Dear You,
Thank you SO much for showing up today! This is your personal welcome to Being Seen, the weekly letter I'll be sending out to introverted, overthinking, long-to-make-the-world-a-better-place-because-you-were-here type people. Like you!
I don't know you, but I’m already appreciating you. You’re the kind of person who is willing to take a chance on a pretty-much-unknown type writer, like myself. Maybe there was something in the description of this letter that aligned for you. “Why yes! I DO overthink things.” “I AM an introvert.” “I’ve GOT to have the world be better SOMEHOW, even in a small way, because of my presence in it.”
Also- lets be real. I'm a sex therapist. Maybe that's a teensy bit of what has sparked your curiosity. But, how do these things belong together? Introversion? Overthinking? SEX?! And wanting to make the world a better place? Maybe someone taught you that sexual pleasure was frivolous. That it’s a distraction at best, and something selfish or shameful at worst. Oh NO, my friend! Nothing could be further from the truth.
But first, before I get into all of that, a little background on me and how I came to author Being Seen. I’ve long held that one of the greatest human desires is to know and be known. Especially to be known. I developed this theory at about the age of 30, during a relationship crisis in which I realized that my partner didn’t know who I was, at a deep level, and it seemed he didn’t care to learn. I felt the absence of being known keenly. I grieved for it. And, that's about the time I started writing my heart out in journals. If my partner did not care to know who I was, I swore to myself that at least I would know who I was.
I should pause here and explain that the worldview I was then living in did not allow me to consider the possibility that I could separate from a partner who didn’t see or understand me. We were squarely in the 'til-death-us-do-part camp, and that was just the way it was. Besides, I was financially dependent on him. We had kids together. I wasn't going anywhere.
But I began to write. I wrote and I wrote. I felt powerless. I felt angry. I felt alone. I kept writing, the desire to be known and to know myself burning inside and encouraging me on. At first, the writing was raw. It was the kind of writing that was meant for only me. I had to work through some things. A lot of things.
Eventually though, things started shifting. I summoned up my courage and went back to school to study women’s spirituality. I knew that I needed a whole new paradigm, and I sensed that the world did too. My writing evolved from journal entries to student essays that I handed in to teachers. I got a lot of encouragement from my professors, and I started to think of getting published. That's a way of being known. But something always stopped me.
First, if I told the truth about my life in public, that would make the misery of what I hadn’t dared to change about it real. I wouldn’t be able to pretend anymore that I had it all together, that I had the perfect relationship, or that I had the perfect life. People would get to know the things that mattered to me, sure. But they would also see my faults.
Another thing that made it hard to let myself be seen is that I was (and am) a psychotherapist. There are lots of expectations put on psychotherapists about the image we present. “Don't admit you're struggling with anything” the old guard says. “Who'll trust you to help them with the problems in their life if you have the very same types of problems?” Now, the truth is that the “old guard” I’m referring to was mostly in my head; cobbled together from a collection of things I’d heard from well meaning professors in graduate school, or read in old textbooks, or actually never heard at all but started fearing people thought.
The other thing strangling my longing to be known was this; I had a paralyzing fear of disapproval. And you can’t be seen or known without the risk of disapproval.
Luckily, I’ve had a lot of people in my life who’ve actively counteracted that fear driven but well meaning old guard in my head. One of them is Megan Jo Wilson of Rock Star Camp in Portland Maine, who taught me that being disapproved of by somebody is a good sign! It means you’re showing up and daring to be seen.
Another one is Mara Keller, PhD who was one of my professors and advisors at the California Institute of Integral Studies where I studied women’s spirituality. Dr. Keller writes and teaches about standpoint, an idea that is all to do with scholarly integrity. Standpoint theory reacts to the old idea that the “I” should be removed from scholarly discourse. In fact, the “I” is all important. If the reader isn’t told who the writer is and where they’re coming from, the reader only gets a disembodied version of the message. And women’s spirituality, as I have come to know it, is all about embodiment. So, standpoint theory affirms that writers increase the integrity of their message when they start from standpoint. Although standpoint theory was created for scholars, it seemed to me to have important application for psychotherapists as well. Today, most of us are much more aware of the importance of identity in discourse. But I feel like my psychotherapist brain and practices are just now finally catching up.
My standpoint? I’m a 50 year old white able-bodied, cis-gendered, hetero woman. My pronouns are she and her.
I’m monogamish and kink identified. I grew up Seventh-day Adventist, and there’s a lot of things about my upbringing I appreciate, including two amazing parents. I’m not an Adventist anymore, though I am still a vegetarian. I’m a do-my-own-thing sorta pagan, agnostic, mystic, feminist, humanist. I feel like an imposter in most of these identities most of the time.
I live in the suburbs with my partner of 30 years, my two grown kids, a cat, and a dog. My kids went to a public Waldorf school.
I’ve lived with tons of anxiety and self-doubt, but also tons of privilege. Every time I felt inadequate, I took a class or bought a book by some expert who I hoped would help me navigate. I still do that sometimes. At this point, I have a masters degree and a license in social work, a second masters degree in women’s spirituality, a certification in eco-therapy, and another in sex therapy. I also have been trained as a naturalist and as a wilderness first responder. I don’t feel confident or expert all the time in any of these roles.
