Mid-September 2017 Newsletter

Hello, and a magical mid-September to you!
Welcome, or welcome back, to my newsletter. The photo above felt perfect for mid-September, when we're fast approaching the equinox, an equal time of light and dark. The introvert in me likes that I'm "out there" in this picture, yet still partially hidden.

Today's issue has an article about being seen, or preferring to hide rather than shine. Enjoy!

Being introverted by nature, most of my life I've preferred reading books to interacting with people. Letting myself be seen has been scary for me, since I expected to be judged and criticized. And wearing thick glasses as a young child made this worse -- I knew I didn't look "normal" like the outgoing folks I saw around me and on TV. Many of them had no problem being seen, or even sought it out, sending out a "Look at me!" energy. When I started to improve my strong myopia many years after childhood, I wondered about the connection between not wanting to see, and not wanting to be seen. People develop vision problems for many reasons. For me it seemed to be a pulling inward of my whole being, not wanting to reach out to the world socially or visually, pretty much rooted in fear. Fear that I couldn't handle it (what ever IT was), fear that it would hurt me, fear fear fear. And the feeling of not wanting to be seen felt like the other side of the same dynamic.

In my many years of energy medicine studies with master healer Deborah King, I've learned that a healthy person constantly exchanges energy with the environment. Think of how you feel energized by a beautiful sunny day, then send out cheerfulness to everyone who crosses your path. Or the reverse: you meet someone grumpy and let that pull your own energy down, so you become grumpy to the next person you meet. Just realizing this is happening, or is possible, can allow you to change it. You wouldn't let someone throw mud on your clean clothes -- why let anyone dirty up your clean shining energy?

If you don't want to be seen, do you know what's behind this? Maybe a significant person criticized you years ago, and you're expecting others to do that now, even though that critical person is no longer part of your life. Or you don't like the way you look, or speak, or dress, so would rather hide than show up. I felt this way for years, and had to take tiny steps forward to overcome it. Baby steps are better than no steps! I practiced saying hello when I met a neighbor on the sidewalk, looking in her eyes in a friendly way rather than down at my feet. Usually she gave me a cheery "Hello!" in return. This was quite a surprise to me at first.

While I can't say I seek the limelight now (and I probably never will), I am less uncomfortable being seen. Recently I helped support my energy teacher at a workshop, standing on stage and presenting a topic or two, with a microphone wired around my head. The workshop was streamed live to a few hundred viewers in addition to those physically present in the room. Not too long ago the idea of doing this would have terrified me! I feel like I passed some kind of test. And like my vision, my performance wasn't perfect, but it was good enough.

When I steeled myself to watch the video of the workshop afterwards, all I could see was that I moved my head around too much when I spoke. That has to be distracting, I thought. Why are we (me too) so hard on ourselves? Maybe some people were glad I was there teaching, and liked what I said. I don't have to please every single person! I'm thinking now of modifying my goal of "being comfortable being seen" to "being comfortable being seen even if I make a mistake". I can always turn it into a joke on myself, since people love to laugh.

And this reminds me of vision, again. If I focus on what I can't see as well as I want to, or on my eyes being sore or tired, I can miss appreciating all I can see. I want to notice the glorious colors of Nature, or the depth in the roof gables in the sun, angles and corners and slanted lines and the textured pattern of the shingles. I doubt if any shingle wishes it was a tree limb, or a cloud! It lets itself be seen just for what it is, in all its perfection and imperfection. What if each of us could do that too?

To read a dream of mine from several years ago about seeing and being seen (this issue has been on my mind for a long time!), click here.

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Please send me your questions and comments
Let me know what you've wondered about concerning energy medicine or vision or dreams. I'll be glad to write a short article addressing that topic. Thank you to those who have sent me questions, or see a question you asked me in a private session written about here. You're helping many other people! Enjoy the remainder of your September. I'll write again in a couple of weeks. Take care!