The Challenge of Being Seen

I have been hanging out with a friend lately who is in a big growth and self-awareness phase. I have been (I hope!!) supporting and challenging- listening and caring, but also to lovingly teasing and nudging. Part of this dance yesterday was me being very present while my friend talked, until they squirmed and asked me to stop looking. I told them I couldn’t. I said, “I see you”.

This moment, I think, touched both of us. It was powerful to be a participant in this moment. But when my friend flipped it and asked, “and who sees you?” I got a taste of the other side. Ouch.

 

My answer- somewhat flippantly and somewhat defensively- was “no-one”. Which is partly true. I have many wonderful friends in my life who are there for me at various times. And I will admit that each of them is there in parts of my life. But I feel like I keep the parts of my life separate. My wonderful supportive sister has never been on a spiritual adventure with me, where a whole other side of me comes into play. My city friends don’t really know my practical farm girl self. But no-one crosses all my boundaries. I don’t let them.

We all secretly want to be seen. We want to be understood. Just about every week, I see several “How to Love a (insert star sign/characteristic/behavior here)”- Scorpio, girl who travels, girl who reads, introvert- they all have their own “how to love them” manual. And I bet, I truly would put money on the line, that at least 90% of the people who click on those articles are in fact the bearer of the said star sign/characteristic/behavior rather than their lovers. I bet.

And what does that tell you? That we all seek to be seen. To feel understood. To be heard. But this is a secret wish. A wish that makes us feel vulnerable. A wish we hide behind masks. I am great at hiding behind masks. Here are a couple of my go-to choices…

      1.    The “easy-going” mask

I am not so much being the ‘good girl’ or repressed ‘nice girl’, but I very rarely feel any need to rock the boat. On the contrary, I feel the need to pitch in, help out, be accommodating, simple to deal with. Not out of fear of not being liked, but mostly just because I can.

I am easy going- everyone else has such busy lives, of course I can accommodate your schedule; I can meet whenever suits you; I don’t mind if you cancel or change our plans. And most of the time, I truly don’t mind. But sometimes, I fucking do! Do not mistake my kindness for weakness. I want to matter too.

      2.    Detached observer mask

This kind of snowballed out of control when I became a therapist. I could hide behind my professional detachment, not only not having to share anything of myself, but also withholding my thoughts and feelings from my everyday life. Problem is, the more personal the other person gets, the more I withdraw. This has not worked out so well for me in “deep and meaningful” relationship conversations.

What I really want to say is, “Stop talking AT me!!” Let me breathe. Let me think. Give me time to connect and answer. Because I won’t speak rashly. I will not retaliate or play tit for tat. But I don’t say all that. I just hide.

So here is my thought for today… Nope, it is nothing as simple as “what masks are you wearing?” because that is a level 1 question, and I reckon we are probably all a bit further down the track than that. My questions are: who do you secretly want to see you? What hints are you dropping, what signals are you giving, all the while hiding behind your masks to ensure that even when they look, they won’t really see you anyway?

Because this is what we do. We create this secret wish to be seen and engage in crazy behaviors trying to be noticed, but not really showing ourselves at the same time. We see this shit in movies all the time. We are fed fairytales about how the ‘right’ person will love you no matter how much you hide. That the ‘right’ person will get your hints and see straight through your masks.

BULLSHIT!

Own your crap people. Yes, we all want to be seen, to be loved for who we are. But we are all running around hiding who we are! This is craziness! We are so busy wishing someone else would see us, understand us, that we don’t see and understand ourselves.

I don’t have any brilliant answers. I am the person who hides herself from the world, behind ‘happy’ and ‘capable’ and ‘independent’. But I know that I am a person who is trying. I am a person who owns her secret wishes. I am person who would read an article entitled “How to Love an Aries” knowing full well she would rather be reading an article called “How to Survive Being an Aries”. Because it is lovely to imagine someone else loving me, seeing me, understanding me, but I am not in control of that. I am only responsible for loving, seeing and understanding myself.

I see me.