Feeling Seen and Heard
Why is it that some people always get the attention, encouragement and acknowledgement necessary for success and others don’t? At work, we often feel that only those in senior positions can ‘have the floor’ and if we are not in one of those, we don’t get that platform. At home we may feel that we don’t want negative attention from our family members, so we turn the attention away from ourselves. Many of us learned at some time or another that what we want, feel or desire is somehow wrong. These messages came in both small and large ways. We may have learned this when our mother took something away from us when we were very young. We may have felt this way when we wanted to write with our left hand, yet we were told to use our right. Or it may have happened when we were forced to be friends with others we didn’t feel comfortable or safe with. These experiences kept us from feeling fully seen and heard exactly as we are and can have us turn away from our internal experience and judge it as wrong. When we feel judged in anyway, by ourselves or others, we don’t feel seen and heard.
The key is to acknowledge what is happening for ourselves without judgement, so we can feel fully seen and heard. We tend to compare our experience to what we think we SHOULD be experiencing, and then judge ourselves for our natural reaction. It is time to stop this unhealthy approach. In order to honor what is best for us, we need to recognize how we are feeling, what we want, and what we want to move away from. Once we are clear about how it really is for us, we are able to choose what feels better. With that clarity in mind, we can ask for what we want and say no to what we don’t want. What if we simply said – that doesn’t work for me – here is what does? Are we willing to stand up for what feels right and wrong to us without judging what others feel or want?
Instead of asking others to see and hear us to get what we need, we can give that to ourselves. When we are clear about how things are for us, and we are willing to stand up for what feels best to us, with ourselves and others, we allow ourselves to feel fully seen and heard. When give this to ourselves, others naturally get behind us. When we are no longer willing to agree with someone who makes us wrong about our experience, others stop offering it to us. Even if they do, we begin to realize that their judgement is not even about us. Some may ask us to deny our experience when it challenges how they see the world and/or it feels uncomfortable to them. While they may feel this way, it has nothing to do with what you. It is simply a statement about them, and as long as you don’t believe what they are saying is true, there is no need to defend or justify your experience to them. You can simply acknowledge that while they may not understand, agree, or think it’s important, this is how it is for you.
When we do this for ourselves, we build our own internal self-trust and self-care. From this confident place inside, we can easily offer this to others. Allowing them to feel fully seen and heard, without needing to change it or fix it for them. Allowing them to hear themselves fully and decide what works best for them.
Can you imagine a world where everyone is supported to fully see and hear themselves and each other? We could move out of blame, shame, guilt and remorse and create the unconditional loving relationships that we so crave. Starting with ourselves.
How will you give yourself a chance to be fully seen and heard today?