 20, you still hid in the public realm. You describe it like living two separate lives. And so this curiosity brings us here, individually and together, to the question: what times in our life can we remember hiding? And what was the impact of that? So, Len, you know, I'm host of the podcast, and so I'm gonna have you go first.

SPEAKER_02 2:50

It's my turn now. It's your turn. My turn again.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

So what's the question? So this curiosity brings us here, you know, individually and together in relationship, to the question: what times in our lives can we remember hiding? And what was the impact of that? Wow. Yeah, no easy question.

SPEAKER_02 3:11

Is it my turn? It's so your turn. Um it's so funny because I I remember hiding from the time I realized that I was different. I had crushes on girls early, I would say before middle school and you know, through middle school into high school, and obviously beyond, but I realized right around puberty that I was different. And so I I didn't try to be anything other than what I was. I just knew I had to hide it.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

So what was the I'm just gonna interrupt you right there. What was the difference?

SPEAKER_02 3:52

The different that you noticed in yourself that I had I had feelings for girls.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 4:02

And I knew what that was a little bit. You know, it was the bad thing, it was lesbian or gay. And I so I grew up in a pretty practicing, church going family, Presbyterian. And while my parents were very fairly liberal, I just knew that that was a non-negotiable, that that was not something that I could even bring up. In fact, I never even considered talking with them about it or anyone about it for years. So that was a whole hiding, a whole life, and it was kind of this double life. But for me, when we were talking about this topic and I was thinking about it, it was, you know, those um my sister was a huge book lover, and so you'd find her in the corners reading a book, you know, and she would read um just voraciously. She still does. And I I kind of uh liken it to that little girl and her who goes and you know, and she's in the corner of the closet with her book. I had my secret, and I could go and be by myself and listen to music and and be okay. I remembered not having to be anybody else uh except me when I was jailed with me. And so I had this little secret that I just carried around with me.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

Yeah. I have a curiosity about like your friends. You said, you know, you described yourself as you know, liking girls and your friends were liking boys. Did you have any friends who you knew were like you, this different that you felt?

SPEAKER_02 5:47

No, no, not early on. And you know, in high school, I in my freshman year, I started kind of seeing a guy. Um, he was he he was a a new guy to town, and we went out and right. And I was so bored. I just remember I was really bored. I was looking at my watch, going, is this date over yet? Whatever a date was when you're 14, 15. But um, and anytime, you know, some of my friends who I felt, my girlfriend, so to speak, who I felt closer to, didn't have crushes on necessarily, but the energy around what we share together, anytime they were there, it was so much fun. And and I did have crushes in middle school and high school on girls and real in a relationship, a girlfriend in high school. And that energy was unlike anything else that I had experienced.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

So, like your first girlfriend, you said, was in high school. Yeah. So was that the first time that you, you know, experienced another female having the same kind of similar feelings that you were having?

SPEAKER_02 6:57

I think so. I may have known some other people in junior high, or they were they had reputations and so you just stood a st stayed away from them. I um but really that was the first time that I felt like I could express myself and um and be more of who I was.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

And like when that happened, what changed in you? Because uh before that it was just this secret that you kept to yourself.

SPEAKER_02 7:24

Yeah, I it's a good question. I th I think probably a release of just having someone else know, but also the added pressure of now there are two of you that know, and the two of you have to hide. So you're almost doubling down on the hiding, right? Right, because you're risking more.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Was she in the same place as you were about hiding?

SPEAKER_02 7:48

Yeah, we've yes, and I I I would imagine that this person has gone on to live a straight life, and you know, I don't I have lost contact long, long ago. But yeah, she was definitely our relationship was not something that she talked about. We were quote friends.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Right. Well, I'm just thinking about the risk. Like I feel my hands sweating a little bit right now talking to you. Just like I, you you're taking me into your story, and I'm just imagining this secrecy, uh, this the secret that you kept. And I'm thinking, you know how people do when they hear someone's story, they think of their own. So I'm imagining myself in middle school, and if this had been me and a secret like this, I was keeping for my parents. Oh my God, I would have been terrified.

