Really seeing people changes lives and prevents a whole lot of arguments

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about this collective wound we seem to have around not feeling seen, not feeling heard and not feeling valued in every day life for what one brings to the table, that's really underlying a lot of our most common arguments. 

Have you ever seen a time where people in public are so willing to pick a fight with a total stranger over things that they didn’t get, or that they think are wrong? A thousand conversations happen an hour, online and offline, where somebody blames someone else for something that person didn’t do, or for not giving them something that they, dare I say it, never actually asked for, in a kind, respectful manner in the first place. But have realised after the fact, after experiencing NOT being seen, heard and met, that they actually needed it…and are now upset that they didn’t get it. So often we play this out as blaming the other party for the problem. As issuing a formal complaint about what we didn’t get. But that’s only a part of what’s really going on.

It’s easy to blame the other person for our discomfort, and for the fact that we might feel not sufficiently seen, heard, understood and acknowledged by the other party, BUT part of the bigger problem is that:

-we actually didn’t sufficiently see ourselves and our own needs, and because of our disconnection from our inner reality,
-we failed to identity and speak up about what we needed to in a healthy way, in a timely moment prior, in which it could actually have made a difference in helping the other party better understand and account for what we needed. How are they supposed to magically just know what we need, if we never educated them on what that is? And if we never asked for it? And
-we might not be seeing, believing in or trusting in the part of the person in front of us that both cares about and might be willing to say yes, to help, or to take action to help us meet that need.

This often then leads any given conversation down a conflictual tangent, instead of in the optimal direction it could’ve gone down. One where:

-we’re expecting by default (often based on past experience) the worst outcome, and NOT to be met. Where we expect that we have to fight for us to GET met. Instead of trusting and believing in the best intentions of others and therefore anticipating the best possible outcome from our interaction with them.
The trouble is, when we expect the worst of the other, we tend to show up communicating in a whole different manner with them. With closed energy and defensiveness. And the words we select and how we deliver them can be entirely different, to if we thought they were someone who is on our side. In the way of being more accusing, colder and negatively biased. Or that is, worst case, outright verbally and psychologically abusive.


Metaphorically, it can be like we project onto a screen an inch in front of them, an avatar of the worst version of them that we fear….and then start a fight with that avatar. Instead of actually communicating with the real version of them, that is standing an inch behind the projection screen, looking confused as hell as to who we’re even talking to, as it’s clearly not them, with their current intent. If the other party WAS actually interested in the best outcome and actually wanted the best for us, then some part of THEM might now ALSO feel equally as not seen, heard or acknowledged. And treated with disrespect by the negative energy/focus and projections with which the other party is coming at them. 

At best, they call us back to seeing and speaking to the real and best of them in the moment. But isn’t it interesting, how that just came full circle? In a form of self fulfilling prophecy, how we showed up, just actually brought about the exact worst outcome that we didn’t want in the first place? And it actually ensured an outcome in which we didn’t get met? But now it’s even worse, because we’ve also projected OUR not being seen onto the other party….and now they TOO, might feel exactly the same way? And you’re now at war, when you could’ve been allies?


The WORST of our insides and our wounding is now on display. Hopefully at least one party is self aware enough to see what’s going on and hold to still showing up in the best possible way, while working towards the best possible, mutually beneficial outcome. To try and call the other back into the energy of love. But the one thing that is a certainty within this dynamic when it plays out, is that we’re not truly seeing, hearing, acknowledging and valuing the other, for all of themselves. For both the optimal parts. Nor are we regarding with compassion, sensitivity, understanding and healing intent, their wounded parts alike.


