Bonnie Rose — Founder of Life Beyond the Armor

LBA started when my dad died.

I was crushed. Not because my life would change – our relationship was minimal and we had no emotional connection – but because, in an instant, my dad’s life suddenly seemed so heartbreaking to me.

The product of a mentally ill, abusive mother and a largely absent father, my father hid behind armor that was modeled on old-school tv and movie men.  He clearly wanted to be that loved-by-everyone guy who went to a solid job every day, supported his family, got a kiss at the door from his adoring wife at the end of the day, then held his children on his lap in the evening and bestowed his wisdom upon them as they gazed adoringly into his face.  Now I see that, had his childhood circumstances not so badly interfered with his sense of self, what he wanted for his life would have been the expression of his truest self.

My father’s daily life was so different from what he wanted.  He had a clerical-level job for his entire career, despite his talents and smarts.  He has had no emotional connection with anyone, not even those of us in his family.  In fact, my father spent almost no time with any of us, and never had a personal conversation with us or anyone else.  On the rare occasions we went to him for advice or support, he sent us to our mother.  Rather than being the adored family man, he spent all of his non-work time either listening to classical music alone in the living room or watching tv in his bedroom.  At the best of moments, he’d awkwardly give us tv-dad cliches like “you’re the apple of my eye”, which felt completely hollow and weird, and that’s as close as he got to being his truest self.

In those moments when my father’s mask slipped a tiny bit, he would talk passionately about ideas, melt at beautiful rural vistas, gush about our family dog, laugh with utter abandon at silly humor, get teary-eyed at the sound of beautiful music.  It was obvious to me that, somewhere inside my father’s armor was a talented man with a yearning heart and a beautiful soul.  I could feel his loneliness, I could feel his shame over his unremarkable career and income, I could feel his intimidation in his relationships and in the world.  But his armor remained his jailor until the day he died.

The shock of his death brought a new perspective

In processing my sadness over my father’s life, my long journey into understanding hiding began.  Over time I learned that, though my father’s hiding behavior was unique to him, what drove that behavior was as common as breathing.  We all develop our own ways of hiding from the threat of social pain.  We all live behind our own armor, whether it’s thick, complex and unmovable, or whether it’s lighter, simpler and easier to carry.  And we all hide behind our own armor for the same reason; fear of being hurt by the people in our lives and in the world.

The astounding thing about hiding due to fear of social pain is how omnipresent it is.  Assuming basic needs are met, what else is there to be afraid of?  People not loving us, not liking us, not respecting us.  People thinking less of us.  Being embarrassed in front of others.  These are the things that occupy our thoughts are most of the time.  Even the homeless people I’ve known here in Oakland California have told me that’s what really preys on them.  They’ve found ways of getting enough food, they know they can go to the hospital if they get sick, they’ve built their shelter as it is.  Yes, they’re afraid of thefts and physical attacks, but oh, they shame they experience breaks my heart.  And it sounds so familiar.  We’re all always afraid people will not care about us, or look down on us, whether we’re aware of it or not.  I am now fully aware that I’d rather have a broken leg than a broken heart.  A broken leg hurts in a much more tolerable way, and it heals faster.

Which brings me back to me.

My own hiding, which pretty much ran my life until recently, came from my childhood feelings of not being accepted in my own family.  That experience created my narrative that “I don’t deserve to take up space on this planet.”  I learned to never let anybody get close because closeness felt so confusing and fraught, and I never showed my vulnerability because it was too painful to not have anyone there for me.  Instead, I unconsciously developed an “intimidating” presence that kept people at safe distance, and I spent as much time alone as I could.  It’s still like pulling teeth to get me to admit when I need help.  It was a lonely way to live, even in my 26-year marriage, and it limited my career to work that made my interactions with people something I was paid for, rather than something that made me more visible and vulnerable to opinions.  While I’ve had a pretty great life, I’ve always felt my self-expression was so much bigger than corporate work and my relationships were oddly superficial.

I’ve been my own guinea pig in testing the methods of Life Beyond the Armor.  It has taken me years to put it out into the world, not just because I was so threatened by the thought of being so visible with a pursuit I love so much, but also because I’ve had to develop mastery over my own hiding behaviors.  It’s been an extraordinary journey into doing and being way beyond the limits that I always assumed were my own permanent armor.

Street cred, etc.

I was born on the east coast, and people know that when they meet me. I spent about half my adult life in the midwest though, and I now live in my favorite place yet, northern California. I have a grown daughter from my long, hide-y marriage, and she happens to be the best person in the history of humankind.  (I’m not biased, I swear!)  She recently married and had her own little one and, because I’m the luckiest mom on Earth, they live about a mile from me.  I spend as much time with them as I can. In fact I’m running over there to babysit as soon as I finish writing this.

My education and prior career were in psychology as it pertains to people in the workplace. I’ve studied people both academically (including PhD-level work in psychology at Northwestern University) and in the process of developing my long career in training and development. More recently, as I followed the unmarked trail of scientific research that explains human hiding, I became passionate about the idea of a world where everybody was familiar and comfortable with the fact that we all hide, and that hiding can limit our lives.  I envisioned not just courses and workshops, but ongoing friend groups in which people support each other’s actions to live beyond their armor.  And that’s how Life Beyond the Armor was hatched.

Some specifics of my education and work experience, for those who are curious, include:

• BS Psych, MS Organizational Behavior (Loyola University)

• PhD-level work in Psych and Adult Development & Learning (Northwestern University)

• Consultant to Kaiser Permanente, Google, Genentech, Accenture, Baxter Health Care, University of Chicago Hospitals, and more

• Have run over 1,500 workshops, seminars, and presentations     Have coached or trained over 14,000 people

Let’s connect!

Please reach out to me directly if you have questions. A world-wide conversation about hiding has to start with just a couple people! So I very much look forward to talking to you, and meeting you on the road to life beyond the armor.

With love,

--Bonnie.