SPEAKER_02 8:29

I was terrified, absolutely terrified, but also exhilarated by having a person, you know, in my life, having a relationship. So it was worth the risk.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

Wow. Yeah, that's that's an interesting thing, you know, as we've talked getting ready for this podcast conversation, is that's one of the things, risk. You know, the risk of hiding, the risk of coming out from hiding. And so here you are entering into this relationship. And, you know, so you're describing having these first feelings of knowing you were different and feeling like, oh, I definitely can't tell anybody about this.

SPEAKER_02 9:10

Yeah, I I remember, I remember a time when my mom was doing the laundry and she found this note that was from my heart's beating fast. You know, a a quote, love note, yeah. And when I was a like sophomore or whatever. And it I who knows what it said, but it was evident, you know, it was evident that it was a a love note. You know how you pass notes. From a girl. Yeah, from a girl. So from my from my girlfriend at the time, if we even called ourselves that. But yeah. And she pulled it out of the pocket and she read it and she said, What, you know, what is it? And you talk about turning white as a sheet and my heart dropping. Yeah, my pieces right now. And I joked it off by saying, Oh my God, that was a joke from like, I don't know, Gary. And he was just messing with me. And meanwhile, I my heart had stopped. And she made this comment that I'll never forget. She said, That doesn't really look like a boy's handwriting. Oh my gosh. And I, you know, I'm like, oh, yeah, it was Gary. Gotta go. See you later. Bye. Bye.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Swipe, taking that note with me. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 10:22

No, it was. I I thought I was dead. You know, I just that's so that's something that just that came up when I was thinking about this.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

Yeah. So I'm wondering what it was like. So see, I'm I'm gonna timestamp your age here, like uh middle school, you're 13. You said puberty. Fourteen, yeah. 14, 14, okay. So I'm thinking about sitting with that secret and holding it in. And I, you know, I think about my own upbringing. I can't remember really hiding, you know, thinking back the first time you remember hiding. I hid like any typical kid from my parents, just kiddish things, right? But nothing like what what you're sharing here. And I'm wondering what what was the impact on you as a young person in middle school and then in high school of hiding? Like, what did that keep you from in yourself and keep you from in your relationships?

SPEAKER_02 11:20

I think confidence I had all this confidence in my music. And I could do anything musically, and I think I poured all of that confidence into that because that was something that could be public and I could excel at. But outside of that, I was really a chameleon. I could be the affable, um accommodating fourth child out of four, you know. The kid's sister. Yep, the kid's sister, the little sister, the one everybody liked, easy, you know, easy to like, easy to accommodate. I was a people pleaser. And but in thinking more about that, the people pleasing part, how much of myself was agreeable and genuine, and how much of that was sort of installed protection. Like so I and thinking back about that, I don't know how much of the people pleasing was came naturally or because I was hiding.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

Oh wow. Kind of that that point about nature versus nurture. Yeah, like it was an adapted way of being that enabled you to move about in the water that, you know, quote unquote water that you were in, the family system that you were in.

SPEAKER_02 12:43

Yeah. So that definitely, I think I'm still learning the impact of things like that. I'm still learning the impact of what it was like to be a chameleon. Like I did know other people, you know, looking back when I went to college and in my 20s, and I looked back at my high school years, I was like, oh yeah, Roger was gay and so-and-so, Cheryl was, and we just didn't talk about it or weren't out. And when I when I look back, there were some um very stereotypical um behaviors of people who were gay. And I was not necessarily believe it or not, if you know me, I'm not necessarily Uber feminine, but I I I could play sort of either part, and that's what I did to hide was someone would say, Well, who's your boyfriend? You know, I had a job early on, and we we want to meet your boyfriend, just assuming I had a boyfriend, which pissed me off, and I would always have to be coy and oh, that's funny, and um, I'll let you know, or you know, whatever. And so that was something that really wore on me. Um, people's assumptions, whether they were assuming I was straight or whether they were assuming I was gay, because they weren't quite sure necessarily. In the my early years of working in uh, you know, I wasn't I was an educator, I was a music teacher, and wanting to make sure that I uh I tried to make sure I dressed in a way that wasn't didn't quote give me away if you talk about stereotypes. So there was that, and I think year after year of that, it really chips away at who you're you are most naturally. And who is it that Brene Brown talks about? She talks about vices like when you're drinking and you're numbing the bad, you're also numbing the good. So you could think of hiding as kind of numbing, not necessarily the bad, but parts of you that are good that you don't want people to see. And also, yeah, so there's there's this constant battle of opening up and closing. And you know, you when you're scanning, you're constantly scanning a room, you're scanning relationships, you're scanning conversations when you're hiding because you don't want to be found out. And so that's exhausting.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