With a total stranger, we might be less internally perturbed by that, and more able to quickly brush it off. If disappointed and self reflective on how this could’ve turned out better. But when it happens with the people we’re most invested in, it can really hurt not to be seen for the best of ourselves, for the best and purest of our intent, and for the sincerity of our best efforts made from the right place, for the right reasons. From that inner place of giving, of loving purpose and genuine desire to be of service because we could. Of genuinely gaining fulfilment and feeling sincere happiness through and for another, when we see them grow, hit their mark and their targets, when they win. Or when they light up with encouragement, confidence, faith and their own highest potential.  BUT to only be seen for the worst of ourselves, for that one negative that someone’s traumatised, negativity biased, fight flight activated nervous system, and self defensive mechanisms locked onto and honed in on with military grade precision for self protective purposes, to the exclusion of all other realities and possibilities, can also be devastatingly heartbreaking. Not to mention cause significant rips in the fabric of our relationships.


I say all of this having spent a lot of time this week, self reflecting on some of the ways in the past in which I personally have felt heartbroken in both not being seen, or being seen and totally rejected at times.  I found myself feeling through some of the deeper layers of ways I’d shut down in personal and work settings in recent years, after some very significant relational endings had gone that way. And sat with first hand, that feeling of gut-wrenching devastation, when you suddenly realised through someone's heated or honest words, that decades of your most sincere and well intentioned efforts, energy and intent, were never actually seen, acknowledged or appreciated. And or in others, the very things that make you the best of you,  weren’t actually the qualities they  wanted or valued you for in the way you thought or hoped they would.  As much as those best bits of you weren’t deemed of sufficient value to warrant the acceptance of the worst bits of you as being tolerable and "work-aroundable." As much as they were written off as too hard and too much. 


As I felt into some of that more personal pain and rejection, I realised too how much I’d automatically at some point in trying to survive all those major changes in my core foundations, started doing that one very thing I always tell clients NOT to EVER do, in starting to accept the past as a reliable predictor of what you can expect in the future...and started accepting business and relational failures as a permanent reality and professional, familial and and relational dreams as realities that maybe AREN'T actually meant to be this time around. 

For example, (& I don't care if this sounds wanky to anyone who hasn't been a Coach or Therapist or worked in high performance cultures, I'm not writing this one for virtue signalling or external validation) but as I also was watching Billions recently, once again, I found my entertainment becoming Therapy... In that I was watching Wendy Rhodes, the elite Performance Coach of High Level Performances Coaches, as even just a character, talking about the inner motivations behind why she loves and feels born to do what she does. And then remembered all the times I too had lit up like a Christmas tree every time I got to Mentor in my senior years at highschool, a younger kid who was really struggling at home and had all kinds of anxieties about going on stage in our high school musicals. Or the years I spent Performance Coaching High Achieving, Make a Difference-Driven Influencers on business goals and financial targets, and Coaching clients on life purpose and service in my private practice, and others organisations.

I found myself suddenly mortified that I’d manage to internalise this idea that the most innate and some of the best parts of me, that have had the biggest benefit to others, including the part that can hone onto another’s beauty, potential and gifts in the darkness, with the efficiency of a truffle pig finding truffles amongst the noise on the forest floor, let alone the part of me that, personally or professionally, just loves and gives stupidly much without giving a shit about what I'm getting back because it just feels right in the moment, are character flaws and  trauma responses. Let alone always inevitably too much, unwanted, or needed, because a few someones past, who'd I'd loved and invested a whole lot in, and them too in me, it turns out, weren't ever going to be invested fully on the same path, or in the same way. But when I surrendered to not seeing and not recognising the value of those parts of myself, I’m actually as equally snuffing out my light and life purpose, as I'd become the walking dead when I'd stopped making art.

My point though, is- that’s a lot of power and energy to have caught up in fear of the impact of both being seen and not seen and valued? And I know I'm not alone in experiencing some iteration, or permeation of that same theme?  Many of us are dealing with some microcosmic versions of this daily. Why is why I even bring it up.


