Do you believe that you are appreciating and valuing the relationships with people that you love who are close to you, here and now?
What about with people who you’re no longer in relationship with because of a past falling out at some point in time?
Maybe you’ve ghosted someone or someone ghosted you? There are many ways that our relationships diminish and end.
But even if we value them, people are not brave enough to break through that invisible barrier to actually face up to the confrontation and say, “I appreciate and value you being in my life. So let’s overcome our differences. Let’s have a chat about it. Let’s find a win-win way that we can connect and be in each other’s lives because I value and appreciate you.”
So many people are estranged from their siblings, from their ex-partners, parents, or best friends because of a miscommunication somewhere along the line.
Ghosting is the worst because the person being ghosted has no time for any kind of closure. But if you’ve ever been dropped, or if you’ve dropped other people, that can also be hurtful.
When I was much younger I used to drop people if they crossed a boundary. But I wouldn’t communicate why. Instead I would just dwindle the friendship to its rapid end.
Later when I started going to shaman school and learned how destructive that was, I started giving people second chances. When friends would come back, I would receive them and we would develop a wonderful much stronger relationship because we had communicated.
If you’re going to heal with somebody, it’s not just about you extending the olive branch. It has to be received. It does take two people to have a relationship.
But if you’re not speaking to somebody for some reason, and you don’t understand why, and if you’re hurting because of that, you have to value and appreciate your own alignment, strength, wisdom and sense of self to heal that within yourself so that you can move forward and get over that kind of heartache.
If you are valuing the other person and you want them in your life but you don’t understand what’s separated you, be the brave one, go forward and extend the olive branch and try to communicate to see how you can heal.
You may not always be received. If you’re not being received, it’s because the other person isn’t valuing either facing the conflict or the relationship with you isn’t important enough to them. That can be sad and hard but at least you know where you stand.
I’ve been dropped in the past because people judged me, but it’s all part of not being seen and heard because if people are ghosting or dropping you, judging or not receiving you for whatever reason, they are not fully seeing or hearing you.
Seeing and hearing means valuing somebody enough to reach out and say, “hey, what’s going on? Your choices are concerning me and I don’t understand where you’re coming from and your behaviour is upsetting me. Tell me what’s really going on so that we can have a chat about it!”
It doesn’t have to happen right away. Earlier this year I was triggered and chose to stay in that kind of fury for some time, but eventually, I did work it out because that person is very important to me.
How you handle being seen and heard starts from inside yourself. You have to appreciate and value your own alignment first, before you can expect others to appreciate and value you; in other words, see, hear and receive you fully for who you are.
If you want to appreciate and value others, then you need to be the one to reach out and let them know that. If they’re annoying you, or triggering you or you’re thinking about dropping somebody, why don’t you find out why, first?
Why are you feeling that way? Why are they triggering you? Why are you thinking of letting them go? Where has the value disintegrated? What has changed in their behaviour, or yours?
Maybe they’re going through something that you don’t know about? The good friend is the one who reaches out and says, “Hey, what is going on with you? This doesn’t seem like you. Why don’t we talk about this so that I can understand?” That’s being seen and heard.
Most people retreat and avoid conflict. They live with their assumptions. Except then you’re left heartbroken with an empty space or you hold on to fear or anger for a long time.
People grow, evolve and change especially if there’s been a long break. Recently, I came back together with friends that I hadn’t seen in a very long time and I expressed that I wanted to be back in the fold with them. I was received, and so now we’re back in communication and things feel good again. There had been a gap missing. That hasn’t happened with all the people from the past. Some people you outgrow and it’s time to move on.
But if you feel like there is still a connection with somebody that’s worth having in your life, then that’s somebody that you value.
So maybe something needs to heal first. Maybe there needs to be a conversation. Maybe you need to find out how both of you have changed in all of this time that’s gone by.
Sometimes when people die, we think, “I didn’t value them enough while they were alive. I didn’t appreciate them enough!”
Well, while we’re all still alive folks, this is the time to appreciate and value those people that are nearest and dearest to you, or the people that have been estranged from you for whatever the reason, if they’re still important to you and you value a connection, reach out to them, because after they’re gone, you’re not going to be able to do that.
I think I’ve always been pretty good at valuing and appreciating the people close to me. Maybe because I live thousands of miles away from my first family so whenever I would see them I always wondered, “will I ever see you again?”
And with the pandemic and not being able to see them it was a really frightening time. So whenever I say goodbye to people, especially when I go back to the states and see my family, I take in their faces and I really breathe them in and hold tight and tell them that I love them because that’s so important.
It’s important to me to let them know how much I love, value and appreciate them.
And for heaven’s sake for the people nearest and dearest to you who you haven’t fallen out with, tell them that you love them. Put your arms around them, tell them how much you value and appreciate them and why, and let them know that deeply and authentically from your heart.
The person that it’s going to make feel the absolute best is you.
Join the Women Being Seen and Heard Facebook group. Please introduce yourselves in the group and send me a private message and book a mind shift call so that we can have a chat and see how we can best work together.