Oh, absolutely. I can't even imagine the energy that that takes. And what's starting to form in my mind is this kind of visual picture of you leading these two separate lives or worlds, you know, kind of keeping them apart. So after you came out to your parents and your your family, you said to me earlier um that you told them, but they didn't tell anyone else. Right. And you were also out to your close friends, but not, you know, more widely than that.

SPEAKER_02 15:49

So when you entered the work world and you were teaching and um performing and other things, you know, you had that public world and then you had your private world where you were out to people, but it was as if I had two personas, kind of two definitely two lives, and I could go and be a music director in a church because that felt very comfortable to me. Two reasons why I was I was raised in the church, and then secondly, I had a music degree, and so being in a um music director position felt very natural, and and it's kind of funny that the very thing that I worried about as a kid, about you know, religion tamping me down, was the channel that I went into to make a living, you know.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

That's fascinating.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

But I knew that after church I'd go home to my other life, and uh I didn't necessarily socialize with the people who were at church. You know, I was the music director very separate. Kept it very separate, and I and that was okay. Um, but again, that was music, and that's where I excelled. So that enabled me to continue this kind of double life.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

Yeah, so music was the thread, you know, like this passion of yours and music both in the schools that you were teaching in, music in the church. So it's fascinating to me that part of your career was anchored in the church, like the very institution that was not open and embracing of people who are gay. Right. Um, not then and many not now. Yet that's where you landed and anchored for a very long time and were like you appeared to be comfortable in it. So say a little more about that.

SPEAKER_02 17:37

Well, luckily I was in a church where it was kind of a don't ask, don't tell. That wasn't a conscious decision, but uh, they assumed probably early on that I was straight, and it became, you know, I was there for a long, long time, it over um two decades, so almost 30 years. So I it became clear that that wasn't my thing, that guys were not my thing. And then they began to know, you know, people that I might have had a relationship with. And this same group of people, um, talking about my choir members, you know, all the and the congregates seemed to be okay with it. Now, what I learned later, after I got to be much more open and was unapologetic about who I was, was there were people in the church who were not comfortable with that. And I had a program director and I had people in the church who were acting as buffers and identities. And they probably saved my job on a couple of occasions. And there are probably more examples about that that I don't even know about because that's how much love we had for each other. And so I was very close with some people in the in the church who did a lot for me.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

You know, it makes me think that what makes it safe to not hide any longer, and what comes up for me right now with what you just shared is that support, the friendships, the support, the community. When I know that you're coming out in that more public realm and in your workplaces was like a slow drip, was over time, and and it was probably the safety that I imagine that you may have felt in those relationships that allowed that to happen.

SPEAKER_02 19:24

Yes, and it was it's been definitely an undoing, all for a slow drip, as you said, has just been a slow undoing. And helped by the fact that, or eased by the fact that I did have support. I had community support, I had family support. And my family, while my parents knew from the time I was in college about me, they well, while they wanted me to be happy, I don't think really understood, and they were, they were evolving. You could see their processing and their evolution and how strongly, what strong advocates they became for inside the church for both me and my brother, who's also gay. So um, while we didn't continue going to church, you know, or certainly to their church, they were staunch advocates for um LGBTQ rights, and I'm so thankful for that.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

