Photo By Ron Silveira
The message for you this day is one of appearance. This is not in the usual context of how you might think of the word appearance. Today I’m speaking about the act of showing up – to appear in all senses of the word.
You must come out of your safety zone. Perhaps your safety zone is to not speak your opinions about things for fear of hurting others feelings. When we do this, then we are not allowing our authentic self to appear.
I know this has been a difficult topic in my own life. As a therapist, I was specifically trained not to speak my mind for fear of inappropriately influencing my clients. I was trained to become a blank slate, and reflect back what was being said with the goal that the client would eventually come to their own ‘aha’ moment by talking enough about their own problems and gaining insight.
This characteristic has spread into my personal life however. I pretty much stopped saying opinions about most things to anyone. I was the listener. I was the soundstage where others could act out their own emotions and feelings.
As my children grew older, they would look at me and say “You have your therapist face on Mom! I want to know how you really feel about this.” Wow, kids can certainly call you on your stuff! Let alone the fact that I have a wonderful husband who has his own very specific ideas about many things. It could have become easier and easier to continue to not express my own feelings. But, I didn’t. Instead I found my voice, both at home and in my practice. I’ll tell you more about that in another post. But for now, I would love for you to ‘appear’ in your life. Show up, and let others see and hear the authentic you! You will feel so much better when you do!
Share with me one way you’ve made an appearance in your own life!
