On Being Seen
letting the light in after getting bounced around by life
I am one of those people who’s a little bit afraid of thriving. due to my past traumas - things going well meant attention which meant things could get dicey. As a coping mechanism, despite sharing so much on the internet, I am actually quite private about the things that are working. I fear sharing the good things because what if they go away or I was wrong? Therefore, when things are going well in my life, I am quiet.
it feels embarrassing to talk about my wins. sharing my shadow and examining my mistakes? comforting, familiar. subversive. chic even. sharing my goals and desires? awkward. blushing. absolutely no thank you.
If you know me, you know I swear by the teachings of Gay Hendricks. I was depressed as hell during Q3 and Q4 last year and to reenergize my spirit this year, I went on a bender listening to his audio books and I reconnected to one of the potent tenets of the Gay Hendricks philosophy, which he coins the Upper Limit Problem.
The concept of the Upper Limit changed my life when I first read about it 10 years ago.
It boils down to this: if we are afraid of feeling good, we’ll keep manifesting things to keep us stuck in our familiar capacity, even if we want to change.
I realized, this is where I was stuck. My nervous system didn’t feel safe expanding beyond a certain threshold. I rejected opportunities for growth not because I didn’t want them, but because I was scared about what would happen if I had them. But ultimately, to be successful as a Projector means I have to allow myself to be seen.
To be seen is deeply challenging to my nervous system.
To be a successful projector, one must be able to receive and cultivate attention and recognition. This is echoed in the Upper Limit Problem; if we cannot build capacity to hold greater feelings of connection to pure source energy, we will find ways to turn it off and we will stay small, safe, and hidden away - recreating the feeling of familiarity “safety” from being in our set point threshold.
From my binge listening of Gay, I realized one of my biggest blindspots has been in holding and receiving attention. I am inconsistent in my ability to hold it because I fear it as much as I want it.
I have a complicated relationship with attention.
When I was in 8th grade, a popular boy gave me a gorgeous bouquet of red roses for valentines. I was so shocked and overwhelmed by the attention that I stuffed them in my locker and layered my textbooks over them. Why did he like me? I didn’t get it and was SO embarrassed by his display of affection. Other girls received gifts graciously and even paraded them around. I crushed mine in my locker. I couldn’t handle the attention.
To step into my full expression, I must allow the love in.
Like rejecting the roses, about 10 years ago (when I first found Gay’s work) I went through a spiritual initiation of sorts; I kind of woke up and said, woah, is everything I am doing out of self-rejection and punishment? I started slowly doing things to care for myself. I swapped out Barry’s Bootcamp and Soul Cycle for yin yoga and gong baths. I told people I was into kundalini and reiki (instead of sneaking off to my “secret weird hobbies” and I got connected with other people who meditated and did spiritual stuff and didn’t shame themselves for it.
I started to love and accept myself and my reality quickly shifted around me.
The more I leaned into sharing myself, the more I was met with the possibility that it was okay to do so. I grew fast in my ability to shift my circumstances decided it would be fun to try a new city and I left NYC after about a decade for Austin and met and married my ex, who helped me continue on my love self and acceptance journey until it became clear that my growth meant our relationship was no longer tenable and I went a bit backwards in my journey.
When your spouse rejects who you are - it’s an indescribable pain. The person who called me an Oracle in our wedding vows was now hating me for that exact reason. The momentum I had built up, ground down to a screaming halt. I went back into survival, I retreated into a smaller nesting doll.
if you are interested in exploring your personal energetics and understand your Human Design chart further - I’d love to work with you! and celebrating myself here, I was recently included in a round up in Elle Magazine
it’s been 3 years since I left Austin and got divorced - and now that I’ve built back my confidence brick by brick, here’s what I understand now that I’ve moved through this cycle:
First, I felt so ashamed when it was clear my marriage wasn’t working. I had been so vocal about our relationship (see my fear of sharing my life) that I felt SO FKN embarrassed that the relationship I’d shared so openly about was actually maybe not so good and actually very irretrievably broken.
So while I was very open my about my divorce, I felt so humiliated and refused to acknowledge my own pain. BUT YOU KNOW WHAT “THEY” SAY ABOUT WHAT YOU RESIST- IT PERSISTS!
Post divorce, I was ABSOLUTELY FUELED by my resentment (the not-self is a powerful motor) but I CONSCIOUSLY HAD NO IDEA that was the case.
I unconsciously sought validation (the not self of the ego/heart center) for my broken heart that I refused to acknowledge.
Just like a revenge body is literally so pointless, so is trying to find a relationship to “prove” you are okay. But the shadow is a funny little teacher.