I know I'm thankful for for that in them as I've as we've come into relationship. And I think about the patience that that requires on your part of just of being with your family, for example, and watching your parents evolve. It's their learning, like we as humans are learning about ourselves always. So you're learning about yourself, you're sharing, you know, you came out to them at twenty. And then they began their evolution with that as well. Right. And they could have not done that and made a choice to do that. Right. So I just I I felt so much love from them toward you in hearing that story over our life together now. Right. And uh I think that's just something to worth naming in this conversation today about hiding and and coming out and ours is a story about sexual orientation right here. But in thinking about our listeners, with anything that's true and real for you that you may be hiding or hiding from, it requires patience on your part to be with your own self as you're emerging, but patience um from you toward others as they're dropping into it with you. Yeah. And you know, for me, I was sharing a moment ago about I can't really recall times in my childhood beyond the typical things kids hide from, hide from their parents. But for me, it happened in my 40s when I had the growing realization that I might be gay. When as this happened, I could then see how I had been hiding mostly from myself. But at that time, Chuck and I had been married for over 20 years and I began to feel so emotionally empty in my marriage. And the emptiness ate at me. Um and I didn't really know initially why I felt this emptiness. We called ourselves often we're like opposites, you know, and opposites attract. And I began to think, you know, they attract until they don't. Just felt I I felt that emptiness. And I began to dream of simply being alone. And this kind of inner stirring began that had me wondering if I was gay. I didn't know for sure, but I just began wondering. And that thought was something I couldn't be with. It's I I loved my husband, our son, the three of us together. I thought about how my parents might react if I indeed was gay and came out. I I thought, well, there will be two divorces, you know, one from my husband and another from my parents. There's just no way they would accept me for who I am, I felt. Um, like you, that upbringing and church-going family and things I had heard my parents say about, we, you know, had some family members who were gay and other people just around us who who were, and what I heard them say about those people, and like, oh my God, this is just not even a possibility for me. So I remember saying, in this lifetime, this is the path I've chosen. The stirrings that I felt, I just tamped them down. I had this thing inside my body where my head reasoned with my heart. Like, how can you be sure you're gay? You've never even been in a relationship with a woman. You look at your life. You had this really good life. Why would you think of leaving this? This love, this safety, security for a maybe. And so I set with that. And and I there was a hiding for sure, hiding mostly from myself. Like, I can't do this. So what I did is I escaped it. And that was my coping. I just ran from it. I literally started running when I was uh probably like 39, just like a mile or two or three, and then it grew and grew. I just lost myself in it. And same with my work. I was an arts administrator, I became a CEO in my early 30s. I'm just climbed that and loved doing that and and loved that career, loved my work because it's where I could be myself. So I ran to those places. The the mom for Luke, my work, travel, the running, being outdoors in the woods, on the water, painting music, all the things that you described, losing yourself in music because it was your safe place. Right. And then ironically, it was through music that you and I met.

SPEAKER_02 24:52

And know where you're where you're going. And it it talking about being seen. And when I was doing some thinking around this, I thought about the fact that one of the most important things for us, I think as humans, is to be witnessed. You and I have talked a lot about that. There's nothing quite like being witnessed. Right. And when you don't have witnesses as a kid, I've wondered about the impact of that. So I had no people to see who I fully was because I was hiding. That's huge. Yeah. So that I think it's in part why when you and I did meet and we came together um nine or ten years ago, it w it was an explosion because we were both celebrating at that point in our lives. You know, it was 2016. Gay marriage was legal and it was much more accepted. We found one another, and we were witnessing back and forth. We were we were able to be our total selves with one another and made the decision that we don't care.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:05

You know, we don't care anymore.

unknown 26:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:08

And that that not caring is it's like I I I say to my coaching clients these days, you need to care less. Care less about what other people think and care more, you know, you've got your own internal um ability to love, like love yourself, the self-validation, the self-acceptance. Because for me and my coming out, there have been relationships that I've lost that have been really painful. And the architecture of the life that I had built for over 25 years that was no longer. And there's still parts of that that I grieve today, you know, that I'll always will, because the life that I lived with Chuck Luke and I, it it was so precious to me. Right. So it was both knowing that in order to be who I am and really live my life, I have to leave that. But I wanted to be able to leave it in love. And the thing that made that possible was that Chuck Luke and I, in our own kind of my and Chuck's unfurling of our marriage, was made possible because we both approached it in love and with love. Right. And I'm I will forever be grateful for that. And yeah, it's and and Luke reminds reminds us all of he responded that I just feel like my family's expanding, you know, as his dad found new love and and we found um our love together. That was his response. And so he's really to me at the center of it all. For sure. Yeah. And um, you know, meeting you, so it was feeling seen by you that allowed me to see myself and claim myself. Because up until that moment, I had this locked up so tightly, and it was never gonna come un undone because I just couldn't be with that. But it was feeling seen through something that is so emotional already, right? The music.

