Summary
Tara Howley and Brett Kler explore the desire to be seen as a fundamental human need rooted in our biology — babies’ vision is calibrated to see their mother’s face, and being seen by the tribe meant survival. Yet this primal need gets shamed early in life (“don’t brag,” “tone it down”), creating a push-pull dynamic: we desperately want to be seen while simultaneously fearing it because being truly seen risks exposing what’s behind our false front.
The conversation traces how shame creates a double bind: we develop a false self based on what was acceptable, then fear being seen beyond it. This plays out in conflicts where both parties want to be seen but react in ways that make the other feel less seen. The counterintuitive exit is to see the other person — using VIEW (curiosity, questions) — which settles your own nervous system and opens the other person up. Seeing yourself (“of course I just want to be seen here”) is the starting point.
They also explore the signs of an unowned desire to be seen: bragging, judging others who want attention, envy, daydreams of recognition, and pushing away compliments. The fear of receiving compliments reveals both shame (“they’ll see I’m bad”) and fear of empowerment (“they’ll see I’m good”). Tara emphasizes that compassion is essential for seeing beyond the false self, and that emotional work — anger, grief — brings us back to our suppressed wildness and authenticity.
Key Concepts
- Being seen is a survival need we villainize
- Shame creates the see-me-don’t-see-me double bind
- Seeing others is the exit from feeling unseen
- Envy and bragging signal disallowed parts wanting to be seen
- Pushing away compliments reveals disallowed goodness
- Our wildness gets suppressed for safety and must be reclaimed
Key Quotes
“We start developing like a false front — oh here I’m going to show you all the parts that are socially acceptable… so then if we’re truly seen it risks being seen beyond the false front and I think that’s what is terrifying.”
“See me see me — oh my gosh don’t see me. And I think underneath it often is a lot of shame.”
“Under most fights, most boardroom fights, most couples fights is this: I just want to be seen and heard.”
“The counterintuitive thing would be to drop that and come into our senses… seeking to see and understand is the hack.”
“Of course I just want to be seen here — that just makes it not a problem and the fight stops.”
“Don’t let it get to your head and don’t be seen are like synonymous with each other.”
Transcript
We start developing like a false front oh here I’m going to show you all the parts that are socially acceptable what was allowed to be seen what was socially acceptable or culturally acceptable or acceptable in our families so then if we’re truly seen it risks being seen beyond the false front and I think that’s what is terrifying I’m I’m Brett Kler and I’m here today with Tara Howley. Tara is a coach and master facilitator and a founder of the art of accomplishment courses and practices. Hi Brett and this is the art of accomplishment podcast where we explore living the life you want with enjoyment and ease made it yeah and today we’re going to talk about the desire to be seen just something that all of us have from childhood through adulthood and it’s it’s something that drives a lot of behavior in society both the desire to be seen and also sometimes the fear of being seen yes people want to be seen it is a I would almost say a biological imperative where the first thing as babies their vision is the length of a mama’s face so they can see to Mama it is the very first thing that one of the very early things that kick in is being able to see those close to us and to be seen and to track safety through seeing and being seen it’s how we know we’re safe in our community um at all stages of life if we’re seen and a wildfire comes we know that the community will grab us and take us I think this is as old as as humanity and we villainize it for a number of reasons so this Basic Instinct wanting to be seen it usually we start telling children very young like oh that’s bad you know tone it down don’t brag don’t get excited don’t ask for my attention and we kind of clamp it down and then villainize it in ourselves and others over and over and over again throughout the rest of our lives so what what makes this something important to explore in our own self-development and self-exploration that’s a great question I think that when we can truly see ourselves and truly allow ourselves to be seen and see others is one of the basic ways we grow and flourish if we are holding up a false identity and can’t see all of our goodness and all of our imperfection then we’re growing from that false Identity or we’re growing from lack whereas if we can really see ourselves our wholeness our Perfection our goodness our imperfection then that’s a natural instigator of growth and without that we’re we’re trying to fix ourselves we’re not just inherently growing and we’re also not truly seeing people around us so we’re not really seeing their goodness we’re not seeing the goodness all around us and the imperfection all around us yeah so what I’m hearing there is that there’s this deep freedom and connection that’s available when we are seeing and what we just opened up the topic with is the desire to be seen and so I’m curious how does our desire to be seen relate to our capacity to see I see it as bidirectional that we um often when we cannot see ourselves we will over index on wanting to be seen on