I refused to give myself the space to grieve and instead threw all my energy into “rising above.” I was in the mindset that my ex would be “winning1” if I took time off to recover. I was too upset at myself for choosing the relationship in the first place (guilt/shame) that I just wasn’t able to face the fullness of my feelings (but I was starting to see the patterns that needed to be processed and healed)
ALL OF THIS RUNNING GOT ME “NO WHERE” EXCEPT FACE TO FACE WITH MY SHAME, DENIAL AND CRUSHING PERFECTIONISM.
In the second year post divorce, I didn’t feel like I was where I “should be.” I didn’t celebrate my wins, I just spun my wheels until I realized I had to accept that there was no more road to kick the can down and I had to face my broken heart that I was trying to outrun. (I am a delayed processor)
So I got to work on the sorting through all the junk in my mind palace. I did my best to not push myself under when faced with how much stuff was pushed into the darkness of my shadow.
“MY FLAWED THINKING WAS - IF I ACCEPT THIS IN MYSELF, I WILL BE FLOODED WITH EVEN MORE SHAME THAN I HAVE RIGHT NOW. AGAIN THIS IS THE EGO AT WORK WHO’S LIKE CAN WE NOT ROCK THE BOAT??”
STEPPING INTO FULL EXPRESSION
Like most of us, I deeply fear rejection. If I allow myself to be seen, THEN WHAT
Last year was year three - I can face this, I am integrating
Last year is when I began to really understand that I have to stop attaching deep meaning to everything and drowning in my own shame. Shame keeps you stuck by holding your head under water. Accepting what’s happening around me as neutral information of my current location allows me to move through and create new circumstances that aren’t driven by my shadow desires.
Last year I was able to make bigger leaps because I was not longer holding myself hostage to my past feelings. I was able to give myself grace and start to see more clearly (detachment bb)
Here’s what most people aren’t talking about when it comes to the deep healing work - when you finally do come to the place of acceptance - a lot of the unhealed parts of you (again the cans you kicked down the road) come up to be blessed and healed.
But this is actually the interesting thing about this work - being in depression valley doesn’t mean you are broken or bad or doing anything wrong. It means you just need to tend to your body and listen in. the duality of being in it allows us to transcend it. Even when I’m off-roading from the path deep in depression valley - I have the ability to shift my circumstances BY BEING THERE FOR MYSELF AND ALLOWING ALL THE GRIEF TO PROCESS THRU.
IF YOU’VE SPENT A LIFETIME SHOVING DOWN YOUR FEELINGS, THEY ARE GOING TO COME BACK OUT.
I finally understood that and stopped running. I allowed myself to just be REALLY depressed for like 6 months and I stopped shaming myself. I just allowed the feelings and it turns out, I was cleaning and clearing out a huge backlog of hurt that I had refused to feel.
Sitting in that super spicy depression allowed me to see the work more clearly. I saw the shadow driving. I saw how I was afraid to feel good. I saw the secondary gain of staying small.
“we are energy in motion - interacting and reacting, everything in flux // everything in its season
understanding that there is a season for everything = surrender
if everything is in flux and will change and will ultimately come to an end, then I might as well surrender because we’re time bound, energetic beings having a physical 3d experience”
MICROCLIMATES: SEASONS CHANGE...FEELINGS CHANGE
I love being in the sun. My last “winter” was in 2016 when I still lived in New York City. The weather wore on me. It drove down so hard I had to give myself permission to move. I said, you don’t have to keep living like this. Since 2017 I’ve lived in places where “summer” stretches into December… first in Austin and then now my current home of Los Ange…
It’s still eclipse season and we’re still clearing.
and while I still have my moments with perfectionism - it is no longer crushing to me.
I realize that I don’t have to drown myself by my perceived mistakes - but that to make progress and grow and be seen, I have to celebrate my wins and successes. Open myself back up to the people and the places that I want to be at. Just because one door closed (my marriage) doesn’t mean a window didn’t open.
While it’s been a rocky road - the past few years have been huge leaps in my love and acceptance for myself. I’m not longer afraid of myself.
I have made it to the other side. I’m not spending all my time bracing for impact and sucking in my energy hoping to be as small as possible as to avoid collision.
This is why I found Human Design so revolutionary in my personal life and connected to it so deeply when I found it in 2018.
my chart spoke to my soul’s desires. affirming what I KNEW to be true about me. It gave me confidence to really back myself. I love working with it as it is such a rich map, gently reminding me, I am here to be me.
We’re constantly asking, what happens next? When will this end? What happens in the next chapter?? But the energy work and magic is in being present. It’s taking all our energy into the present moment and not being afraid to BE HERE NOW2
We’re constantly arriving at the ever unfolding now.
“I’m going to hold you hand as I say this”
but accepting where you are is the fastest way to get to the other side and whatever you aren’t accepting, whatever you are rejecting is just going to keep persisting until you accept that it is (and then it dissolves when you accept it)
If you want to explore your chart and your current circumstances - I’d love to facilitate for you - books are open for April here
ram dass
Such a brilliant post, Jeni! It really resonated with me, thank you so much for sharing this work!