SPEAKER_02 28:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

And like I just felt like you got me, like as and as my guitar instructor, I want to learn this and the way you receive that, and and through how you teach, you know, I felt seen, and I think that's such a powerful thing. You were just naming witnessing, but like for a a teacher student or anything like that, those relationships. I feel like that's the greatest form of love is seeing another and witnessing another and helping that person see what they can't see. And I realized that I didn't have to hide with you. I could stop hiding from myself and to everyone else because you just you made me feel safe. No more hiding.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

I said serious on Lynn's like, I see the grin coming on her face.

SPEAKER_01 28:57

And I think that is something that helps people when I think about what helped me stop hiding. And it was feeling safe. And you gave me the courage to act on the deep emotions that I'd been feeling for a long time, but I didn't think I could ever really feel them and really live into them. And this reminds me of the book I wrote a few years ago. So it's entitled Choosing Me: The Journey Home to My True Self. And I wrote about that, running and hiding, and yeah, I'm just gonna read a little part of it here. It's I wrote that my life felt like a living death, as if I had a dormant twin inside me. I walked through my life carrying her weight and sadness. And it was this heaviness and yearning I brought with me into the music studio that day, guitar in hand. And looking back, I realized that sometimes we need a particular event or person as a catalyst to awaken us from our slumber. I had no idea what was about to happen. My experience of being seen in that first guitar lesson with Len would forever change my life. I left on fire to learn an instrument that I loved, but what really happened in that first lesson was that I was ignited to know myself and set myself free, even though I wasn't consciously aware of it quite yet. This awakening would change everything. There was something about this event, the impact of being seen for who I was that had my heart opening. Little by little my awareness grew and my patience waned. I was no longer willing to deny who I was. It gave me the courage to claim and choose me. I was ready. So exhausted from hiding and prepared to love myself and stand in my light. The release was both terrifying and exhilarating. I knew I had to live who I was, but I had no idea how I was possibly going to undo the life I'd built and set myself free. The weeks and months that followed were returning home to myself. It's as if I stepped through an opening and into a new land of discovery like a narnia. Coming home to me was scary as hell. Though I'd secretly dreamt of living my truth as a gay woman, I couldn't imagine it for real. I couldn't fathom all the things I would have to confront, undo, give up, and rebuild in my life in order to do so.

SPEAKER_02 31:24

Wow. It's been a long time since I've read your book.

SPEAKER_01 31:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:27

I enjoyed that. Thank you for sharing that.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

You know, it's it's this is it just cuts to the core. Like reading those words, I feel I feel emotional. You know, it's it's that power of being seen and feeling seen. And here talking about the hiding, when you're hiding, people can't see you. Right. And so there was some some kind of magic of the universe that day of coming into your studio where I think something dropped in me. I think some kind of veil dropped down, and we had that connection. And it, yeah, I think it'll forever make me emotional thinking about that. And imagining, like thinking of our our listeners right now, of in whatever ways you're hiding, whatever you're hiding from, and how that keeps people from really being able to see your gifts and your light and how sad that is. And the fact that I wrote about carrying a dormant twin, it's like, oh my God, like that's so visceral for me still, this day of basically expressing that I felt like half of myself had never lived. Yeah. And then that catalyst happened with us meeting that helped me go, no more. I can't do this one more day. And the aliveness that I have felt since it is just unbelievable. And it keeps unfolding, and that's nearly 10 years ago now. And I think about the impact of that hiding in my own life. It was a a closed heart. Like my heart was closed. I had a coolness about me, an aloofness that comes with not being open. Wow. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 33:16

Yeah, and we've also talked about the kind of shedding that we have done in the last say eight years of being together. And I think those are work-related mostly, but they come with them some personal shedding as well. And so I think all of the channels that I had business-wise are gone. Oh, yeah, since 2008.

SPEAKER_01 33:41

I think it started in 2018. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:44

I'm not doing anything that I used to do. And when I I was I was thinking about this and I wrote I wrote something that everything that I do now, I'm a facilitator, a connector, a musician, I'm bringing people into themselves with my facilitation is more potent when I'm not managing a gap between what I was hiding and who I am.

