september newsletter pt 1: see and be seen

this is an excerpt of the newsletter i send to my friends, clients and business associates once a month. it’s done with mynewsletterbuilder.com. if you would like to subscribe, email me at moritherapy at shaw dot ca.

to make it easier to read, i’ll post it in four posts:

post 1 – thoughts for today: see and be seen. about personal freedom and visibility

post 2 – an invitation to participate in mental health voices, a breakfast by the canadian mental health association

post 3 – blogging in vancouver

post 4 – schedule of fireside chats at sacred space. fireside chats are friendly weekly salon-type conversations at sacred space, right across from tinseltown in vancouver. it’s free – come one, come all!

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isabella mori’s september newsletter – post 1 ======================================================================

thoughts for today:

see and be seen

mystery writer robert b. parker is the topic of one of my recent blog entries.

his books often occur on a number of levels. one of these levels almost always seems to be about long-term relationships; more specifically, how to be in such a relationship and be true to oneself as well as to each other.

in stone cold, the protagonist, jesse stone, struggles with understanding whether his love for his ex wife, who just does not seem to fade from his life, is a love for the idea of who she is or for who she truly is. she tells him that as long as he does not see her for who she is, she does not want to return to him.

does that sound familiar? don’t we all want to be seen for who we are? don’t we all long to be recognized, acknowledged, noticed as subjects?

in grammar, the subject is the main part of the sentence, the actor. it’s what it’s all about. in “anna paints a picture”, anna is the actor. the object, on the other hand, is the one that is done to. even when what is done to the object is nice, it’s still on the receiving end, it’s passive, it has no say.

so even if jesse’s ex wife is “the object of” jesse’s desire, she is still not free. he still wants to have, to possess her.

and most people don’t want to be possessed. they want to be free. they want to be their own agents.

freedom means having one’s own space around oneself. with that comes – visibility. to be seen.

perhaps one way of making this freedom, this visibility happen is to help others become more visible. how about this for a little experiment: call or email a friend and tell them what you see about them. their hair, their smile, their way of walking, their intensity of concentration when they listen to their favourite music – whatever it is. then ask them if they see themselves that way, too, and ask them what they want you to see about them that you haven’t mentioned. finally, if it feels right, you could ask them to reciprocate.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver

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