The Cost of Being Seen
On shining too brightly, and the mantra that reminds you it's safe to
š FULL FLOWER MOON | MAY 2026
The Full Flower Moon rises tonight in Scorpio šø ā the sign that governs what we keep submerged, what surfaces only when the light is strong enough and the conditions right for it to be revealed.
I want to share something about what it once cost me to be seen.
When I was fourteen, I was chosen as a featured flutist in my middle school jazz improv band. I remember that day with a particular kind of clarity ā the way my body felt in the lights, the sound moving through me and outward, the rare experience of being fully myself in front of people and having them lean in rather than look away. The high school jazz band came to watch. And it was in that moment of being seen, of being genuinely excellent at something and not hiding it ā that I was first targeted by an older boy who would eventually become an abusive boyfriend.
I held onto that learning for much of my life. The equation that says: shine too brightly, and you will pay for it.
And so I built an armor I mistook for confidence. Stony, contained, unreachable. I could still perform. I could still offer. But there was glass between me and it ā between me and the sound, between me and the room.
Iām near the end of writing an ebook that is 12 years in the making, another version of that threshold. Standing at the edge of something I've made and deciding whether to step into the open with it. Every creative act I've dared ā every sound bath, every teaching, every time I've let my voice be fully itself ā has required me to walk back through that old geometry yet show up differently.
In the Sri Vidya tradition, we understand sound as the most primary force from which form emerges. The universe is sound. How very interesting that after operating for years with a fear that musical expression or vocal expression will bring harm that I chose to study and practice in a sonic tradition, where each morning I sit myself down and choose to resonate. To take up sonic space. It is the heart of my practice.
Why? Because mantra reminds you of what you are made of ā something invincible, something luminous, something that fear moves through but cannot inhabit.
That is the teaching I keep returning to. Remember what you are. Remember that your light was never the problem.
On May 15, I'm opening 40 Days of Fearless Heart ā an online 40-day practice for anyone who has been sitting with fear at the threshold of something that matters. Something they've made. Something they want to say. Something they've been keeping dimmed because shining too brightly has, at some point, carried a real cost.
Forty days. One mantra. A container for remembering what you're made of.
You can learn more and join us at stephchee.com/40-days-fearless-heart.
(And The Sacred Sound Body ā the ebook ā is available for pre-order on my site if you want to begin before we do.)
The Scorpio Full Moon has a reputation for intensity, for bringing what's been underground into the light. I think the less-examined side of that is the courage it takes to let something surface ā to not push it back down when the revelation feels like too much exposure.
š A PRACTICE FOR THE FULL MOON:
Tonight, or in the next three days while the moon is full, find a few minutes of stillness. Place your hands on your heart.
Bring to mind a moment when you were fully alive in your own light ā joyful, confident, completely yourself. Before any cost was attached to it. Let that memory land in the body, not as a thought but as a felt sense. What did it feel like to simply shine, without apology, without consequence? Rest there for a moment. Let the body remember.
Now bring your awareness to your breath. With each inhale, draw moonlight directly into the heart ā steady, bright, unhurried. With each exhale, feel it expand outward from that center: luminous, steady, yours. Let the breath be an answer to that memory. A reminder that what shone then is still here.
šø THIS FULL MOON ASKS:
What have you been carrying not out of discernment, but out of fear of its expression?
What might want to be released ā not just let go, but actually offered?
In service to the practice,
Stephanie Chee Barea
Sacred Sound Teacher | Mantra Practitioner | Spiritual Guide
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