Stepping Into the Light: A SOLO Journey Toward Visibility
From what I can remember, I was a bold kid. Unapologetic, a little mean, and definitely precocious. I had a lot of main character energy being the youngest in my immediate family. I had a lot of time to just be myself without too much consequence. It took a while, at least until middle school, 5th or 6th grade, to learn that how people perceived me has an impact on me. Of course, around the time that hormones became influential and also around the time that grief became a close companion, I learned how complicated the world could be. That you could have feelings and desires completely distinct and unique from others and not have the language, capacity, or capital to express it. Especially as a little Black kid, raised under the expectations of a Black girl child, there stopped being a lot of room or patience to be expressed fully in a way that didn’t disrupt the expected order of things. Constantly being reminded to be nice, to be still, to be quiet started to shape another version of me that was different from the free and out loud child I was at home.
Lil’ Leslie circa 1998
My mom will refute this story, but I remember vividly getting in trouble for writing steamy stories in school. Just before middle school, my best friend Alexa moved two hours away. Reduced to sharing weekends every couple of weeks, I had more solo time and different outlets for my creative playfulness. I traded my interest in playing dolls to telling stories that soon would fill the pages of my diaries and journals. Eventually I gained the courage to share them in school, during the drab exchange of sex ed. The stories blew up and soon I had kids in my classes dying for the next chapter of my (middle school) sexy Afro-futurist space drama. Until I got caught, sent to the principal’s office, and eventually forced to confront my mortified parents.
I got a stern talking to and put on punishment for several weeks, giving me plenty of time to stew over what I did wrong. I knew there was something forbidden or inappropriate about talking about sex and I honestly felt shocked that I got caught. My parents took the stories (and some of my diaries), warning against ever letting this part of me see the light of day. This was one of the earliest lessons that not all of you is meant for everybody, and to take care with which parts you reveal where. It started to cement the idea of separate selves, especially those that challenged expectations, norms, and comfort of those in authority over me.
Still writing became a refuge, one of the few places I felt safe and empowered to use my voice. I poured my confidence into journals, stories, poems, and sketchbooks—a safe space from a world that wasn’t always listening. At home, I learned to be a quiet observer and documentarian: writing, drawing, and mirroring the way my aunts and uncles, siblings, and cousins moved through the world without judgement. Hoping someday I would get to a place of being so confident and clear about who I am.
I leaned into writing at school and work because it was a place of quiet confidence—a space where I could offer proof of my intellect and presence. I saw the impact I could have from behind the scenes, observing patterns, creating solutions, and building bridges that louder voices might overlook. Even my (short) dream of becoming Obama’s speechwriter was rooted in the belief that staying behind the words would make me successful as the one out front, center stage. I could be me but filtered through the lens of comfort: never too far out there, never too loud, never too at risk. I could control the circumstances under which I was known and visible to the outside world. A lens where I mostly received praise and very limited critique would set me up nicely to protect the private space where I let it all out.
Stepping Into the Light
In my late teens and 20s, I was in a series of relationships that chipped away at a core sense of self. Between campus dramas, jobs at predominantly white companies, surface-level connections, and controlling boyfriends, I’d become so focused on who I was supposed to be. The ‘me’ that would get me access to the important rooms and conversations. The ‘me’ that would maintain income and scholarships. The ‘me’ that would be palatable and easily digestible to my family. The ‘me’ that got named good and worthy. The ‘me’ that was invited to the cookout. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I saw all these different selves staring back. I was the ultimate shapeshifter.
My thinking was that I could cordon off all these different ‘me’s’ until the faithful day that hard work and good fortune brought me to the type of life where compartmentalization could end. Eventually arriving to that blessed part of middle age where you stop giving a damn what people think about you. I thought being a chameleon would buy me enough stability to be my full self for more than just a moment.
The forced solitude of the COVID pandemic gave me just enough momentum to crack this veneer. Instead of liberation waiting for some magic end of life chapter, it came at me full force during a global crisis. Allowing me to step into the light and be a little bit more of myself. I stepped beyond my private interior world to share my writing publicly under a Wordpress alias. I began posting mysterious and provocative selfies on IG to regain a sense of self that wasn’t in relation to what someone else wanted from me. Much like writing the sex stories for my friends years before, I decided to own my story a little bit more out loud.
