I grew up feeling invisible. My parents couldn't see me because they couldn't see themselves. They didn't know who they were. They thought they were their looks and their achievements. They didn't know they had souls housed in their bodies, so they didn't know I had a soul housed in my body. Because they had grown up not being seen by their parents, they couldn't see the magnificent beauty within them and within me.
Instead, they projected onto me their distorted view of themselves, believing I was just a smaller version of their own woundedness. They judged me as they judged themselves.
It was confusing to grow up not being seen. They would tell me I was one way when I felt inside that I was a completely different way. When my mother was cold, she assumed I was also cold, and insisted I wear a coat when I was hot. If I accidently broke something, she would yell at me for being careless and irresponsible, when I was actually anything but careless and irresponsible.
It's very lonely and heartbreaking to be so unseen. To remain a part of the "tribe," I eventually adopted their view of me and stopped seeing myself. I became invisible to myself.
By the time I was in elementary school, I had completely lost touch with myself. Because I no longer knew who I was, others couldn't see me either. My disconnection from myself led to feeling invisible to my peers.
It wasn't until many years later, when I finally learned to reconnect with myself, that I no longer felt invisible.
Today, I work with many people who feel invisible because they went through a similar upbringing to mine. In order to heal this, they need to become aware of their true, core selves. They need to stop being invisible to themselves before they will stop being invisible to others.
If you feel invisible, here is what you need to learn in order to become visible to yourself and others:
- You need to understand that we all developed an ego-wounded self in order to survive our childhood. This is a programmed part of us that absorbed many false beliefs about who we are from our parents, teachers, siblings, peers, relatives, professionals and the media. If you believe that you ARE your ego-wounded self, then you are invisible to yourself.
You cannot see your true soul self through the eyes of your programmed, wounded self. In order to see the magnificence of your soul, you need to see yourself through the eyes of truth. Your wounded self has no access to any higher source of truth. However, when you move into an intent to learn about the truth of who you are, you can begin to connect with your higher self -- the part of you that does have access to the truth. As you learn to see yourself through the eyes of your higher self, you can begin to reclaim the truth of who you are -- a beautiful, magnificent, individualized expression of the divine, living in your earthly body. Once you really get that you are NOT your wounded self, and you begin to see the truth of the beauty of your soul, you will become more and more able to truly see yourself. You will stop being invisible to yourself. You will find that the more visible you are to yourself, the more others see you. Others tend to reflect to us how we see ourselves, so the more you see your true soul self, the more you will feel seen by others. The Inner Bonding process is a wonderful process for learning to connect with your higher self so that you can reclaim your true self. Start today learning to become visible to yourself so that you never again have to feel invisible to others.
For more from Margaret Paul, Ph.D., click here.
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