Being SEEN
Remarkable & Amazing! I just had a birthday. Along with well wishes I received these amazing flowers! Real roses, color treated to be these playful, beautiful, unexpected, joyful blooms of goodness.
When I opened them I was giddy! They just burst their joy into the room. I was laughing and completely delighted. What an amazing thing they are.
I texted my delighted gratitude to Noreen, my father’s wife of 30 years, who had chosen them for me because, she said, “They remind me of YOU!”
I texted her:
Me: LOOK! (sending her a photo) Absolutely amazing! Thank you!
Noreen: Just like you!! Amazing!!
Me: Ha! They really make me so happy! Thank you! Thank you
Noreen: You’re so welcome. I love that you love them!
I was so touched by this gift. I was over flowing…my delight began to drop into a deeper place, I began to tear up. My heart swelled and felt tender…as I stood there alone in my kitchen with these magic blooms I cried…sobbed really. Head-hanging weeping.
As I stood doing this I was also wondering…”hum, what is this about? This beautiful gift has completely undone me.” There was this bittersweet heartache, coupled with a swelling feeling. What is it?! I wondered…and then it hit me.
I had been seen…outed really…and it had surprisingly touched me. I had been seen as amazing, happy, playful.
No more brushing off a comment about being ‘amazing’, no more hiding my life force or brilliant outbursts. I had been seen and hit by the full force of it.
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This is such a great example of why we need each other. It is through each other that we know our Self, we help each other fill out the picture of who we are in the world, how others experience us and what we bring to life.
Others are able to see and ‘get’ us in ways we can’t fully see and get ourselves. When they generously reflect this back to us, we are truly seen. Some part of our Self that we brush over or over look has been pulled out of the closet and acknowledged in the full light of day.
When this happens it feels like our bell gets rung. There is some inner resonance that brings deep inner knowing out into the clear light of day and into true alignment.
When this happens it allows some previously unaware, unowned sliver of our true Self to come home to us. We are made more whole.
For me, I realized, these were tears of relief, the relief of being seen and loved, celebrated even…and deeply invited, with full permission, to be me – in my brightness, in my unashamed colorful loudness…in my amazingness. Funny, I didn’t know I needed that, but apparently I did! I needed that from a long time friend and mother figure, to be seen, truly gotten and celebrated out loud.