LonelyBlackGal was born from a desire to reclaim who I was when no one was watching or expecting. I embraced parts of myself I had once hidden—my solitude, my sweetness, my sensuality, my complexity, and my creativity all on display. This private unapologetic self-expression even reshaped my graduate thesis just months before it was due to be more bold and audacious.
I let my opinions be heard. I owned my stories and insights. Even if I thought there would be hell to pay. Or worse, no response or rejection of the parts of me that rarely got to step into the light. Following this momentum, trusting my voice, led towards greater alignment, more career opportunities, and abundance. I published essays, spoke on conference stages, led community dialogue, freelanced for the first time, and built lasting connections from sharing pieces of myself more boldly.
Writing was no longer just a refuge—it became a foundation for allowing the world to witness me more fully.
Taking Visibility to Work
I piloted visibility beyond intimate relationships at work first. I got hired to my first tech job, knowing that it would be homogeneous and that it would be a little bit more space to bring my authentic self to work. Being remote, I didn’t have to perform professionalism in the same ways that I had to working for a southern law firm. My uncertainty of being too noticeable in a homogeneous tech office transformed into guiding topics for employee programs and allowing others to feel seen and heard. My struggles with self-advocacy became the seeds for new company-wide policies to allow processes and procedures to reflect a new level of attentiveness and care. My personal musings became engagement and retention initiatives that created a sense of belonging and connection for others beyond just a job.
For all intents and purposes, I had curated a performance of visibility that showed just enough to satiate my desire for authenticity and the pound of flesh required to succeed in the corporate realm. I got invited to speak publicly, moderating panels with some of my professional idols. Those opportunities propelled me forward in my full-time work, as well as my personal vision for impact, and it also painted a target on my back. I could only be just visible enough to service the work, but never so much to create discomfort for others. I could share my personal life, but not so much that it invited more questions than opportunities. I could say my piece on LinkedIn, but not in the intimacy of a company-wide meeting.
The choice became clear: own my truth or follow the company line; follow my values or theirs; align with my vision for impact or someone else's. Without the safety net or financial privilege, the choice to withhold my truth—at least in public— and to follow their values and vision, was a calculation to stay “safe.” At least, I had a little privilege from my perch in DEI to say what others were feeling. To translate raw feelings into strategies, insights, and initiatives for three strong years. That was until my choice to stay safe or fall into alignment felt less like a choice and more like a calling to truly live authentically, dismantling silos within myself to allow a new. I’d cultivate a life that didn’t require so many silos and work felt like the last frontier of truly living authentically and in alignment to my values and vision.
Over time, being brought to that choice—you versus your company title, you versus your paycheck, your health versus being a “good” employee—wears on you, changes you. It made me feel way more protective over my voice and my talents. Like many I joined the wave of quiet quitters who would rather pull back than see their integrity and values and health overridden by corporate expectations. It made me feel resentful that I was relegated to a choice between me, my well-being, and anything else. My core tools for expression felt further away. Where I would once jump out of the shower or wake from sleep with ideas I had to write down, I was now sitting for hours, staring at a blank screen. Where I once posted my thoughts freely, I now overanalyze, letting drafts for essays like this one wither. The confidence I had in my voice had waned.
In spaces where I was once celebrated, I began encountering more resistance. In response, I excavated old stories, tested limiting beliefs, and initiated transitions in career, relationships, and lifestyle. There was even a time when I dangerously thought Prosecco was the only thing that could activate my voice. I would take my little notebook to happy hour spilling messy thoughts onto the page that I couldn’t seem to find otherwise. I felt scared of losing my ability to create without a crutch. Instead of writing, I spent more time in my head, allowing things to spiral and dry up. I found myself caught in a cycle of overexerting, overthinking, and recovery, rather than creating in a way that felt fulfilling.
I convinced myself that business writing, thought leadership, and public speaking were enough. They got me to a career milestone I had once dreamed of: getting paid to write, speak, and travel. But I was exhausted from holding back the more intimate parts of my experience. There were things I wanted to say that felt too radical for the sponsors and institutions that had helped me get here. Even small attempts to bring these ideas to the workplace or social media met enough pushback to make me hesitate. So, I funneled my voice into corporate-friendly guardrails: quiet conversations, offline discussions, or worse—silence. Writing lost its spark. My journals became classified material. My place of refuge and freedom was becoming yet another mask.
