I have a close friend who struggles to let people in. As we talked about it why he said, “well, haven’t you ever been burned?”
I struggled to think of a time that I had. Not because every relationship in my life has been perfect, but because for most of my life, my role in relationships was helping other people open up. I was the the listener. The one people opened up to.
And if I’m honest, there was safety in that role.
Focusing on everyone else’s inner world meant I didn’t have to fully reveal my own. But over time, I realized the weight of carrying everyone else while hiding parts of myself was becoming too heavy.
Recently, I’ve been learning that real connection isn’t just creating space for other people to be seen — it’s allowing yourself to be seen too.
And that has required a different kind of vulnerability from me entirely.
The truth is, I’m a people person. But I’m also a people pleaser. My name is Joy! I’m a middle child! And I’m from the midwest! Over the last few years, I’ve worked hard to stop trying to be liked by everyone and instead invest deeply in the relationships that feel mutual, growth-oriented, and real.
But it required me to start being vulnerable.
It required me to know what I actually needed from people.
And it required me being intentional with my time and who I spend it with.
All of this is work. And it reminded me of the Johari Window which Admired Leadership just posted a great piece on.
The Johari Window is a framework about self-awareness and relationships. It breaks us into four parts:
Open: what we know about ourselves and others know too
Blind Spots: what others see that we can’t see ourselves
Hidden: what we know about ourselves but hide from others
Unknown: and what remains unknown to everyone
I lived a lot of my life with the majority of me in the “hidden area.” The parts of myself I knew but didn’t think others would want to know or that I’d be comfortable with them knowing.
As a recovering HR leader who now leads a community for HR leaders, Wendy Road, I realized this is far too common in our industry.
In HR, we carry everyone’s shit.
But who is carrying ours?
To find the answer, we need to move the hidden to the known, and we need our friends to call out our blind spots.
So this is my call to action. Those of you who’ve become really good at being impressive, really good at being competent, really good at holding everything together, but not always good at letting people in….
Start small…
Maybe it’s texting the honest thing.
Saying what you actually feel.
Admitting you don’t have it all figured out.
Letting someone love the parts of you that aren’t polished yet.
Because the moments that stay with us most are rarely the most perfect ones. They’re the moments someone let us see something real. And maybe that’s what we’re all craving underneath everything else:
Not to be admired.
To be known.
🤍 Joy