longing to be seen because that that biological need is there so we’re over indexing trying to get it from out there as opposed to um being with it and wanting it but not from longing well not from lack ah there’s a way when we’re acting from lack it’s the golden algorithm when we’re acting from lack all we see is not enoughness so if that basic need to be seen wasn’t met when we were little wasn’t met when we are teenagers wasn’t met in our young adulthood isn’t met in our adulthood then there’s this Hungry Ghost always trying to be seen and in doing so it actually tends to annoy people make sure that we’re not seen make sure that we don’t see the ways we are being seen um obfuscate who we truly are so we even can’t be seen you said like make sure we’re not seen as though that’s a strategy and um I’m curious when to look at the other side of the equation that we were just talking about how we want to be seen but also sometimes we push away the being seen and it sounds like you were alluding to that right there and that the the way that we come to it from lack can create an environment where we’re actually pushing it away can you speak a little bit more about that yes I I think most of us it’s a push pull right see me see me oh my gosh don’t see me and I think underneath it often is a lot of Shame see me see me but wait don’t see me because if you see me you’re going to see my Badness or my wrongness or all the ways I’m messed up so that shame we were when we said see me see me see me as kids we were often shamed to stifle that emotion like oh come on don’t don’t ask for so much Tamp it down don’t brag it was pushed down so there’s a shame reaction so we have that shame inherent shame and then see me see me that need is still there but don’t see me don’t see me because we have the shame and we think that we are shameful and if people actually see us they’re not going to like what they see or will further shame us I think shame plays a large role there for many of us yeah it’s interesting sort of the etymology of the word shame is kind of hide there’s some there’s something about like this isn’t to be seen in it so what I’m hearing there is that the shame impacts the way that we see ourselves what we’re allowed to see we’re we’re taught through whatever external reactions to being seen as kids that certain parts of us are like bad or wrong or otherwise need to be hidden in shame and how does that impact our capacity to really see ourselves clearly and really see the motivations behind the desire to be seen or the motivations behind any any part of ourselves that others might see yeah I I think after we’ve gotten shamed we start developing like a false front like oh here I’m going to show you all the parts that are socially acceptable and we create this false front like I’m happy I’m always happy right you see the kids who are just always allowed only to be happy like I’m happy like Frozen um or I’m smart and pensive and so we develop this false front based on what was allowed what was allowed to be seen what was socially acceptable or culturally acceptable or acceptable in our families that false front is what we present so then if we’re truly seen people are going to see beyond it risks being seen beyond the false front and I think that’s what is terrifying yeah so when you’ve built up a life where you’re seen for a false front you experience not really being seen but also then there’s something very risky about actually the who you what you are behind that false front being seen so then you’re in a bit of a double bind sounds like that’s exactly right and it’s an external double bind and an internal double bind right we often don’t even allow ourselves to see those parts so they’re like pushed into our shadow all of our parts that are so-called selfish or needy or um needing attention right all of that gets pushed back there and and we don’t even see it yeah I would love to even kind of drill down on a little bit closer on our definition of like what is it what is it to be seen what does that mean what does that do for us it’s a great question why is that such a primal human need I I always go back to how we developed as humans and we developed in groups uh hunter-gatherers in the early days and so I think we had to be seen by that group that tribe if you will that Community um to stay safe so actually had to be seen to stay safe so there’s safety right if a wildfire comes through if we were seen we were grabbed and we were taken we moved with the group wherever they moved next also if we were seen we were developed it is through really being seen that we grow when Elders teachers really see us they are um supporting our development and our skills through sight through being seen so I think it is a basic need for safety for survival but also to develop our skill set and to develop into whole people and so how does that need develop or change over the course of life imagine a small child absolutely needs couldn’t survive without the support and mentorship and you know teachings of the of the tribe of the family and then how does that how does that develop over the course of a life I can guess that it doesn’t become as much survival the survival Instinct isn’t based on it as much as we get older but I do think that the Thrive Instinct isn’t the I don’t know if Thrive instinct is the right word what would be the that um living isn’t based on it but thriving is based on it that when we’re really seen we can flourish as we get older and I think this applies to I