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.

Why I am Quitting Love

Yep, you heard me. And no, this is not one of those lovely inspiring “find yourself first” posts. This is a tired, jaded, over-it rant. So, my sweet innocent readers, turn away now. If you are just venturing out on your own for the first time, go and read one of those nice “spend time on and with yourself” posts. My fellow jaded lonely pissed off souls, join me now for a little dark therapy.

Looking back over my writing is like a reading a roadmap for my heart. It starts with reveling in the love less travelled- finding love in life outside of relationship, moves through all the clichés of being single, into the quagmire of online dating and into a new courage to look at love.

And in this time, I have had a few crushes, I have dated a few men (briefly), and I have even had a little bit of sex! And it has mostly SUCKED!!!

Would you like the sampler rundown?

-    ·      The guy I had been involved with who posted a video of me online to promote his workshop on overcoming depression. He used my full name in the video tags, so a search for my writing would give readers the impression I had overcome this serious condition (which I have never had and make no claim to have overcome!!).
·      The guy I had a massive- can’t sleep for thinking about him- crush on, who despite us being friends and hanging out most days, didn’t tell me he had fallen in love with someone else. I heard via the small town grapevine.
·      The guy I dated briefly while travelling, who abused me in an email after I pointed out that stealing a motorbike helmet was not cool. He then expected us to hook up again next time I saw him.
·      Several unrequited crushes- too unrequited to mention.
·      The guy I travelled interstate to meet who turned out to be a wanker (that’s Australian for ‘full of himself idiot’). I agreed to ghostwrite his new book (his third) and we wrote 2 full chapters before he ghosted me with no further explanation.
·      The guy I travelled interstate to meet (yeah, I know, I know, but I hadn’t been to either of the places before, so at least the travel bit was fun!!) who fibbed about his height by many inches and had the correlated “other shortcomings”…

That is all not to mention the “perfectly nice but dull” first dates and the indecent online proposals!

And so, I am done. I will not make any more decisions based on crushes, attraction, cute guys, potentially cute guys, sparks or magic. Anyone I like on sight is hereby instantly ruled out. My crushes will be ruthlessly crushed. Sparks will be put out. Attraction will detract. Consider this my resignation from the game of love.

And here is the part where I would usually offer a witty and clever new perspective. Something insightful and evolutionary that I will be doing instead. Something to help my lovely readers see this from a new point of view. But nope, I’ve got none of that today either. Today, I am just done. I am tired of being disappointed. I am tired of missing out. I am tired of dates and conversations and repartee and innuendo. I am tired of not being the one. I am tired of being only one. Tired.

 

Ah, gentle reader (if you braved it this far and didn’t run when I told you to in the beginning), never fear. It is likely this will not last long. For if life has taught me anything, it is that this too shall pass (and PMS sucks). My trademark incurable optimism shall return and I will fall hopelessly in crush with someone new, someone amazing, someone cute and inspiring. I will probably even swipe right again or log back in to a dating site or something equally as foolish. I shall rise above my decision to not make any decisions based on wanting a relationship and intrepidly set sail back into the stormy waters of love.

One day.

For All the Lonely Souls

Are you one of those people who just knows where they fit in life? Someone who is happily working their way through their set goals? Do you instinctively connect with the people around you and make effortless conversation? OK, that is great, and I am truly happy for you, but this is not your article.

I am talking to those other people. The ones who feel like life is watching a 3D movie without the glasses. The ones who don’t understand what goals they should even be setting. Yes, you who knows the ‘social chatter’ game but simply doesn’t want to play. I am talking to you. My soul is talking to your soul, because we are here. We are scattered and we so often feel alone, but we are here.

Maybe it is because we don’t often have this level of conversation with people, maybe it is because we have learned to pretend, maybe we are truly scattered, but I want to touch base because tonight I am feeling lonely. Tonight, I am feeling frustrated and disappointed by an experience that reminded me of how much I don’t seem to think like other people. Tonight, I want to reach out to people like me.

You see, today I went on what was supposed to be an amazing purification ceremony here in Bali. My friend had done it before and was very keen to take a few of us to share the experience. I have done this sort of thing before, with some of the same people here in Bali and had incredible meditations and moments, so I had little compunction about going along.

The Balinese priests are often more like psychic/shamans, reading your energy, healing your heart and playing with your chakras. After the lovely purification (in a slightly chilly river), we were told that the priest could read our life purpose in one word from our third eye. (He had already read and healed our palm stories, so this didn’t seem much of a stretch). My friend had been told that her life purpose was “spirituality”- a broad but lovely concept, so I expected something similarly warm and encouraging. I got told my life purpose was “oil”.

Yep, literally oil. As in I should invest in an oil company or open an aromatherapy shop. Nonplussed, I thought about this for a while, then figured I could take it metaphorically and suggested that perhaps he meant that I was like oil, in that I often help people who are a bit stuck or smooth the way for things to happen, but no, he said I should open an aromatherapy shop.

Now, I totally get that within the values of Balinese life, having a life purpose that involves opening a shop would be a really good thing. But for me, it was soooooooo incredibly far away from the concepts that I have not only for my every day life, but also for my soul purpose! But more, I was so frustrated by him making God (aka. the Universe, life energy) so small. As if God would write your soul purpose on your forehead and have it say, “open a shop”. He made God small. And mundane. And human. And that just didn’t speak to me.

And so, yet again, I was reminded of how different I am. How I don’t want to have goals, I want to have feelings. Of how the thoughts in my head are not my enemy but my most precious friend. Of how I don’t want to ‘transform my life’ because I love my life. Of how much I am so ok with who I am but not ok with how that fits (or doesn’t fit) in the world.

And so, if you sometimes of often find that people are trying so hard to connect with you, but their concept of happiness or purpose or life just leaves you cold, here are some thoughts from my soul to yours…

No matter whether the glass is half full or half empty, it looks totally weird upside down. Seriously. A half glass of water behind me when I was in down dog this morning, spun my brain out, as my brain told me for a second that the air was water and the water air.

Yes, bright green cars do look like giant M&M’s. But not many people will think that is as fascinating as you do. They will probably think that the storm cloud that looks like a dragon eating the setting sun is cool, but won’t stare at it for 10 minutes. If we ever meet, feel free to point these things out to me and we can stare together.

The world is sometimes so beautiful, it is sad. And sometimes that sadness is beautiful. Cry when you need to. I send your soul hugs, with no demands, or no need for you to explain.

If you ever want a successful role model for being your incredible, amazing, totally not normal self, read Dr Seuss. Green Eggs and Ham or The Lorax. Need I say more?

Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try! (Dr Seuss)

And of course the classic:

Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you! (Dr Seuss)

And so dear soul, I leave you here. Tonight, I am tired. Tired of pretending that it all makes sense. Tired of trying to value the things I am told are important. Tired of being alone. But I also know that I am not alone. Because you are out there too and I just wanted to say hello.

This article was first published in Elephant Journal.