Being Seen

All of us carry some kind of messaging around being seen.  

Being seen may cause a lot of discomfort or activation in our nervous system.

Or maybe our messaging was more about being heard. “Seen not heard”

Or perhaps we carry both messages and it is safer to remain both “Not seen and not heard.”  

I believe in addition to our early caregiver’s messaging this resistance to being seen actually comes from not being seen for who we truly are. A spirit and a soul carried by our body.  

When we are not seen or heard in our earliest experiences of pain, deep feeling and sensitivity we develop the belief that we can’t be seen. 

Our feelings have a lot to do with who we are and if we were not recognized for our feelings as young children they can grow in unhealthy ways, they begin to live a life in our psyche and subconscious world, where they can be seen.  

If a feeling cannot be expressed it is empties into our subconscious container.  The feeling stays to protect us in our nervous system. It gets wired into the system and senses as a stress response.  It becomes aroused or activated by something in our environment and it learns to dictate our responses and reactions to life. 

When we begin the deep and powerful work of raising our feelings, parenting ourselves, we are seeing ourselves finally. And tending to our inner being. We can enter our subconscious being, consciously by doing this, reinforcing our healthy patterns and transforming our negative beliefs.  We turn the light of our consciousness on. 

It doesn't have to take a lifetime to change the belief that I cannot be seen for who I truly am… so why bother.  It can happen as gently and softly as allowing the flower to open. With being present for that opening and truly seeing it.  

I recommend a practice of being seen. Daily or weekly videos for yourself practicing speaking about something that means alot to you. Perhaps something you are afraid of being seen for and yet something so true to who you are. Seeing yourself in this way will begin to flower your expression of self in life. We all want to be seen in our spirit and our consciousness. First we must practice seeing ourselves. Making videos for myself and then having the courage to share them here and with close circles was a powerful experience for me. Please share any thoughts you have and perhaps a video too!

I see you. I hear you. You are important. You are so loved.

Anger, Teacher

Anger is a very general word we use to describe a spectrum of feelings, emotions and experiences.

Anger is a healthy response that our system feels when it is expressing a need to be seen and heard.

When anger is healthy it can be expressed, processed and moved through our nervous system without getting activated in a stress response that is harmful to ourselves and others. With awareness and the light of consciousness we can learn to communicate our “no”, a boundary, a need, or an expectation in such a way that is beneficial to the greater good and elicits equanimity. This is not easy to do and it takes practice. It takes your practice. Meditation, breathwork, sound healing, journaling, dance are all accessible methods to channel, befriend and learn from anger.

Let’s refer to the etymology of the word anger to gain some insight and wisdom into the meaning behind the word.

From Middle English Anger and Old Norse, Angr-: Grief, pain, trouble, affliction, vexation, sorrow, troubled, wrath (Biblical).

Proto Germanic: Angazaz: Grief, Sorrow, narrow, painful.

Proto-Indo-European: Narrow, Tied-together

“From the sense of oppression, or injury, the expression was transferred to the feelings of resentment naturally aroused in the mind of the person aggrieved.”

-Wedgewood, A Dictionary of English Etymology, 1859

Also… the Swedish translation: Regret.

How different would it be to refer to our feelings in this way.

“My anger is actually affliction and/ or sorrow. My anger is clearly regret.”

In addition to the many variations of meaning of the word anger we have something else to consider. It could be one side of the spectrum, then it would be the zone of highest value and most return or gain from understanding. It is important to turn our focus to this side of the spectrum of anger to getting to the roots of the many layers of our inner anger. This is subconscious anger or inner anger or psychic anger. The anger that was formed before we were fully conscious. This anger is always with us and it takes something seemingly unrelated for it to bubble out. This is the anger we want to learn from like a teacher. It takes time and practice but we can find ways to connect with this anger.

The above pie chart is just an example of some varieties of anger I have confronted in myself. The percentages are mostly intuited as there is no way to measure them beyond recording experiences. This is an example of going micro and you can go even more micro than this chart. Again this is an example of recording and actively participating in your anger by journaling and getting to know. All of it. You will have your own version of this that you create from your own experiences and awareness.

Blessings and so much love on your healing journey. I believe in you. You are important. Your healing is necessary.

Sat Nam.