In much the same way that it started, the training around being visible in a certain way backed up into my personal life. I was in the process of coming out and reclaiming my queerness. I was warring with myself between being palatable, easily understood, and accepted, against being authentic, uncomfortable, and in flow. Even in sharing with my friends and family, I felt another self forming that could be out and free with those who approved of my queerness, but silent and withdrawn with those who didn’t. Again, a choice was forming between being me and fulfilling an expectation to walk a straight line.
Shifting Sands
When I turned 30, I became really preoccupied with being truly seen. Partly because of the clarity I was starting to gain about my assignment and work that would become Rooted Reclamation and partly from the burnout of so many seasons separating all these different versions of myself for so long.
I’d been the LonelyBlackGal for enough time to field the question of “why do you call yourself lonely?” “why don’t you invite someone in to join you.” Being confronted with these questions in a space of burnout helped to clarify, LBG isn’t about being lonely, it’s about seeking aligned connections and living a cohesive, integrated life. One that didn’t require a work Leslie, and a social Leslie, and an introvert Leslie, and a family Leslie, etc. Recognizing the potential power of alignment, I wanted to more consistently be around people who share my values, do work that fulfilled a sense of service and purpose, and didn’t require code-switching.
What I hadn’t realized was that the journey with visibility required a lot more from me. Beyond a commitment to my paid work, I would need to deepen my commitment to a holistic vulnerability and being seen. Even as I’m building a more integrated life, I still have been performing visibility grounded in a particular context. The most alarming and transformative places of visibility have been in my interpersonal relationships: my friendships, my family relationships, and romantic relationships.
It’s been a painful journey of allowing myself to be seen and witnessed even in unflattering lights. Unlike the selfie that shows your lazy eye a little too prominently, you can’t just delete an interaction with the weird, unfavorable parts of you.
While there’s a lot of examples of this now, the biggest and most surprising has been allowing my partner to witness me depressed, triggered, and scared. I can be a great girlfriend, always providing a listening ear, a sweet gift, a delicious meal, a fun date. Being visible in this relationship required a lot more vulnerability than I’d ever been comfortable showing. I was terrified if my partner heard my darkest fears, saw me at my messiest, felt my avoidance that they’d surely go running in the other direction. To trust their commitment to our relationship is as much to trust myself to be seen, witnessed, and held in all my varied and complex ways and still be good. It has broken open my long standing beliefs around perfectionism, people pleasing, and performance. It forced me to sit through the discomfort of being disappointing or not showing up as my best and still be loved, still being in alignment with a powerful vision of abundance, alignment, connection, and love.
What’s been helpful in affirming that the shrinking, silencing, and avoidances that featured so prominently in previous chapters are no longer an active choice. If I am truly committed to being of service, I get to make a different choice. I get to be visible in the messy, unpolished, silly, disappointing, underwhelming, and glowing parts of this journey. The vulnerability is not a performance in exchange for attention or clients or approval. It is a part of embodying the calling and living in alignment with the vision me and Spirit have designed for this season.
Rewiring the Lens
My coaching practice has been my refuge. Through Rooted Reclamation, my voice and insights become fuel for others' empowerment and breakthroughs. Creating a space where people can dream and speak in rough drafts has helped me, too—reminding me that self-expression doesn’t always have to be polished or perfect to be meaningful. You don’t have to get the senior leaders on board to give permission for your unique and divine values or vision.
Even now thinking about being more visible gives me so much anxiety. Before I even use it, my voice is caught in the fear and self-doubt that my corporate career capitalized on. Worried about judgment, the consequences, and delays of a world intent on breaking my heart. And yes—judgment and consequences will always be there. I recently went back to my hometown and got to spend time with family and friends. I am a little bolder about sharing what exactly I’m doing in this season: I am not working full time, living off a sabbatical, and building a transformational coaching and consulting practice.
It’s not enough to say and support others, I also get to live out those values every day. In my unpracticed pitch at home, I was met with someone’s fear: what you're doing is dangerous, you’re trying to pull people away from a structure that is very invested in keeping people locked in. “They’re going to come for you!”
This is a thing I say to myself over and over again! If I'm too honest, if I empower too many people, if there’s too much resonance. They won't allow it. They won't pay me. They won't allow people to spend time with me. Just like what happened at my job (or even way back in middle school). If I allow myself to be too visible, I won’t be able to sustain or stabilize myself. It takes a lot of confidence and prayer to hear that, experience it even, and decide to be seen anyway.
