Wanting to be seen

Image credit: Lukáš Dlutko

The other day I was walking through the park and saw a little girl playing on the equipment. She was climbing to the top of a tower and once at the summit she commanded, in her cutest 4-year-old voice, Dad, Dad, look at me! I followed her gaze to the man sitting on the bench, who at that moment looked up in her direction and sang, gloriously, I see you!  

The next thing I knew, words were coming out of my mouth. Wow, I said to the Dad, that was beautiful. I mean, it’s all a kid wants—to be seen. He laughed and we had a moment, and as I walked away I felt the tingles spread throughout my body. 

It really is so simple. We come into this world, small, vulnerable, utterly dependent, and all we want is confirmation of our existence. To know that we matter, that we’re good, that without doing anything extra, we're enough.

We continue to hunger for this as adults because of the primal relational wound of not being fully seen when we were children. We continue to ask for others to see us—friends, partners, parents, bosses, coworkers, therapists, whoever follows us on social media.

I believe the growth journey of the adult necessarily involves some self-parenting. Offer the gift of being seen to yourself. Confirm your own existence. The next time you do something fabulous, and you feel like sharing it with someone, what if you paused for a moment first, and looked at and acknowledged yourself?

I see what you just did. How cool.  

There’s nothing wrong with seeking and receiving validation from others. It's just, in my experience, the most reliable source—the one that's consistently available and won't leave your messages on "read"—is right here, right now, inside you.