Help others to FEEL SEEN

“Feeling seen” describes the sensation of being fully recognized, understood, and validated for who you are, your emotions, and your experiences by others. It’s a feeling of deep connection and can be incredibly empowering, leading to a sense of belonging and less isolation.

It may be as you read my commentary Monday is on the horizon, the beginning of a new week, new challenges, new obstacles, a start to a new race but carrying the effects of the one you have been running. Maybe you are facing some challenges that appear to have no real positive answer or positive direction from which you will emerge better off than last week or month or year. All around are arguments both pro and con as to what Trump has accomplished, what Trump promised to be accomplished but has yet delivered, what difference has he made in your personal existence on this earth? Headlines, lawsuits, arrests, threats of impeachment (again) fill the very air we breathe and have become commonplace. With all these political, national security, national economic challenges, YOU may be facing tomorrow or this week challenges that are not making any news nor even raising an eyebrow with anyone except yourself, and your most immediate family, unless they, too, have become like leaves in the wind.

Walking through a valley of deepest darkness can really be discouraging, sobering, leaving you to feel alone, even forgotten, or at least misplaced. Yes, you may be busy but feel absolutely unproductive, not at all making a positive difference in this world of hurry up. There are many who hide these deep intimate feelings and thoughts, but they are out there, they are coming across your path but possibly unnoticed. Seeing the person under a bridge or on a street corner with a homemade sign asking for help is one dimension. I do not choose to write that person off as insignificant or a drain on society. I wish, however, for my thoughts herein to challenge you to look around even more closely, quite possibly to a coworker, the cashier at the Circle K or Grocery Store, the food server at the cafe, a schoolteacher, a white collar cuff linked person with a tie, or female with nice looking attire in a professional office, look around. Now may I challenge you?

What if this week you could help someone be “seen.” Yes, not simply looked at but seen as the individual they are? I learned repeatedly that many folks are empty inside but don’t need to be fixed as much as simply heard. To be individually seen and not simply passed by. What if this week you helped to build something more meaningful than profits in your business or corporation? What if you made a decision to go through this week extending various acts of kindness to those with whom you met? I was taught many years ago that one small act of kindness can rewrite a life. Kindness, real kindness, doesn’t show up when it’s convenient, it shows up when the world, a person, least expects it.

I was introduced the past ten days to folks who are not broken but they are tired, really tired. Being tired doesn’t mean you’re weak, it means you’ve cared for too long without someone caring back. I pray I am able to take what I have seen in these folks and extend to them what I learned growing up…to care back about them, each one individually and without fanfare or embarrassment to them, but actual measurable acts of demonstrative caring so they know that they know, each one, has been truly “seen” and “heard.”

Now I am asking you through this commentary to look around. Sincerely look around. Would you actively consider how you can make a difference, to build something other than profits or political gain. To do something that makes others better off for your having been there.

©2025 Lyle J. Rapacki, Ph.D. All rights reserved,