Which hat are you wearing?

If you’ve grown up as a child of immigrants, you’re well-versed in code-switching. Corporate-speak at work, deference to elders with family. As a child, you picked up on the expectations of the classroom, spoken and unspoken, and excelled. As an employee, you toe the line between checking the boxes and challenging the status quo–but always keeping yourself in check. You can’t challenge the authorities too much, right? Code-switching becomes synonymous with safety, or at least, felt safety.

But at some point, code switching isn’t enough to meet all of your needs. You feel lonely, and realize that people only know versions of yourself. You want to be accepted, but risking that means also risking rejection. You’re stuck. What to do?

Simmering underneath all this is the question of who you are, and can you truly be seen for who you are, and accepted anyways. Because speaking your mind isn’t just about being assertive, but about revealing more facets of who you are–polished or unpolished, whether or not you fit the standards of your group. And if you grew up in an honor/shame society, not fitting in is tantamount to feeling at risk of survival. And yet if you stay boxed in, you’re going to suffocate.

So it’s Monday, and the whole work week stretches out in front of you. In some ways, it’s too long, and in some ways, you know it will whiz by before you know it. What are the projects and meetings taking up space in your mind, what are the moments you anticipate with excitement? Do these events feel like challenges to prove your worth, or opportunities to discover ways to grow? What if you could show up and share a tiny bit more of yourself, starting with someone you feel safer with? What if you could feel the relative safety and calm of being more of yourself with that person–where do you notice that in your body? Can you stay with that sensation for a little bit longer?