The Goldfish Bowl Effect
Right before every book launch, something predictable happens.
I want to disappear.
Not dramatically. Not out of fear. More like a quiet, deliberate stepping back—out of the goldfish bowl.
The goldfish bowl is that feeling of being watched from all sides. Opinions pressing in. Expectations circling. People tapping on the glass, projecting who they think you are, who you should be, or what they want from you. For most authors, visibility ramps up before a launch. For me, my nervous system does the opposite.
And there’s a neuroscientific reason for that.
When we anticipate evaluation—judgment, praise, criticism, or even attention—the brain doesn’t neatly separate them. The amygdala simply hears: eyes on you. For someone with a dominant primal wound of “I am insignificant,” attention can feel paradoxically threatening. Not because I don’t want to matter—but because my nervous system learned early on that being seen didn’t always equal being safe, valued, or understood.
So as a launch approaches, my brain does what brains do best: protect.
That internal conflict creates stress. And one of the most effective ways the nervous system regulates perceived threat is by reducing exposure. Less noise. Less input. Less glass tapping.
Historically, I’ve interpreted this as avoidance or self-sabotage.
This year, I didn’t.
This year, I went incognito on purpose.
I pulled back from unnecessary visibility. I stopped narrating everything in real time. I let my life—and my work—exist without commentary. And something unexpected happened: my body relaxed.
My sleep improved. My creativity deepened. My sense of agency returned.
Instead of performing significance, I felt it.
From a neuroscience standpoint, this makes perfect sense. When we reduce external monitoring, the brain shifts out of threat detection and back into regulation. Cortisol drops. The default mode network—associated with meaning-making and creativity—comes back online. We stop scanning for how we’re being perceived and start inhabiting ourselves again.
For someone healing the wound of “I am insignificant,” that’s not hiding.
That’s integration.
So… how will this impact book sales?
Honestly?
Standby.
We’ll see March 31, 2026.
Conventional wisdom says visibility equals success. But this year, I chose alignment over exposure. Regulation over reach. Depth over noise. And there’s a quiet confidence in trusting that the right people don’t need constant access to find the work that’s meant for them.
The goldfish bowl will still be there if I choose to step back in.
But for now, it feels really good to swim where no one’s tapping on the glass.
And that might just be the most significant thing of all.