I’m the worst at organizing things. I start the washing machine and forget to move the clothes onto the line. I try to move the clothes onto the line because I know its better for the environment, but I love the way they feel fresh out of the dryer so most of the time that’s what I do. I feel guilty about this.
I’m sharing all of this because I’m committed to being seen. I’m aware that some will read this as confessional or naval-gazing. But I’m willing to take that risk. Because I’m with Muriel Rukeyser who said; “What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.”
What I’m hoping to do, dear reader, is to start something. If I let myself be seen and tell the truth about my life, maybe you will too. And if you start showing up, all you other introverted, over-thinking women who want to make the world a better place but stop yourself because of fear you’re just not ready, or the moments passed, or whatever story the old guard in your head tells you- well, if you start showing up, there’s no telling what amazing things could happen. And I want a world where you and me, and every one of us who has a voice but who’s been waiting on the sidelines keeping it quiet- starts showing up and daring to be seen!
And so dear reader, here’s your invitation to start showing up- in big and small ways. Everyday. It doesn't go away; this longing. I am proof of that. Its been 20 years since 30 year old me, the one who didn't feel seen or heard or understood, picked up a pen and started writing.
I have a lot of pent up voice to share. And, I bet you do too. I'm writing now, in public, because now I see things different. I used to think that it was just self-serving to put my thoughts out about the things I felt passionate about for all the world to see. But now I understand that burying my voice because of fear of disapproval, or of messy imperfection, would be the real self-serving act. Our smallness doesn't serve the world.
Thanks for reading!
With Love,
Katie
Seeing is a Powerful Path to Love
In every letter, I'll include one photo I've taken of something that I spent time seeing. Taking time to see is the other half of being seen.
I used to have a recurring blog column called Here is What I Love where I would write about something or somebody I was noticing and appreciating. I also used to do a photo a day challenges. Seeing is a Powerful Path to Love combines these elements, and gives you an opportunity to see something that I love, while at the same time giving me the opportunity to have the thing I love seen. Its so meta, right?
This first photo took tons of experimentation and adjustment to get right, both with aperture, speed, angles, and lighting while I was shooting, and with editing it digitally afterwards until I came up with something I was happy with. The crazy thing is, even with all that careful adjustment, nothing about this photo compares to the night sky I was under when I shot it. I took the picture in a location near Santa Rosa that is dear to me, at a friend’s home, where the stars show up better than they do where I live since the city lights don't intrude quite so much. The picture reminds me of all the times I've been under that sky without a camera, just appreciating presence and the love of friends.
What I’m Reading:
I’m an obsessive self-help reader. It comes partly from anxiety, but partly an insatiable love of learning. In order to make the best of this incessant trait, I’m going to share the best of it with you. Here’s what I’m reading this week:
Presence: Bringing Your BOLDEST SELF to your BIGGEST CHALLENGES by Amy Cuddy. Amy Cuddy did a TED talk in 2012 that went viral. But I’m discovering her for the first time this week. I bought the book because I felt anxiety after going to a networking event and realizing that I had no idea what to do with my arms and my legs while I was introducing myself to a room of strangers. I felt like running (luckily, I didn’t). The people at the networking event were wonderful and kind. I actually made some great connections. But I came away remembering that being on the spot like that is kryptonite for me. It’s weird. I LOVE to be the center of attention. Kind of. I HATE to be the center of attention just as much. The confident outgoing person in my head too often forgets how to put basic sentences together.
I’ve really only started Amy Cuddy’s book, but already I can tell its going to be good for me. So far, whats really gotten my attention is a study she reviews by David Creswell and David Sherman that examined whether the conscious affirmation of one’s core values prior to a stressful event, like a test or an unplanned public speech, would make a difference. The researchers had their subjects write about core values prior to asking them to give an unplanned speech to a less than enthusiastic panel of judges. The judges then asked subjects to count backwards from a number in the thousands, periodically calling out “go faster!” Talk about stress inducing! Afterwards, experimenters tested the subject’s saliva for cortisol, the stress hormone. What Creswell and Sherman found is that the subjects who had positively affirmed their core values prior to the ordeal did not show a spike in cortisol nearly as much as the control subjects, who had not. I was so excited to learn about this study, because its immediately actionable, and Amy Cuddy points the way.
The other thing she writes about is how expansive body poses can increase our power by inviting the system of the body that's "approach" or openness oriented to show up instead of the inhibited, constricted system. Here is a link to an interview that Amy Cuddy gave with TED after the book was written. It gives more details about how her understanding of this work has developed over time.
As I get further in this book, I’ll be sharing more. But then again, my brain is pretty distractible. By next week, its possible that I’ll be reading something completely different.
Prompts and Practices:
What are Your Values? Write about the authentic deep version of you that you are longing to have seen and known. Is there any small action you can take today to let your voice be heard?
Dear Katie,
Brava! Brava for the start of your newsletter, brava for the beautifully written welcome/first article, and mostly, brava for being brave and the commitment! Here I pledge to showing up, and being seen!
Love,
Yi