Hey friend,

Can I tell you something embarrassing?

Looking back, the number one place I hid my joy the most was church.

I know. But stay with me.

I was a young mom — two babies under two, brand-new to Houston, not a soul I knew. Church was my lifeline: free childcare during the week, MOPS, a Bible study, a reason to get out of the house and maybe make a friend. And I did. The women there were wonderful — real big sisters, actual role models. They were also all about ten years older than me, and they seemed to have it so together. Calm. Gentle. Sweet.

And I remember thinking: one day I'll be like that.

But for now… well, not so much.

I wouldn't have called what I did next hiding. I would’ve said I just watched my mouth. Read the room before I offered an opinion. Laughed a little quieter, in case it was too loud. Agreed. Waited. Guarded. Little by little, my personality became the average of every woman in the room — and it got so effortless, so natural, I stopped noticing I was doing it.

Every week, walking into that Bible study, a costume settled over me. It fit so well, and so tight, that I couldn't breathe — and what kills me is I didn't realize I couldn't breathe. That's the sneaky part. It's amazing how we can lie to ourselves and never once catch it.

And when I did catch a flicker of it? I thought I was doing it right!

These are my role models, I told myself. This is what a good Christian woman is supposed to look like.

So, when my enthusiasm threatened to spoil the calm serenity I was striving so hard for, I did the most faithful-seeming thing I could think of: I prayed it away. Seriously. Lord, help me be more mature. Give me a gentle, quiet spirit. Make me more Mary, less Martha.

I’d decided my joy — my loud, running-all-over-town, delighted-by-everything joy — was my whack-a-mole flaw, the cross I had to carry on the way from glory to glory.

It took me twenty years to find out what it actually was.

Joy is my superpower.

My gift.

My factory setting.

Joy — an actual fruit of the Spirit — is the very thing God built into me to shine.

I'd been praying away the best of me and calling it holiness.

Here's what I know now, and I'd give anything to have known it then:

Reclaiming the version of you that you were created to be — the radiant you, meant to shine, that you slowly learned to hide — is the map back to the true you.

Good Girl Ghosting™ is how you stop. Shadowlight is where they meet.

And using a few of my favorite tools (the Enneagram, a little joyful rebellion, and getting curious about your own joys again) you start to see that the thing you keep apologizing for, toning down, praying away…might not be a flaw at all. It might be your Sacred Shimmer, buried under a costume that once kept you safe.

I'll be honest with you, because that's what we do here. There's a grief that comes with reclaiming your light — I call it threshold grief in reverse. Even though I live and walk in joyful freedom, I look back and wonder who I'd have called into my life, what I'd have written, who I'd have met — if I'd just let myself be fully me.

Because here's the other side: I've got (God-willing) another forty-plus years in me, and I intend to live them out loud. In technicolor.

Friend, you have your next however-many, too. And you don't have to grind your way back to that beautiful, radiant you — you play your way there, one small, joyful permission slip at a time.

Your Pinky-Toe Step this week:

The next time you walk into a room and feel that costume start to settle, take one real breath — and let yourself do one honest thing next. Laugh at full volume. Stand a little straighter. Share one true opinion. Wear the thing.

One small action. Just a breath braver. That's the whole thing.

Just proof you really can breathe in there.

PLAY PROMPT: A Rebel Date

One of my very first Rebel Dates was me following my sense of whimsy and curiosity by taking myself to the mall — the way I loved to as a teenager — with one rule: don't buy a thing (okay… I got a cookie).

Instead, I people-watched. I let myself be however I wanted to be. Then I walked into the stores and tried on colors and cuts I never would have dared — on purpose — just to watch my own face in the mirror. Did it light up, or not?

No agenda. I wandered, and I wondered, and it was lovely. And it was me.

This week, take yourself on one small Rebel Date, following your own sense of wonder, and notice what makes your face light up. That flicker is your gift, waving at you.

(That “follow the tug, watch what lights up” feeling is the whole heart of the Curiosity & Wonder cards within my Rebel Joy Cards deck — a little dare for exactly this. Grab yours HERE.)

FREE GIFT: Nine Buried Gifts

I made you something: The Nine Buried Gifts — one page, your gift, the costume it's been hiding under, and the sentence you were never told.

It's right here:Nine Gifts.pdf.

No form to fill out, just a thank you for being a part of my world.

And if you want the fuller version — the whole Shadowlight teaching — it's this week's essay over on Goodbye, Good Girl. Come sit with us.

​▶ THE GOLDILOCKS LINE: Holy No (Part 2) ON YOUTUBE​

I say all of this as a woman who spent two decades getting it wrong: you don't have to shine harder. That's striving, not shining. You just have to stop hiding. Your shimmer is showing, sister. Let it.

You're a Joyful Rebel. I'm so glad you're here.

— Rachel ~ xoxo