Why Being Seen Online Feels So Hard (It’s Not a Confidence Issue)

When Being Seen Feels Unsafe

Does being seen online fill you with dread?

Does marketing make you question every life choice that led you to owning a business? 

Do you sometimes fantasise about the safety of a 9–5 with benefits?

Not because you lack talent or because you’re bad at what you do. Actually, the opposite. You’re exceptional.

But visibility? That’s where things unravel.

Visibility Isn’t a Confidence Problem

For many brilliant, seasoned coaches and creatives, visibility activates fears that have nothing to do with competence… and everything to do with exposure. 

Because being seen isn’t a skills issue, it’s a nervous system one.

The Million-Dollar Question Most Marketing Advice Never Asks

So here’s the million-dollar question (and yes, I mean that quite literally, because your business is capable of holding that level of success):

How safe do you feel being seen?

Not:

• What’s your marketing funnel?

• What’s your conversion rate?

• What’s your content calendar for Q3?

  
  

But:

How safe does it feel in your body to be witnessed?

What Resistance Is Really Protecting You From

Underneath resistance, which often shows up as procrastination, endless editing, ghosting your own audience right as momentum builds, or suddenly deciding you need to “rebrand” for the fifth time, there’s almost always a fear.

And that fear is deeply personal.

For me, it was the fear of shining, and being cast out for it. Or what is more commonly known as the fear of being “too much”. 

I have a core memory from when I was about twelve years old. I was walking down the street, headphones in, MP3 player on, completely lost in my own world, singing, dancing, just enjoying my own company. Just then, a car drove past with a group of teenagers inside, and they started laughing at me.

At least, that’s how my 12-year old brain perceived it.

In that moment, something clicked into place. My nervous system made an association: expression equals exposure. Being seen equals danger.

How the Body Learns to Hide

No one needed to explicitly tell me to dim myself. My body learned it for me.

And this is how it often works. Not through one dramatic trauma, but through subtle moments where being yourself is interpreted as being a threat, and from then on, the body chooses protection over expression.

So when, years later, your soul pulls you toward starting a coaching business, leading, teaching, creating, and then marketing asks you to:

• put your face on the internet

• speak with authority

• name your work boldly

• claim your expertise without softening it

  
  

…it’s not surprising that something inside wants to hide.

Why Marketing Can Feel Like a Threat

To your nervous system, this isn’t just “content creation.”

A reel isn’t just a reel.

A post isn’t just a post.

It’s a potential threat to your safety and your well being. 

And until the body feels safe, no amount of clever marketing or business strategy can override that protective response.

In fact, when you push past it anyway, forcing yourself to show up while your system is in a stress response, burnout isn’t a possibility, it’s a consequence.

This is why so many deeply capable people collapse at visibility. Not because they don’t know what to say, but because their system learned, long ago, that being seen came at a cost.

When Being Seen No Longer Feels Like a Threat

The good news? Your voice doesn’t have to feel like a liability forever.

When the nervous system is resourced, supported, and met with safety, expression stops feeling dangerous. Visibility becomes sustainable. Marketing stops draining your life force.

This is the work beneath the strategy. The layer many perceptive, sensitive, high-capacity people were never taught to tend to.

And it’s the reason so many capable coaches and creatives stay hidden longer than they need to.

A Question to Take With You

So I’ll leave you with this: What might become possible in your business, if being seen no longer felt like a threat?