I’ve started to crack out of this expired paradigm. Sharing more confidently and vulnerably what I think and feel and experience. It allowed me to come out reclaim my queerness, despite the rejection and judgment. It’s fueled many of the social posts and articles I’ve written, holding my self-doubt with compassion for long enough to press ‘publish’ and move through.
I get to embody the same values that I am uplifting through Rooted Reclamation. It’s a work in progress and it’s been helpful to remember that I’m not doing this for approval, acceptance, or appreciation. Visibility is for me and my vision of service and impact.
In this season, I want to be seen in the messiness of building a coaching and consulting practice. Income for Rooted Reclamation has been slow, and I’ve made it through most of this year on savings. Instead of hiding or pretending, I want to be honest: it’s been hard. And still, I’m committed to staying away from full-time roles or partnerships that don’t allow the spaciousness, rest, respect, community, and authenticity that have sustained me these last nine months.
I want to stand strong in my vision of Rooted Reclamation as a life-sustaining business—one that grows without constant grind or attachment to productivity. To support that vision, I’m expanding into operational consulting and virtual assistant work, offering the same grounded guidance I bring to coaching and consulting through systems, infrastructure, and day-to-day support.
I know that to make an impact, to connect with the community I’m meant to serve, I have to put myself out there—visible and vulnerable in all parts of the journey, and accountable to the values at the root of this work.
Owning the Full View
Allowing myself to be seen for who I am, what I want, and how I am meant to serve means embracing different forms of celebration. I’ve been afraid to let myself be truly seen for so many reasons. But writing in isolation, while safe, has also meant keeping my voice from the conversations it deserves to shape. Prioritizing fear allows my vision to stay trapped under a concrete ceiling. Feeding self-doubt places a poison fuel at the root.
Ayana, Founder of Seeda School on the Mysterious Artist Archetype
As a coach, I see my clients fall into the same overthinking trap I do—it’s not enough to keep your journey hidden behind a secret door. Allowing your perspective to be witnessed isn’t just about validation and reward—it’s about evolving past a way of thinking that asks you to believe your voice can only be heard if you abide by limiting beliefs and rules. It’s about letting your ideas breathe, evolve, and take root in the world.
So, here’s what I can offer in the way of support to others who are struggling with visibility:
Consequences are real and you can seek spaces where you don’t have to compromise your voice. This isn’t a call to release your deepest darkest thoughts and throw caution to the wind. We still unfortunately operate in a society (especially in the US) where basic needs are connected to full time work. However, part of the end of that way of living and working, starts with us prioritizing spaces where we don't have to compromise and hide. In those spaces, we are not only able to be seen without consequence, but also able to strategize and imagine how to spend more time being seen authentically.
Fear is an indicator—not a reason to go silent. I’m still terrified of what would happen if an old co-worker or potential partner caught wind of how I built my practice. Especially on social media, I initially shy away from telling the whole story, just in case they have the reach to discourage resources from reaching me. You can choose to work with fear or allow it to be your editor and take you down a path of delays and distractions.
Perfectionism is an unending quicksand. Your words deserve to play in the light of respect and curiosity to be shaped. I held onto drafts and ideas of workshops, and coaching offerings for months before I shared them with the world. Getting into the practice of saying what you feel called to say, speaking in first drafts, is the only way to get the message that you need to share out there. Visibility is not just about being seen. It’s about being intimately witnessed. Your offering, your vision doesn’t need to be consumed by the whole world.
The Work is a never-ending journey. This essay grew out of the Openness stage of my SOLO Method. Openness is where we practice letting ourselves be seen—messy, unfinished, uncertain—and noticing what becomes possible when we stop hiding parts of ourselves.
I still have dozens of videos in my camera roll or hidden in unlisted YouTube playlists that I want to get more comfortable with. I guess now that I’ve finally gotten this essay out into the world it will operate as a sort of accountability measure to be in more consistent practice with my own visibility.
I’m always looking for community along this journey. The kid who wanted to write sexy Afro-futurist stories for their friends still wants to build connections and resonances with others who feel called to step into the light.
If these words resonated, I’d love to support you in your own journey of visibility. The SOLO Journey is one way we can work together. And later this year, I’ll be holding live spaces to practice visibility in real time, in community.
Until then, may you give yourself permission to be witnessed exactly as you are.
