Feeling Invisible in the World

This is a talk about feeling invisible. What is this feeling? Where does it come from? What can we learn from it? How can we heal this feeling within ourselves and integrate / understand it so that we don't have to feel invisible any more.

Transcript

Today I wanted to talk to you about feeling invisible.

What is this feeling?

Where does it come from?

And how can we work with it internally in order to slowly recognize this feeling as not the truth of who we are but as a program which has been basically installed in our consciousness usually from a really young age.

So I myself have suffered from this feeling invisible and I guess now I would say I'm definitely in the process of healing it.

Maybe I haven't healed it to completion but I'm quite a long way along the road to healing this feeling of being invisible in the world.

And of course making these YouTube videos for me is part of that process.

It's important for me to be able to come and share my message in the world and to overcome my own fear of what people think in order to do this.

So where does it come from this feeling of being invisible in the world,

This feeling of being unseen?

Like most really strong negative programming such as this feeling,

It does come from childhood and generally it will come from an experience in childhood,

A prolonged experience perhaps across your whole childhood of not really being seen by your parents.

So emotionally,

Particularly more than anything,

Not really being emotionally seen by your parents.

So I know my parents way of dealing with their own emotions was to stuff them down and really just kind of intellectualize and pretend that those feelings were not there and just kind of analyze or intellectualize their way out of that feeling in order to deal with their own feelings.

So there was a generalized fear of emotion,

Particularly negative,

So-called negative emotions like sadness,

Anger,

Depression.

So this was the environment in which I grew up.

It was one where emotions were just really not welcomed and particularly the emotional expression of children.

When the adults in the environment are suppressing,

Repressing their own emotions,

The emotional expression of children is a threat to those adults.

They are reminded of all their own feelings that they're not allowing themselves to feel or that they've never felt,

Perhaps basically can be also from their own childhood.

So the way that they will deal with a child's expression,

Especially strong emotional expressions,

Is just to send that child the message that it's not okay.

So to discourage that child's emotional expression and to make that child feel really unsafe by perhaps punishing them for their own emotional expression so that the child really receives the message that they need to start suppressing their own feelings as well.

So this is obviously quite a sad situation,

But I think unfortunately very common in our society.

And if you have experienced this in your childhood,

If you've been grown up with emotionally immature parents who never really learned how to fully accept and manage and work with their own feelings,

Then you most likely will have been programmed to also repress your own feelings in order to feel safe in the world really.

So what is the result of that?

The result is literally you miss out on the very important developmental process,

Which is the mirroring process whereby your parents should be mirroring your emotions back to you.

That's reflecting back your feelings to you in a way that shows you that it's okay to feel your feelings,

That they're healthy and normal.

And in that reflecting those feelings back to you process,

They should also be helping you to learn how to work with your own feelings.

And in that interaction process with a healthy parent style,

Then you should start to know yourself as an emotional being,

Accept yourself as an emotional being,

Accept your emotions,

Recognize that they are energy in motion,

Just coming basically information for you,

Teaching you about yourself and about your feelings,

Often very,

Very healthy information.

Emotions are what we experience when we need to put a boundary with somebody or something.

When we need to say no to somebody or something,

We first experience an emotion,

A strong emotion that is telling us,

Okay,

Here you need to say no,

Here you need to push back,

Here you need to draw a line.

So if we were really not taught that our emotions are totally welcome and acceptable,

And we even to invite them in to learn about our emotions and the emotional process in childhood,

We just will have missed out on this really fundamental learning step,

Development step where we learn about ourselves.

So we will most likely arrive in adulthood,

Really with a very strong feeling of not knowing who we are,

Because we have been programmed to suppress our feelings in order to be safe.

This leads us to become people pleasers as well,

Of course,

Because feeling emotionally unsafe,

Unable to be feel safe to express our own emotions,

We were programmed again,

By this environment in childhood,

That we need to be ultra vigilant around other people's emotions.

Because if we express our emotions,

They might get angry,

And that's unsafe for us.

Therefore,

We need to learn how to manage their emotions,

Rather than ours.

So we might come into adulthood with this really strong feeling of just not knowing who we are at all.

Because of this emotional repression that we've experienced through our whole life.

And part of this feeling of not knowing who you are is a feeling of invisibility,

Because you're essentially invisible also to yourself,

If you don't allow your full emotional expression,

If you don't feel your feelings,

You don't know who you are yourself.

So you feel invisible even to you.

So this invisibility feeling,

It's not only towards the outer world,

Not only a feeling that people don't see you,

It's also that you don't actually see yourself.

Because you're not allowing the full,

Flowing the full,

Flourishing the full expression of your emotions,

And not allowing the full expression of your emotions really is limiting you in a huge way.

Because emotions are energy in motion,

It's just the energy,

The life force energy,

Which is flowing through you all the time,

Which needs to be expressed,

Which needs to be let out,

In whatever form is is working for you might be talking might be dancing might be music might be art,

It might be just allowing yourself to be angry and scream and yell,

Hopefully not at other people.

But sometimes,

That's also necessary.

If,

If somebody is treating you really badly,

That's also necessary.

But if you have been programmed like this in childhood to repress all of your emotions,

Particularly so called negative emotions,

Then even to get angry and scream at somebody might be almost impossible for you might be very,

Very difficult for you.

So this feeling of invisible,

It's feeling invisible to the out of world,

Because you've been programmed to with the idea that your own feelings don't actually matter.

And even more than that,

They don't matter,

They should be repressed and hidden.

So the really natural result of this is that you will feel invisible both to the world and to yourself.

