Life Is Not About Discovering Yourself. Life Is About Creating Yourself.

Human beings need recognition: no crueler punishment can be devised than to not see someone; to render them unimportant or invisible. On the other hand, there are few things as fulfilling as that sense of being seen and understood. The ability to see someone else deeply and make them feel seen - to accurately know another person, to let them feel valued, heard, and understood.

Over my life, I’ve determined to learn the skills that go into seeing others, understanding others, making others feel respected, valued, and safe.

Seeing someone well is a powerfully empowering act. No one can fully appreciate their own beauty and strengths unless those are mirrored back to them in the mind of another. There is something in being seen that causes someone to shine.

Diminishers and Illuminators

Diminshers make people feel small and unseen. Illuminators, on the other hand, have a persistent curiosity about other people. They shine that brightness and make people feel bigger, respected, and powerful.

Have you ever experienced this?

You meet someone who seems wholly interested in you, who gets you, who helps you name and see things in yourself that maybe you hadn’t even yet put into words, and you become a better version of yourself.

“To speak to her was to be seduced by an inverse charisma, a sense of being listened to with such intensity that you had to be your most honest, sharpest, and best self.”

Imagine being able to truly know a person- their whole being- the incandescence of his smile, the undercurrent of his insecurities, the vibrancy of his spirit. How his consciousness creates his reality. It’s what happens when you build an intuitive understanding for how a person feels and responds.

The Power of Attention

Each of us has a characteristic way of showing up in the world, a physical and mental presence that sets a tone for how people interact with us. Some people walk into a room with an expression that is warm and embracing; others walk in cold and closed.

You can choose to become an illuminator; a protector of souls. Someone whose gaze radiates respect and infinite dignity.

I know you are not a puzzle that can be solved but a mystery that can never be gotten to the bottom of.

A Person Is A Point of View

Every person you meet is a creative artist who takes the events of life and, over time, creates a very personal way of seeing the world.

Like any artist each person takes the experience of a lifetime and integrates them into a complex representation of the world. That representation, the subjective consciousness that makes you you, integrates your memories, attitudes, beliefs, convictions, traumas, loves, fears, desires, and goals into your own distinct way of seeing.

Your mind creates a world, with beauty and ugliness, excitement, friends, and enemies and you live within that construction.

What Do You See When You Look In the Mirror?

A winner or a loser? Someone who is happy or unhappy? Someone with a vision or someone who is lost?

These are difficult questions for most people. Most people hate looking in the mirror. And when they do, they almost never look themselves in the eyes. It’s too uncomfortable. Too scary. Because the person in the mirror is often a stranger who looks nothing like the person they see when they close their eyes and picture the person they want to be.

As uncomfortable as it is, you have to look at yourself in the mirror every day in order to know where you stand. You have to check in with yourself if you want to be sure that you are moving in the right direction. You have to make sure that the person looking back at you is the same person you see when you close your eyes and visualize the person you are trying to become. You need to know whether or not your vision aligns with the reality of your choices.