Oh to be seen.

Take a deep breath honey, its about to get real. Isnt it interesting that one of the ways we use to describe dating is, seeing someone. Typically, a guy would ask a girl, ' are you seeing anyone' just to check if she's available or open to coffee or dinner, a date ,...dating. Every human being desires to be seen. To have someone notice you, not just superficially, not out of habit, but to be truly acknowledged as a person, with your rhythms, your essence, your space in the world. To have someone who perceives your thoughts, feelings, struggles, and joys, including the subtle ones you do not express. They need not have all the answers, they just recognize your heart and validate your experience. To be seen, is to be accepted without correction, to be fully received flaws and all. To be seen is to be understood.

The mutual desire to see someone and to be seen is what builds intimacy, i heard someone break it down to into- me -see. When love is real, it wants to see. It doesnt hide or burry its head in the sand, its curious,its bold, it doesnt run, its wants to see everything the good, the bad, the ugly. Labrinth put it so well, ' Would you let me see beneath your beautiful,would you let me see beneath your perfect take it off now girl, take it off now girl, I wanna see inside, would you let me see beneath your beautiful...'. When love is real it wants to know your inner world, it wants to understand your why, it recognizes your effort and acknowledges your feelings, it wants to be part of your everyday.

Seeing is a function of the heart. Open hearts are receptive to sight, the people that get seen are those who want to be seen. When a person removes emotional, spiritual, or mental barriers (walls, pride, fear), they become capable of perceiving, understanding, and receiving deeper truths, insights, and even divine guidance. True understanding often requires a receptive heart , a state of humility and openness and not just intellectual capacity. People see us differently; parents see you as a child, at work you are a colleague, siblings see you as a brother or sister but lovers don't just see, a lover beholds. Where the world scans, a lover studies, where others evaluate, a lover recognizes,where most people see behaviour a lover, sees a story. True lovers go beyond presentation and want to see the essence,they pay attention to detail and carry you internally. Perhaps this is why authentic love feels like home, we just get to be.

Whereas the seer has the duty of perception, the beheld must give access. Beholding only works on what is real, no audition, no perfection, no performance. To be truly seen, you have to say what you actually feel, clearly express what you actually need, don’t downplay to seem “easy" , don’t exaggerate to get attention,no masks, no fake armors. The beheld must choose to remain instead of shrinking, to stay instead of self-protecting, to keep it real, why?because deception corrupts intimacy. It takes courage to remain visible, authentic and receptive. One thing that i see us really struggle with is receiving love. The world has taught us that love is transactional, that we must first earn it to be worthy of it. I think transactional love works for us because it helps us retain control, because if you earn it you can manage it but if it is given freely then you cannot control it, if it comes it comes, if it goes it goes and thats supper scary. We have to unlearn the need to generate love and teach ourselves how to respond instead.

It goes therefore, that in romantic love every party must be both seer and the beheld. Your must be healed enough to see and open enough to receive. We have the resposibility to bear the nakedness of our partners while also allowing ourselves to be known in imperfection. This is why pride and ego have no room at all here because ego says,' i need to be seen a certain way', pride says, ' i must protect that image at all costs' while intimacy requires, ' here is who i actually am'. Ego would rather justify, intellectualize, deflect or go silent, it performs instead of revealing. Pride will feign self sufficiency, it does'nt need anyone it can do whatever it wants.

Ego and pride are defences against fear. The fear of not being enough, the fear of rejection, fear of dependance, fear that comes from the trauma of old wounds. You have'nt always been fearful, you were not born this way. There was a time when you approached life with innocence and trust , when your heart was still whole, when you recieved people with open arms, when you forgave easily beacause your love was sincere, when you cared deeply. Then, life and people mishandled you over and over untill you realized that the world does'nt stop breaking you just because you've had enough. So it makes sense to shut down and cordon off your heart and only give what feels safe, believe me, i hear you.

I am not in any way suggesting that caution be thrown to the wind, but instead of stressing ourselves over how to make sure we are never hurt again because there are absolutely no guarantees, how about we ask, ' what kind of life do i want to live?'. The alternative to avoiding hurt is not safety, its numbness. Numbness protects from pain but it also keeps from depth, connection and being seen. The brain prefers emotional numbness because it often fails to distinguish between past and present emotional threats. While the conscious mind can recognize that a memory is not happening in real time, the autonomic nervous system responsible for the fight, flight, or freeze response can react to a memory, thought, or trigger as if the danger is currently happening. This can lead to a perpetual state of anxiety, and more so for women because we don't forget. I say this to say, for both genders, that if we are not pro active about facing our fears, they will never go away. Being numb will not delete experience, it just stores it.

Allowing ourselves to be seen gives us the opportunity to create new experiences, to re-train our nervous systems. Allowing love into our lives invites the possibility of healing and transformation. Authentic love does not require that we change first. We change because we are loved.I dont think that we are ever 100% ready for love, i think we pick up the pieces we can, we do the ground work and we do our best but even then the fear may always linger. The best we can honestly do, is show up as we are and if the love is true, it will keep choosing us and that way, cast out fear one day at a time.

I am convinced that a majority of us will die with broken hearts, reminiscing over how bad its been. We will run out of time trying to hide from fears instead of confronting them.If we continue to hide our wounds and refuse to see people, if we continue to insist on building walls instead of gates, if we imagine that time will take care of things all by itself, if we insist on holding on to the past...we will run out of time. So this year,here is my challange to us, lets show up for love.

Let someone love you. Choose courage. If love comes your way be a dutiful seer. Participate, protect, cover and nurture what is entrusted to you. When you stumble, if you fall, get back up.

Be bold.