So this has definitely been a part of a big part of my experience.

And a big part of my healing has been really working really a lot on my own,

In a relationship with myself on my relationship with my emotions and allowing myself little by little,

To express more and more and more of my true emotions,

Both to myself in my journaling practice,

Or in my art practice or in my music practice,

Or out towards other people with whom I'm in relationship.

So the practice is basically recognizing where you're censoring yourself,

Where you start suppressing your feelings where you start to feel that this might be unsafe to say to somebody.

And catching yourself in that moment where you are self censoring and trying to repress yourself feeling like it's unsafe to express that particular emotion.

And seeing if you can flip and change that in the instant and go,

Okay,

No,

Actually,

I'm going to move through this old programming of self repression.

And I'm going to express that emotion,

Hopefully in a healthy way.

But even if it's not in a healthy way,

If you do have to scream and yell a bit,

This is also okay and necessary,

Because it's a really a self rescue process that you are going through.

And you need to be kind and compassionate to yourself and recognize that it's not going to be perfect.

And sometimes you might actually overdo it a bit.

And instead of emotional repression,

You might become a volcano.

And maybe that's okay.

And if you if it's a good relationship that maybe you explode in,

Then hopefully you will be able to speak to the person afterwards and explain that process what happened to you.

And maybe if there's any need for you to apologize or say sorry for a really strong feeling,

Then really strong,

Overt,

Perhaps anger or something,

Then you might want to do that.

But also,

If it's a really healthy relationship with that person,

They might be they might say back to you actually know,

There's nothing to be sorry for.

That's your that was your feeling in that moment,

And you expressed it.

And I am okay with holding that space for you.

So that's a rare person that will have the emotional ability to be non reactive,

And be able to hold that space for you to explode and not take that personally.

Very rare person,

But it may,

You may have some relationships like that.

So,

Yeah,

Basically,

The process of healing from this feeling of being invisible is firstly just recognizing it,

Understanding this very painful feeling,

Recognizing where it came from,

Most likely come from your childhood or childhood where you emotionally neglected by your parents consciously or unconsciously.

So just holding yourself in that space of self love and self compassion for actually even just being able to recognize that feeling.

Digging deep underneath that feeling,

What is underneath that feeling of being visible?

It might be a feeling of okay,

I'm insignificant,

I don't matter in the world,

It might be so deep as a feeling that I don't actually exist.

I'm not actually here.

So second step is really digging deep and finding out what are the true feelings below this feeling of being visible.

And again,

Working with self compassion,

Self love and holding yourself in that space of those complex and painful feelings.

It's very painful to feel like I'm invisible,

I don't exist,

I don't matter.

Really very painful.

So once you can hold yourself in that in that space,

Be with that pain be with that feeling.

That might,

That process might take some weeks or months for you,

Maybe even some years.

Yeah,

Very possible.

So be kind to yourself.

But when you're through that phase of holding that feeling,

Accepting that feeling,

Feeling that feeling being okay with it,

Then we can move into the third phase of healing this invisibility with starting to make recognize the difference between the external world and your internal world.

So recognizing every time that you are clearly given a message from the external world that you do exist,

That you are visible,

That you are seen that you are received,

Particularly when you express your feelings and your emotions and you're accepted for who you are by a kind and loving and caring person.

Then this is evidence for you that shows to you that this inner feeling this inner cognition of I'm invisible is not true.

So this is external evidence and this is really important process in healing this feeling of invisibility.

And if you want to be really ninja about this,

You may want to really challenge yourself to face this feeling full on.

And there's lots of different ways that you can do that.

But usually they will be ways which involve you stepping outside of your comfort zone in a in a in a really big way.

So stepping outside of your normal range of behavior,

Your normal range of perhaps activity,

And pushing yourself a bit beyond.

So for me,

That has been the practice of busking,

Playing and singing in the streets,

Singing my songs in the streets,

Which I've done for some years now.

And this is a very strong practice of facing that fear of I'm invisible in the world because you're literally putting yourself out in the street in public,

Where you cannot control the environment where anybody is welcome to come by and watch you and accept you and like you or not,

And just keep walking by.

So this is a really powerful process for for facing this,

This inner feeling of invisibility,

Just putting yourself out in the world,

Like in the street as a busker or a performer or a street performer of some kind.

And there are of course,

Loads of other ways of doing that it could be theater practice,

You could put yourself out in the world as an actor,

Maybe in an amateur dramatic group,

Or you may want to try acting as a proficient.

This also will be pushing yourself far outside of your comfort zone.

If your comfort zone is more in a place of kind of holding back,

Hiding,

Repressing yourself not expressing your true feelings because of this long inbuilt feeling that my emotional expression is unsafe makes me unsafe.

So you will also have lots of your own ideas for facing this fear and,

And really overcoming this feeling of invisibility in the world.

There are so many,

So many awesome and amazing ways for doing this.

So that's all for today.

I hope you have enjoyed this little talk and I would love to hear from you in the comments or if you have some thoughts of your own if you have been through this process yourself and how that has been for you.

So,

Thank you for listening,

And sending you lots of love and blessings.

Reviews

Thanks for this talk. Remembering to look for moments when you feel seen and amplify that moment of feeling acceptance or whatever good you feel from that moment is a good practice, a good reminder I got from this talk. Also that was very interesting about connecting the practice of busking or acting in theatre as a kind of therapy or practice of expressing yourself and emotions through your art and then accepting the fact that you’re going to experience both recognition and being ignored by others… My takeaway thought about that situation is: “So it is, in life. One doesn’t have to take being ignored personally or harshly.”

🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