I See You and You Matter
Do this when you feel invisible and lost.
She woke up in a painful, emotional space.
She ached for someone, anyone, to reach out and say,
“I see you, and you matter. Don’t give up hope.”
At that moment, she felt like crawling into a cave and hibernating. She felt afraid, alone, and invisible. With the correct emotional tools, she could extinguish those feelings.
When you feel like this, you feel vulnerable. That vulnerability doesn’t mean something is wrong with you - it means you have been brave too long and need a rest. You are human.
Perhaps you have had such a morning. I have–many times.
You don’t have to suffer from depression to experience this feeling of being invisible to the world. It can happen to anyone, anywhere, anytime.
Equanimity: The antidote to feeling invisible?
Equanimity is the antidote to that existential and psychological gnawing, that sense of being hidden from the world, lost in the shadows of self-doubt.
Equanimity, as the name suggests, is a state of balance. It appears when the various aspects of our lives interact to create a sense of peaceful calm.
Think of equanimity as a network, like a spider’s web.
When an insect flies into the strings of a web, that impact doesn’t destroy the web. The web is flexible–it’s designed to withstand a measure of stress. It doesn’t mean that it is impenetrable, only elastic.
An equanimity web is also flexible, meaning it can withstand intermittent stressors without shattering. It allows you to fall and get back up.
Note: If you fall and can’t recover, seek professional help. This is your life, after all. I did that thirty years ago, and it’s the greatest gift I have ever given myself.
When our emotional lives are on an even keel, we all play the “game” of falling, getting back up, dusting ourselves off, and getting back at it. Equanimity makes this possible.
Again, this is not a game, is it? Your life is too precious to be considered a game.
Achieving equanimity – insights from a garden orb spider.
So, how do you reach equanimity if it’s absent from your life?
Watching a spider weave its web can provide insight into this question. My apologies to all the arachnophobics.
Here is a time-lapse video from the BBC that shows a garden orb spider doing just that: Weaving a web
If you watched the video, you saw that the spider first created a strong bridge across the opening of what would eventually be spanned by her web. Then, she (it was a female spider) created a network of strong anchor points. The bridge and the anchor points all intersected in the middle of the web.
First, build a bridge.
In my experience, relationships have always been the cornerstone of my equanimity web - my bridge. If I feel invisible and emotionally fragile, investing time into cultivating more meaningful relationships is crucial. When my relationships suffer, I suffer.
Spending time solely on relationships can go a long way toward healing my “invisibleness.” I’ve been alive for sixty-eight years, and I’ve yet to meet someone for whom relationships were not at the core of their equanimity.
Two books that have helped me create better connections in my life are Belonging: The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides by Geoffrey Cohen and How to Know a Person by David Brooks.
Anchors and equanimity.
After identifying your bridge, your anchors are the next thing to focus on to create your web of equanimity.
I can’t tell you what your anchors are, but I can provide a partial list of some of the common ones I have experienced.
Physical wellbeing
Emotional and mental health
Intellectual pursuits
Social engagement
Professional aspirations
Financial stability
Recreation & play
Remember that you can’t strengthen what you don’t see and then pay attention to, so select your anchors carefully.
Equanimity is evolutionary, not revolutionary. It will take time for anchors to take hold and become a dependable part of your equanimity. Be patient and persistent.
At first, you will focus on only one or two anchors before shifting to different ones later. This is common psychotherapeutic advice: Don’t try to “fix” everything simultaneously.
Chances are you already have an equanimity web in your life. You don’t need to completely discard whatever has worked for you in the past. Keep what works, delete what doesn’t, and add whatever is missing.
You are not broken.
You are a human being, not a piece of furniture. Furniture breaks, humans never do. If you feel invisible and lost, remember that you are not a chair needing repair - you are a man or woman searching for growth. Your emotions may be bruised, but they aren’t broken.