see it in companies often the CEO is very independent and um used to being self you know takes care of everything on their own doesn’t need anybody else so they don’t know how to truly see aren’t used to being seen themselves and then as a result aren’t great at acknowledging others so they have a bunch of direct reports who are a little hungry for acknowledgement and never getting totally acknowledged whereas acknowledgement drives um performance for most people so if you’re getting acknowledged at work if your CEO can acknowledge you then you most people tend to thrive it also is um it’s a way to put up the guard rails through acknowledgement and seeing like hey well done creates connection and um increases performance so I think it is needed throughout all of life not in the same survival but in a thrival way right that we thrive on being seen we thrive on connection yeah and what you were just describing there with the you know the CEO and the company it sounds like the acknowledgement and the seeing and being seen is a lot of the kind of social Fabric in an organization or in a in a community that supports the thriving and what you were just saying with a CEO if they’re not if they’re not acknowledging if they’re not able to to see the way that they’re supported in their team then it probably leads to that team trying to seek their acknowledgement more in ways that end up making the CEO feel more alone and unseen themselves then you end up in this it seems like a really common dynamic in any conflict is two people want to be seen by the other and then react in ways that cause the other to feel less seen and and so on absolutely I would say under most fights most boardroom fights most couples fights is this I just want to be seen and heard yeah and you’re not seeing me you’re not hearing me on both sides it takes two sides right and that but that basic need is there and is creating the conflict yeah yeah so so what would you what would you say to somebody who’s in such a conflict and they’re desperately wanting to be seen they feel very unseen and the more they’ve wanted to get seen the harder it’s been and the worse the conflict has become like what’s the what’s the way out of that Chinese finger trap it’s um counterintuitive but it is to see and to hear this is where VIEW comes in really handy asking questions getting curious about the other person actually truly seeing look seeking to see and understand is the the hack how does you seeing someone else affect your feeling or sense of being seen what’s the interaction there there’s a couple of things that happen one to really see someone else it requires coming and settling into the senses and when you the senses you know that vision and sound so you’re settling into your own body and in settling into your own body your nervous system starts settling so that um fight tend that that fight urge calms the parts of the brain that want to fight calm down parts of the brain that can see and think clearly come back online so you can actually in using the senses you can actually come back into your body and into relation with yourself and then with someone else so that would be one way that it really helps the other way is that when you start asking your partner or direct report or someone else questions then it takes them out of the fight flight survival Instinct and brings them down into their system to answer a question from VIEW ideally from VIEW not questions like why are you being such an asshole that usually doesn’t help but like oh what makes it happen that we’re fighting like this what’s going on like what’s this what’s this like for you sucks what’s it like for you yeah and what does if you you know when you so I heard you just describe it gets you into your senses you’re you’re in VIEW now it also has you relate to the other person with more curiosity so they’re more they’re feeling more open so then you’re collecting more data what does that additional data when you when you see them more deeply what does that tend to do to your own story or to your own to your own insecurity or fears I would say two things one is it pulls you out of a corner right anytime we’re fighting we’re in a corner there’s a little bit of a trapped sense so that when we start asking questions and hearing information we’re actually stepping out of the corner we’re stepping out of the Trap and the mental trap of this is what’s happening when we hear someone else’s story and we listen we don’t even have to believe it we don’t have to buy into it but when we just hear it and honor it as their perspective then it starts opening the trap in our mind too right so our own identity when when we’re really seeing someone else I do believe parts of our own identity drop away parts of that rigidified identity drop away yeah so now I’m I’m curious what makes that not the natural process I mean it might be a natural process but it’s also something that’s not happening all the time you know what what would prevent somebody from dropping in and feeling their Sensations and being like dropping into their body into themselves when they’re feeling unseen what what kind of emotions or avoided experience might be waiting for them that that blocks that right well I would say one thing one reason we don’t do it is it wasn’t modeled for us very few of us had a model of when being unseen to actually get curious and drop into our senses and like hey what’s going on so none of us have modeling most of us don’t have modeling for that I didn’t have