16d (edited) • General discussion
The Cure For Feeling Invisible To Friends and Family
Admittedly, most of us single, childless mid-life gals, on paper, have friends and family, whom we love. And love us back.
But heck, our friends with their husbands and kids and even our own parents going ga-ga over grandchildren and our siblings who possibly stand in judgment of us because we didn't follow their full-family path can sure behave in ways that sometimes have us **feeling** like we're invisible and unloved sometimes, right? Likely yes.
It doesn't get any easier, as I'm still shocked, twenty years in to FCS life, when my friends and family don't make time to enjoy some life with me or include me in their activities.
For instance, I fly 6000 miles to spend time in the US where my best friend and other Loved Ones live and sometimes I'm lucky if my best friend will spare two hours for a quick out to dinner and three hours following her around the house while she does chores and folds laundry in the ten days I'm there. This is the same best friend who sends me pictures of her and her husband on day long or weekend long romantic dates, takes her kids camping four or five times a year....sends me photos of her going on all-day hikes with colleagues from work. This is a woman who shows me in every way that she has a life full of love and connection and people she makes time for.
But with me she always acts as though I'm "all set." Like I don't need special experiences with her or loving moments because, clearly, I've lived without those things for most of my adult life and I'm so grounded and happy.
When I've texted her asking for us to do something special when I'm visiting and she just says, "No, I don't have time. I'm just exhausted," I realize that I'm the solid person in her life who she doesn't see as "needing her." I'm the person who doesn't fit into her buckets of people who need her love. I'm just Sara Swati, world adventurer, yogini, and "all set."
BUT, the one thing I never do is blame her or any of my friends and family when they fail to make time for me or include me in their couples- or kid-based activities.
I never lash out, I never correct them, I never let them know that they're not seeing me and how their rejection just breaks my heart, again and again.
When they do that first, I remind myself that they completely LOVE me and immediately the heartache lessens. Then I remember that they have NO IDEA what it's like to wake up every day in an otherwise empty bed, never having children to depend on you to mother them with all your heart, knowing that if you get sick or have money problems that literally NO ONE is there to help you. To look aging in the face and wonder, "What's going to happen to me in my 80s and 90s?"
And the third thing I remind myself? That it's not her job to address my life circumstances, or fix them, or take on helping me through my moments of being lonely or scared. She's my best friend....she's not my mom, she's not my wife. She never committed to taking on the responsibility for my day to day experience and it's not fair to expect her to empathize with what my life is like when her life is the POLAR OPPOSITE.
Running those three thoughts through my mind in succession, like lightening, when someone I love rejects me turns my frown upside down immediately and I stay self-possessed and living the energy of my life and loving the person who rejected me.
Once I’ve internally reframed my intimal instinct of feeling rejected I always tune my inner awareness to God and ask him to be my everything. I ask God to be my best friend. I ask God to be my mother, my father. I ask God to be my husband. And thank goodness, God always steps up. Instantly, I'm suffused with a feeling of well-being, like being hugged, and I am reminded that my path and my pains are MINE and my life alone. That I am fully seen and loved by God. And I know that it's not fair to expect people who will never walk in my shoes to empathize with what it's like to be FCS.
And then I stand there, in front of my friend or family member and deeply appreciate and enjoy whatever time and activity they invite me to do with them….with an open happy heart full of gratitude. I am like a tumbleweed of love blowing about this world on the winds of God…..
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The Cure For Feeling Invisible To Friends and Family
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