The need to be seen is not symptomatic of a psychological ailment. When mental health professionals refer to their Diagnostic and Statistical Manuals (DSM), they will not find “Need to Be Seen Disorder” listed. That’s because it is not a disorder.
No, our need to be seen is part of what makes us human. Realizing this is the first step in restoring your peace of mind.
There is nothing wrong with you.
There is nothing wrong with me.
Neither of us is broken.
I have learned that I am most effective at seizing control of my downward-spiraling thoughts when I use a twofold approach: movement and neuroplasticity.
Movement: Mood follows action.
When I feel my soul being sucked out through my eyeballs, I need to get out of my head and into my body.
Several weeks ago, when I felt overwhelmed by the feeling of being invisible, I went hiking with my partner along a frozen river that flows through a canyon.
The trail was icy, muddy, and slippery, requiring constant focus. Hiking in ideal conditions requires paying attention to where you place your feet, but when you have to navigate steep, iced-over sections, your focusing powers are maxed out.
As I descended one particularly treacherous stretch, I realized that hiking involves small problem-solving scenarios requiring my attention.
Where do I place my right foot to quickly find a place for my left foot without falling over? I’m always looking two or three steps ahead.
Hikers talk about a phenomenon called ‘trail eyes’ that happens after you have been hiking for a few hours. It’s like your boots have eyes in them that see the trail without you having to pay attention. It’s almost like hiking on autopilot.
But the point is, when I’m hiking, I’m not in my head feeling lost, lonely, or invisible. I’m in my body, feeling the stones beneath my feet, my heart pounding, and my lungs pumping air.
It’s like putting my bruised ego on a shelf for a few hours.
When we finished the hike, the dark clouds in my mind had vaporized.
Mood does indeed follow action.
I am a walking poster child for the virtues of nature bathing. While visiting Jasper National Park in Canada two years ago, I read Florence Williams's The Nature Fix. It’s an excellent introduction to the positive effects of moving through nature. Give it a look.
My second strategy uses neuroplasticity, the ability of our brains to reorganize themselves. Neuroplasticity is the foundation of cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT.
Neuroplasticity: Change your thoughts, change your life.
David Burns's book Feeling Good is hands-down the best book on using CBT techniques to resolve emotional pain. Burns is a practicing psychiatrist, and his book is the best-selling book in its genre.
CBT relies heavily, if not exclusively, on neuroplasticity.
If you recently learned something new, such as how to cook a new recipe, your brain physically rewired itself as you learned and practiced your new skill. This rewiring or reorganization of your brain is neuroplasticity.
The same phenomenon occurs when we deliberately confront self-defeating thoughts and beliefs using CBT strategies. One such strategy is called “overgeneralizing.” Here’s an example.
I wake up and feel that nobody cares about me and that I am invisible to the world.
“Nothing I do matters to anyone,” I say to myself.
Let’s dissect that comment using overgeneralization as our tool.
Two words stand out - ‘nothing’ and ‘anyone.’ Those are global terms.
I am telling myself that absolutely nothing I do in my life matters. A moment’s reflection makes that statement seem ridiculous. There may be some areas in my life where I am less visible than others, but I’m certainly not totally invisible.
Secondly, is it really true that nobody sees me? Again, at least in my life, that idea is preposterous. Some people see me more completely than others - that’s how life rolls.
Whenever I think “nothing I do matters to anyone,” I can respond with my CBT overgeneralization retort. In time, self-defeating thoughts don’t stand a chance of hanging around.
Each time I do that, the neural networks that support my distorted beliefs begin to disintegrate, replaced by networks that support rational beliefs.
Final thoughts on feeling invisible
The feeling of being unseen in the world can be paralyzing. But it is a feeling and nothing more. Feelings are like the wind, forever changing. If that wind is howling constantly, know that you can lean into it like a sailboat.
Sailboats can move confidently into the wind because they have keels fastened on the bottom. That keel keeps the sailboat upright. Your keel is your equanimity.
May the wind always be at your back as you sail gracefully through turbulent waters.