SPEAKER_01 34:09

Not managing a gap.

SPEAKER_02 34:10

Wow. So my 50s were bringing in a true integration of all my true selves, selves or self, you know, all my true parts.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

Yeah. I love that you just named 50 because it coincided. I remember the first thing you left in 2018 was your position at a radio conglomerate. Right. And it was kind of a shock. Like we were just coming into a relationship then, and you were like, hey, guess what I did today? I quit my job. And I'm like, what?

SPEAKER_00 34:41

Okay. I didn't didn't know you were gonna do that. Didn't know that you wanted to do that. Yes, you did. We had talked about it a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 34:49

Okay, this is another subject.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_02 34:53

Why are you looking? Why are you red and why are you sweating?

SPEAKER_01 34:56

Yeah, I know. So, but following that, you know, so when you left that, and yeah, just think of one thing right after another. First of all, shortly after that, uh after 2018, COVID came around. Right. And that um really took from you some things as well. I remember Harmony Music School, the community music school that you founded. I mean, it was just no way to do that in the time of COVID. And so that completed, kind of came to its natural ending. And then your role as music director for the church, and you were at the same time of stepping away from these things, you were leaning into your singer-songwriter um self and your passions around that and producing a new album.

SPEAKER_02 35:42

Right. Yeah, and kind of integrating my love of improvisation and moving into how I could use that in an educational fashion or in a facilitating fashion where I could use music to bring people together.

SPEAKER_01 35:58

Yeah. And I think I'm going back to what you said a moment ago about not managing that gap. That that's like a mic drop for me. That has me thinking of how much energy it takes to hide, to manage you were managing those two worlds for a very long time and keeping them separate. And you think I think we begin to think we're doing a really good job at that, but the reality is it is absorbing a ton of energy. And think about if that energy wasn't absorbed in that, what could it go toward? Right. And I think that's what you're naming right now in the things that you let go of. I've done some of my own letting go of some things in my business to make room for this very thing that we're doing right here today, this podcast. And I have I'm on this journey of speaking my voice more and using my voice and my work to lift up other voices that have been marginalized and helping others really be their true self. So I want to come back to the impact of hiding and what it does to a human being. I mean, to us, certainly we're talking about our own journey, but to our listeners. So one impact it's had on me with the hiding from myself that I've done and some of the new things that I'm doing in my business and some of the things that I've let go of, it's allowing me to be a more full expression of myself. And so, like starting this podcast and doing the work I'm doing in keynote speaking is like I've struggled speaking my voice for so long. And I'm sitting here today going, well, no wonder. Like I there have been times that I haven't even really known who I am or allowed the more real me to be alive and to be out in the world. So how can I speak? How can I tell my story when I don't even know it myself? And I know that you and I've talked about expression before, like even in your songwriting.

SPEAKER_02 37:59

Oh, right. Yeah. Working on my most recent album, which is not that recent anymore, but in 2019, 20. My producer, you know, I would send her a draft of this is, you know, this is where I'm going with this. And she's a brilliant songwriter, and her name is Amy Speace. And she would, she'd send back and she she said, she would say things like, What is it that you're trying to say? And I'm like, Oh, it's about X, Y, and the. She said, and what is it that you're trying to say? So I was writing from what I thought people wanted to hear. I was trying to be clever or trying to be poetic. And she really wanted me to drill down. If you want to sing that the dishes are dirty, sing the dishes are dirty, not someone might need to check to see if the dishes might have something on them. I don't I don't I don't know what it means. I wasn't being direct in my songwriting about feeling. And she helped me do much more of that.

SPEAKER_01 39:01

I remember one day you came back from a meeting with her and you said, she said, show, show me, don't tell me. Yes. And that has had such a huge impact on me. I think about that a lot in my in my work and in my life, like when I'm writing or when I'm you know, engaging with a client, it's like, show me, don't tell me. Yeah, that's that's a good one. So another thing I think of with the expression was just reading from my book, Choosing Me. And I wrote an entire book. It was a leadership book, on the same subject of being true to who you are. And I finished that book, and my editor looks at me and she said, I don't think this is the book you really want to write. And I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, it's done. It's on its way to hell. It's on its way to publishing. She said, Well, you can you can go ahead, you can proceed, but I'm telling you, I think there's I think you're really wanting to tell more of your story, but you're hiding.

