Imagine this:
You’re in a crowded room, and you look around. Everyone seems to be talking with one another – perhaps you arrived by yourself or you came with friends. Laughter fills the air, and your self-awareness heightens. You realize that you are just standing there, and you feel distanced from the rest of the people in the room. You feel as though everyone could walk right through you, as if you weren’t there. You think to yourself, “Maybe I’m just not meant to fit in”.
Deepak Chopra, an American author, public speaker, holistic therapy advocate, and prominent figure in the New Age movement, explained on Oprah Winfrey’s website that there are different kinds of invisibility, and you must first understand what you are feeling and what it is about you that you feel is being unseen or unheard. For example, are you not feeling heard when you speak, or do you feel your opinions are being discredited? Once you can pinpoint the situations that make you feel invisible, you can go on to do something about them.
The Huffington Post notes that most of the time we develop this sense of “wounded self” – it’s a view of ourselves that we let affect us based on how our parents, teachers, friends, family members, and strangers treated us in the past. There are a number of things we must do to overcome feelings of invisibility:
- Take responsibility for your emotions. It can be easy for us to blame others, but the way we act in social situations does play out into how others respond to us. Accept that your feelings about yourself do take a toll on you in social situations.
- Find your truth and live it. If you hide away from yourself, you’ll naturally hide away from others, too. You must learn to love yourself and embrace being a human being on this earth. Identify what it is about you that makes you worthwhile and live it.
- Identify solutions to combat the way you feel. If you feel neglected when you go out with friends, prepare topics to discuss with people. Stand up for yourself and express your needs. Go up to someone and say hi.
Most of what you’re experiencing is the hidden, wonderful person that makes you, you! You’ve tucked this person away from yourself and others, and now it’s time to embrace yourself.
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