I'm afraid I won't be understood | Reflections on Living Differently

I’ve been reflecting a lot lately on what I’d like to release and transform in myself- I tend to do this all the time, but with fall being the season of surrender and release and my birthday being yesterday it seems to be a consistent theme these past couple weeks…

Today I want to share with you about the heart of my self-sabotaging tendencies. Fear of being misunderstood.

This is something that holds me back in my creative process, that sabotages the stable income I could bring in, that has hurt my friendships in the past, that lead to distance with my dad- who I’ve been close to in the past, and that is often a trigger for me to slam doors of presence and opportunity shut and run in the opposite direction.

I’m terrified of not being seen… and of a misunderstanding accidentally hurting someone.

When I say seen, I mean like really, truly seen. Understood, in intentions, not just words. I’m afraid people will misunderstand the gift of my vulnerable sharing and see me as cruel or careless- basically I’m afraid people won’t see me seeing them, and they will feel alone or hurt or tossed aside, when my intention is the exact opposite. I’m afraid of hurting people through their perceptions of me. I’m afraid people will think I’m sharing these painful truths and getting soul-naked in my blogs for attention, when the that couldn’t be further from the truth.

It’s painful to risk being seen.
This isn’t easy. Attention isn’t easy for me to feel.

(We can go into all the layers of why fear of hurting someone with their own misunderstanding or perception isn’t a valid fear later, like how I can’t control what others think, feel, see, etc. and how everyone perceives the world differently and holy wow is this a need to be liked or what? But for now, that’s not the point. I just want to talk about this fear with you and how I interact with it.)

For me, it is a habit now to be vulnerable
and to default to kind patience 99% of the time…

But, like we talked about yesterday, it’s really tough for me to open up to receiving. Love, praise, kindness, gifts. It’s hard for me, because I’m afraid to look at who people think I am and what they think I deserve. I have this wall up… and to be honest it’s not a very thick wall. It’s made of a flaky pastry layer. But most people see a wall and go the other way- the path of least resistance- so it’s a pretty good little defense I have there…

Two days ago, I was interviewed by an incredible storyteller for a brand I absolutely adore- and the purpose of the piece is to inspire and encourage other creators. I promise to share the piece with you when it’s available! …but in sharing my story and fears and inspiration and allthethings with this amazing storyteller, we ended up giggling at just how many times I mentioned being seen, not being seen, fear of being seen, and how the most precious and impactful memories I had were so impactful “because I felt so truly seen.”

Yesterday was my 24th birthday,
and I spent it all alone exploring my new home.

And… I met this incredible old man named John. He probably saved my life- because I was gleefully exploring this isolated beach and had no idea there was a big scary tide warning (I’m paying attention to my tides now and staying safe, promise)… John was out taking photos and when he saw me, he yelled out for me to be careful. I could have just taken the advice and walked along, but I saw an old dude with a camera and a decorated hat, so my mind was like “oooooh a new best friend who’s full of wisdom!” (hahaha) and I went up to him and asked if he would teach me more.

We must have talked for an hour standing on that beach, there were tall grasses stabbing me through my pantleg and I was really grateful for the new raincoat I’d bought that morning… I learned about John’s incredible history and how he’s gone from majorly overweight with only a few months to live, to now being this plant-based philanthropist thriving despite melanoma skin cancer.

Through the whole conversation, I was in awe and soaking up every bit of wisdom I could- not just from the story but from his attitude too. As I chimed in with some of my story and similar experiences, it hit me how incredibly safe and seen I felt with this human. At that point, we hadn’t even exchanged names yet. Total strangers. And I felt more seen with him than I have with most of the people I’ve known all my life. When he left, I sat on the dunes and cried the most grateful tears that this is my life now- that I live here where I can see the ocean every day and that I live in a town where almost everyone is well over 50… and that so many of these people are so kind and mindful and generous in their ways of life.

I’ll probably treasure that conversation forever.
It’s a precious memory, like every time I’ve felt so truly seen.

Reflecting this morning, something else struck me. It struck me that John has accomplished so much that is really similar to what I’ve been dreaming of doing here with Lilacs in Paradise. He’s brought dreams to life that I only dared to dream about for a couple hours before resolving that I could never do that. And when I thought back to his attitude as he talked about some of what he’d done, I realized he just wasn’t worried about who was looking or what they saw. He was busy doing his work.

I thought for a while about if I wanted to be like that too. Could I just do my work without worrying about who’s watching?

I’ve come to the conclusion that I am much much much too sensitive to be able to work best like that. But I also learned from my reflection that it’s not so much the worrying about what they see that is a problem. I can set that aside to write- I’m doing that right now. I just created a routine that helped me feel so safe and grounded and truly myself- I deeply saw myself- and then it was really easy to sit down and write this for you. I’ll probably worry this afternoon that my writing isn’t important, that I’m wasting peoples’ time, blah blah blah, but for right now, I can set that aside and just write. So if that’s not the problem, what is?

I realized it’s the fear that matters.

The fear is what chokes me and keeps me from delivering on what I dream up and sharing what I’ve created but never shared. I’m afraid because for some reason, not being seen is the most painful experience in the world to me. It’s nothing to have people not see me when I have my thin-pastry wall up- I can say I didn’t want them to see me anyway, so it doesn’t matter. Not exactly true, but a solid enough defense for my tender ego anyway.

But if I were to stand up and share, open to being seen, and then nobody saw… or worse- somebody misunderstood my intentions… Nothing would hurt more than that.

So instead, I stay silent until I feel confident that I won’t be so deeply wounded by someone’s failure to see. Until it feels safe to share the thing.

Now, this is getting lengthy and I have more to do with this morning so I’m going to leave the story here for now.

I hope sharing my musings and reflections has been helpful for you as well- and I promise to keep sharing as this reflection unfolds. I think it ends in my finally sharing Crystal Belle with the world- and a few other beautiful creations. But I’ll just have to keep living and staying present with this new awareness to find out!

I hope you have a beautiful day.

With love,
Vera Lee Bird