One of the Practice Portals of the Find Your Voice Process is called “Getting Visible.”
This article is about some of the many reasons being visible is an issue and offers some inquiry questions to open up your own wisdom on the subject.
Recently a client of mine had experienced being in conversation with a family member she rarely speaks with. The history of the relationship includes my client being rendered invisible by this person—in other words, from a very early age the person invalidated my client’s reality.
This happens in families– we are not seen on the soul level, on the level of our Being. Our feelings, words, and expression is ignored, or judged or both. Our reality is basically denied. As children, we then turn this into a self-concept, not consciously, but subconsciously.
We learn to not trust our self, which then reverberates through life as self-doubt.
The exciting thing about my client’s statement — “I am not who she sees because she can’t see me”— is that, for the first time, interacting with the family member no longer triggered her sense of feeling invisible; not at all!
She no longer needs to be seen or expects to be seen by this person. She has realized that their level of consciousness is so completely different that it would be impossible to be seen. We can only see the contents of our own consciousness.
As your identity shifts, so does your experience of reality.
When you become visible to your self and practice the level of awareness necessary to evolve along these lines, when someone else doesn’t ‘see’ you, it no longer hurts. It just is.
Ways feeling invisible impacts your life
Have you ever felt like the person you loved most didn’t see you? Didn’t understand you?
Have you ever noticed that you are pretending to be someone other than your true self in order to be seen and understood?
In other words, you find yourself playing a role rather than living from your soul just in order to feel some connection?
The wound of invisibility is one of the most common wounds that humans experience in childhood.
When we are not seen on the soul or spirit level, on the level of Essence by our parents, or someone, a part of us begins to feel invisible. This feeling grows and becomes part of the ego structure, turning into a self-concept or identity. ‘No one ever sees me.” “I must not be good enough to be seen.” “Who I really am isn’t okay or they would see me.” “I must be crazy because they don’t respond to me.” These are the usually ‘hidden’ beliefs of the invisible younger self.
There are as many ways as there are people for this wound to occur. But it usually does for most people to some degree.
The way the wound of invisibility plays out in adult life:
- We seek out people who we think will see us. We build friendships around a codependent pattern of needing the other person to see us, which is an energetic ‘pull’ on that person.
- In love relationships we hand over the ‘invisible child’ to the lover/spouse for validation. We find partners who will compliment us because it feels so good and we become ‘addicted’ to the love because the invisible younger part finally feels seen. However, this ‘love’ can disappear at any time. There is no love from an external source that heals the wound.
- In your career, the wound of invisibility can show up in two ways: you can seek stardom and huge success in order to avoid feeling this deep place of invisibility OR you can remain hidden and act invisible. Either way, the motivation is coming from an ego place of identifying with the old self-concept of not being ‘normal’ and trying to avoid the pain of this younger part, which must be felt in order to heal and integrate.
Sharing your wisdom and becoming visible will bring up resistance, or fear. One of the terms for this is “trouble at the border”. We might be sitting at home with lots of wisdom, but as soon as we think about expressing it publicly, even if it means to our close circle of friends, all kinds of reasons come up to not do this, usually based in unconscious shame, though on the surface the thought might be something benign like “Oh I’m just not ready yet.”
Becoming Visible is the 7th Portal of the Find Your Voice Process.
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It takes courage to become visible. For me, it required building up an entirely new and different identity, one which developed through my commitment to doing what I love. Recently, I heard someone remark about someone else, “I didn’t see her; she’s so little!” Facing comments about diminutive size often provokes a laugh, as though it is a joke not to take a short person seriously. Finding my identity allows me to simply stand, and without comment, to make a strong statement, when that happens. I did speak to an advocacy officer about that one time, as well.
Thanks for sharing Kathryn! Yes, there are so many ways people are rendered invisible. I love your statement about building a new identity. Yes!