SPEAKER_02 40:01

It's another example of when other people see us trying to come out or trying to not hide and call us out on it, and they're often spot on. Oh, that was a huge calling out.

SPEAKER_00 40:14

Yeah, I was pissed.

SPEAKER_02 40:17

And you wrote another book.

SPEAKER_01 40:18

I did. She said, Well, you you do with it what you want, but I think you should consider it. And so I, you know, it was like a visceral feel of rolling a blank sheet of paper into the old fashioned typewriters and starting all over again. And I did. That's what I did. My book became a memoir. And but not by typing. In an old typewriter. Correct. Correct. It's just f such so ironic and almost like a a a joke the universe played on me of going, you're writing a book about basically being true to yourself and you're still hiding, as literally as you write the book. So that was a that was such a mirror. And I learned so much from that process. But another impact is about to me about the word access and the inability to access who you really are and allow that to be the face to the world, not some fabricated identity. So just like the book, I was I was coming in with my leadership business suit on that business identity that I was so comfortable with, and just, you know, producing the story through that phase versus being willing to drop the suit and be more of my vulnerable self. And that process helped me gain greater access to myself.

SPEAKER_02 41:39

I think for me, when I've spoken with people who have gone through this journey of whether it's they started journaling and three years later they feel like they're they're a different person, whether it's therapy, whatever method they've used to kind of get at that access or find that access, it is that's a common, that seems to be a common thing that we deny ourselves when we talk about really knowing who we are. I think it's really easy to uh Netflix our way beyond that, to mine the gap by Netflixing or by uh eating or by uh we all do it. You know, there are we we can't be with ourselves. And I think in in our society right now, it's even harder than it ever has been to be with yourself, to be alone and to to climb the stairs one step at a time and not look at your phone. Or you know, it's it's difficult for all of us.

SPEAKER_01 42:41

Yeah. It's like on my bike ride this morning, 25 miles on the road, just me, my bike, the pavement, the cows, the horses. It's wonderful actually. But when I start out, there's this little thought in my mind of how am I gonna do this? Because you know, I don't want to put headphones in and listen to music even when I'm on the road like that. So it's really scary, truly, to be with yourself because when you are, you see the good things and you see the things that are really hard to be with. And so even if you you're miserable in your life, or as I was describing earlier, of feeling so empty in my life, it was a good life. And I knew to really confront who I was at the time and to look that in the face would require me to, I mean, dismantle an entire life that I had built. And that is really hard. Really hard. And even talking about this subject, I mean, first to be able to even focus on the topic of hiding from who we really are, it's like that's a privilege. Right. And the risk you take and being able to live with the consequences, having the I don't know, freedom to experiment and fail. We talked about resources, like part of what's enabled us to really shed these things and become more of who we are is because we have resources and support and community that helps you be able to say no. Exactly. And not everybody has that. So, listeners, I want to turn this to you now. I have a few questions for you. At what times in your own life can you remember hiding who you are or hiding from who you are, as in it's something you can't even let your own self see. Allow yourself to return to those moments and and look at what was the impact on you and how might that residue from those times still be living in your body today? And today, just like Lynn and I are here talking, like in what ways might you still be hiding right now? And what would it be like to come out from underneath that? So, Lynn, if our listeners want to connect with you, tell them where they can find you.

SPEAKER_02 45:00

I'm right here. My website is lynkzmusic.com or lynn at lynkuntzmusic.com. You can email me there. Also, I'm on LinkedIn, Lynn Kuntz.

SPEAKER_00 45:12

Your real name? Well, that's a shocker. That's how you can find me. Thanks for joining me today. This has been a lot of fun. It has been fun. All right, until next time.

SPEAKER_01 45:22

Thank you for joining me on Undoing. I hope today's episode offered you a moment of recognition, resonance, or relief. Something that reminds you that you're not alone in your journey. This is an opportunity to tune in to your inner wisdom and open to what's wanting to emerge. If you're enjoying this podcast, please share it with a friend or colleague, leave a review, and follow the show. Until next time, what's the undoing that needs to happen in you?