1. 1. You feel “wrong” a lot.
   
2. 2. Your relationship with your partner looks more okay to others than it actually feels to you.
   
3. 3. You feel taken-for-granted frequently.
   
4. 4. You yearn for more compassion or acknowledgment.
   
5. 5. You can simultaneously want more time with loved ones, but decide to avoid it when you are stressed.
   
6. 6. It can feel uncomfortable to do things for relaxation.
   
7. 7. Sometimes you doubt the authenticity of people's happiness. 
   
8. 8. You have a frequent inner battle: "Is this my fault? Or their's?"
   
9. 9. You spend a lot of time imagining what other people think or feel.
   
10. 10. You are often more motivated to reach a goal when there is competition involved.
    
11. 11. At times you’d just like to take over the controls for someone in your life and fix an issue that clearly needs fixing.
    
12. 12. The quotes about “loving yourself” make you want to roll your eyes if you're being honest.
    
13. 13. It feels irresponsible to step back from helping those who are close to you.
    
14. 14. You used to love [fill in a past hobby], but it's been years since you've had time for that.
    
15. 15. You think, “It must be nice that some people get to treat themselves.”
    
16. 16. You can fixate on things that cost you money, health or peace, like food, organization or finding “the perfect… "
    
17. 17. You remember feeling more like yourself when you weren't in a romantic relationship.
    
18. 18. In new group situations, you struggle to avoid interrupting other people.
    
19. 19 .When stressed, you have a strong preference to either never be alone, or mostly be alone.
    
20. 20. You have sacrificed your peace of mind, or tolerated mistreatment, because you knew that deep-down someone was a "a good person."

Feeling invisible is sign that you do need and deserve more attention .... But the question is from whom? 

When you feel invisible to someone, it may be that you are with someone who doesn't have the capacity to hold space for someone else's needs, as well as their own. 

But it may also be a sign that your attention is not compassionately tethered to your own experience and needs.  This can happen when we over-focus on what other people may want or need.

That means that you are a generous and loving person.  But you must make space for your own experience, as well as others'. If we don't balance both, we start living in relation to other people, instead of authentically ... (and if that resonates ... you are not alone).

Modern life encourages our focus on anything but our inner experience. We are inundated with details about other people’s lives, other people’s choices, and other people’s agendas.

Spending our time and attention on all of that ... for as long as we often do … It can dilute our own experience, and obscure our truth.

If we’re not paying attention to our experience, then who is? 

Relational stress can wear down the boundaries of our own separate experience, and crowd out space for how we feel, and what is true for us.

 Of course, we feel lost or invisible at times.
 Of course, it feels wrong that we aren’t matching some external standard of success,
 Of course, it's so frustrating that other people aren’t matching our understand of “what’s right.”

If we’re not listening to ourselves ... we really are alone.

We can’t perfectly match what other people want or expect, and we can’t always get them to match what we would like.
… And that’s okay. The space is okay. 

As strange as it may sound, when you remember the space between you and other people, and you use that space to give kind attention to what is true for you ...

You become seen … and that’s the beginning of the authentic connection that we all yearn for.

You can learn more with the free toolkit here.

We process your personal data as stated in the Privacy Policy. This subscribes you to the newsletter.  You can unsubscribe at the link at the bottom of any of the emails.