No matter which side of the relational equation trauma originates on, trauma doesn’t often see potential. Trauma, and a traumatised nervous system, usually only sees danger. And the need to fear and protect against it. Even if we DO come to recognise our own value, to see the best in ourselves and continue to dream of and hope for the best in others, the fear in others ability to see or not see it too, can still bring us undone. And thus the danger of not expecting to be seen, valued or met by others, can then see us start living half a life, half relationships, and half daily interactions, based on the fear of the worst that we’ve come to expect to be our new normal….and then we can start accepting, maybe half of what we really deserve and want. Because the voice of trauma might have us believe that others only see and fear OUR worst, but fail to see, or value our best. Trauma might also have us believe that they also can’t handle our best, without our best triggering in them, the activation and purging of their worst. And then our projecting of that wounding out into the world, onto others, can often result in us showing up and relating in that very way that actually creates the outcomes we don’t want, that can result in BOTH parties not feeling seen, heard, acknowledged, appreciated or valued for what they’re really saying, doing, being and bringing to the table.


If it’s not that, then sometimes its just that we’re too busy, pushed to the limit and exhausted in this day and age to make the time and to invest the energy in truly seeing, hearing and appreciating the people who pop up in front of us in our every day lives. To go deeper than dealing with people at surface/face value, and truly take stock of what value and purpose their presence brings to our worlds, and has to contribute to our learning experience and growth. Because even the wounded and “weirdest” of our bits, have something to teach us.  Look long enough, and you can find the gift, the beauty, the lessons in literally anyone and anything, anywhere. 


More than that, it can be powerfully healing, as well as crucial to healthy relationships of all kinds, personal and professional too, that we ALL practice really seeing, hearing, and appreciating all of the people around us, for ALL of what makes them them. Because on some level, most of us want to feel like our presence, our gifts and abilities, our efforts and our perspective matter and makes a difference to others. We want to know that our feelings, our needs and boundaries matter and are worthy of consideration by the people we care about, and by strangers in our vicinity alike. No matter how much self love and healing work we might do on ourselves, on recognising our own worth and value, there is still always that part of us too, that wants to know that there are things about us that are likeable. And that the things we have to share about ourselves as much as our insights, might be interesting, intriguing and useful to others. We find things like healing, comfort, confidence, empowerment and purpose in being heard, acknowledged, understood and encouraged.  And in hearing that we’re loveable even WITH our flaws and our wounds. Let's not forget that the expression and evidence of any and all of these expressed outwardly, whether verbally, or non verbally, through body language and energy, are taken by us as signs of sincere love and respect. 


Not to mention the our abilities to listen and ask questions to truly understand the other, combined with the ability to truly see and appreciate what beauty and complexity others bring to the table, are foundational to building trust and psychological safety. And therefore, to establishing connection and rapport, in personal and professional settings of all kinds. And this is more important than ever in a culture right now where, while we’re healing our voices, and learning to be more authentic, we’ve swung from NOT speaking up; to the other extreme of getting so preoccupied with having a voice that we’re actually now forgetting that we also need to listen twice as much as we speak.


AND where we’re getting so busy keeping score of what we’re getting on our upward success trajectories, that we’re also sometimes forgetting that (in a healthy two-way relationship) it was always the case that we STILL need to maintain connection to that place of unconditional giving and being of service to the other party, as well as connection to the desire to see the other happy and thriving, in order to help any given relationship of any kind truly reach it’s highest potential and optimal, mutually beneficial outcomes.


While yes, its important that we feel out for when our giving efforts are and aren’t welcome with any given other, and it’s necessary to be sensitive to their needs in balance to our own, the ability to truly see, to hear and to appreciate the current beauty, the gifts, the future potential, and the value of the challenges that any given person presents, are absolutely crucial to the quality of our relationships. And you never know, in a world that can be so technologically connected, yet now so very human face to face DISconnected, you just never know when you taking the time to share with someone some positive quality or insight that you have about them, might, at minimum, put a smile on their face. At moderate, might make their day. And at best, might help them heal, find wholeness and open back up again to trusting in the good that still exists in others and the world.  You just never know when your encouragement, belief in them and ability to see their value might become part of the motivation for them to show up as all that they can be…and truly believe in the value that they are and have to bring to the world.


Until next time…

Nat Ferrier