When Was the Last Time You Felt Seen?

Not noticed. Not observed. Not tolerated.

Seen.

There's a difference… and I am sure somewhere deep within you, you already know that.

Tell me a time when someone looked at you… not at your highlight reel, not at the version of you that holds it all together; but at you. The one that's tired. The one that's still healing. The one that laughs too loud sometimes because crying feels too vulnerable. The one that rewrites the text three times before sending it because you don't want to be "too much."

I'll wait.

Most of us have spent a lifetime being perceived instead of seen. And after a while… we start performing for the perception. We learn which parts of ourselves get applause and which parts make people uncomfortable… and we start editing. We shrink. We shape-shift. We become experts at being what the room needs us to be.

And then we wonder why we feel so alone in a room full of people who "love" us.

Here's what I want you to sit with:

You cannot feel seen by someone who only knows your representative.

That version of you…you know, the one that's always okay, always strong, always giving… s/he's been working overtime. And s/he's exhausted. Because the deepest human need isn't love. It isn't even safety.

It's connection and recognition.

It's someone looking at all of you; the complicated, contradictory, still-figuring-it-out version… and saying, "I see you. And I'm not leaving."

Now here's where it gets uncomfortable. Are you ready?

Most of us have never felt that… and we don't know it yet. We think we have. We've confused being needed with being seen. We've confused someone staying with them understanding. We've confused performance with intimacy.

But being seen? Real, soul-level, “I don't have to explain myself “ seen?

That hits different. And if you've never had it, your nervous system doesn't even know what to do with it when it shows up. It feels suspicious. It feels like a trap. “Little you” doesn't trust it… because “little you” learned that being fully known meant being fully rejected.

So you keep the door cracked. Just enough light to feel warm. Not enough to feel exposed.

I want to offer you something.

What if the first person who needs to see you… is you?

Not the curated you. Not the healed and whole and thriving you. The one you are right now, in the middle of it.  Confused and growing and still carrying some things you haven't named yet.

What does it feel like to look at yourself without flinching?

What does it feel like to say, "I see what happened to you. I see what you've been carrying. I see why you built those walls. And I'm not going anywhere” and mean it to yourself? Can you even do it?

That's not just self-love. That's a start to ‘reparenting”. That's the inner child work that changes everything. Not because it fixes you, but because you finally stop abandoning yourself the way others did.

You were never too much.

You were never the problem.

You were just unseen by people who didn't have the capacity to hold you.

And somewhere along the way, you started agreeing with them.

It's time to disagree.

I see you. 🫶🏾

Journal Prompt this week: Where in your life are you still hiding?  What are you afraid would happen if someone actually saw that part of you?

Sit with it. Write it out. Be gentle.

Your healing is happening.