'It's safe for me to be visible'

Self-belief Journalling :: May 2025

My dear pal Liz (who is an actor and a coach, and has been in a movie with Jeff Goldblum!!) once told me that whenever you look down the barrel of a camera, the best emotion to feel is love.

I can say that when I remember not to worry about my hair being weird or if I’ve spilt food on my top, the energy of love really does make for pics I quite like.

I’m thinking about this as I’ve just booked a local photographer to take some photos of me here in Aotearoa. This means I’ll have up-to-date images for the Gram and my website, and for posts here.

It’s something I do every couple of years, so this will be maybe the sixth?? time, and it still feels crunchy. Because this also means having hair and makeup done professionally (it makes such a difference) and spending a lot of time thinking about 2-3 outfits that convey (in my case) warmth, and trust, and kindness, and don’t get me started on wtf to do with my hands for three hours.

Still. I do it because I think it’s powerful to be seen on your own terms.

And. It’s still so weird to know that running a business - that is an extension of me - requires more visibility than I will ever be comfortable with.

A growing body of research about women and visibility, particularly around leadership, social media, professional environments, and personal identity, suggests that visibility is a doorway for exploring how we relate to ourselves.

So if you hold back from sharing your opinions, preferences, or ideas, if you shy away from attention, if you work really hard for external validation and reassurance, we are in this together!

In Self-belief Journalling this month, we are exploring our relationship with visibility.

I’ll share some of the research findings that have really helped me to make some peace around being visible and I have some really fun and creative journalling prompts for you, as well as some experiments to play with!