modeling for that most of the people I see didn’t have modeling for that so that’s one what makes it not the case that we do that is when we’re emotionally triggered by something and often it’s an old trauma I’m not being seen right usually it’s a very young part of us that’s getting re-triggered a baby or a grade schooler a teenager it’s a very young part getting triggered so there’s like a trauma online and so there’s um biologically we go to the fight flight nervous system right we’re in that all those responses and the counterintuitive thing would be to drop like it’s totally counterintuitive to drop that and come into our senses like go yeah it’s interesting so if you’re if you find yourself in a situation if I find myself in a situation where I feel like I’m unseen and I’m triggered and it’s difficult for me to go into my body into my Sensations and just really be with that and so I’m in the cycling Dynamic of trying to control my reality and control someone’s perception or their story then how do I even know that it’s actually them that I want to see me it’s not just an older response like how how how would somebody explore this to you what what is it that wants to be seen and by whom is it expected to be seen by I I don’t think it matters if it’s an old person that you know if it’s an old wound wanting to be seen or the current the current situation is where there’s the the potential for healing and the key is the first key is to recognize it like oh I just want to be seen here and I love the phrase of course because there’s something in my nervous system and most people I work with and minute it’s like of course I just want to be seen here that it just like makes it not a problem and the and the the fight stops the internal fight stops and there’s like just this softening of oh of course I just want to be seen here and hanging out with that and in doing so that usually is the beginning of when you say of course to yourself you’re starting to see yourself right that’s honoring a part of yourself and so that would be the first step like oh just acknowledging of course I want to be seen here yeah interesting what’s that’s bringing up for me now is that in in this process of wanting to be seen and then checking in with our with our body with our Sensations getting into VIEW there’s a way that that is actually a process of seeing ourselves which I think actually makes it easier for others to see us because then we’re more introspectively aware of what we might share about our experience and we can share from a deeper place but also we’re seeing that deeper place so we might be seeing beneath the surface layer insecurity or fear into the deeper care or the deeper longing absolutely yeah beautifully said so how would somebody who’s listening to this podcast and they’re like oh this is this is interesting uh I’m not sure where in my life this is applicable how would somebody look look through their life and just notice where like what are some of the signs or symptoms of an unowned or unseen desire to be seen that’s kind of in the background running things the first thing that comes to mind is bragging anytime we’re like well did you know that the other day I was usually under that there’s this wanting to be seen and it so it comes out all sideways as bragging or perceived as bragging when what it really is is just like I want to be seen so I would say oh for anyone who feels self-conscious around bragging or sharing stories that that that right there is information about something wanting to be seen and and what is it that wants to be seen is it creativity intelligence action success um so that would be one place another place is anytime if someone else is bragging you judge it oh they’re just full of hot air then that’s a great pointer to a part of yourself that’s not allowed to be seen anywhere where you judge anybody else for um wanting to be seen or being seen or taking up space or taking up too much space um is a great pointer to parts not allowed to be seen or you’re not allowing yourself to see. Envy is a great pointer to what we won’t allow ourselves to have or to want I love Envy Envy rocks right because it is it’s that pointer to parts of ourselves we we’ve disallowed yep so Envy what would be an awesome one Daydreams some people can’t do it in their lives but they’ll go to very um Exquisite Daydreams and that can point to parts of selves that want to be seen like your strengths and skills and capacity yeah that’s a really good one that just brought up a whole bunch of like memories of like recurring Daydreams throughout my life of like having some big success or like save the day moment or like hitting the home run on the baseball field at the right moment and The Crowd Goes Wild yeah I love Daydreams for that reason I mean they really represent parts of ourselves that um are are begging us to kind of hug and hold and give a little seeing to there was one other one that was somewhere back here give me one second um it would be compliments pushed away ah yeah that’s a nice double bind yeah so anytime someone gives you a compliment and you um discredit it in your mind or um guard the heart the chest or clench the gut those are parts of yourself that are longing to be seen but you’re not allowing yourself to see or allowing anyone else to see yeah I want to double click on that a little bit on the the fear the fear of truly being seen what is typically the fear when when people fear being seen for what they are seen for who they are and you know maybe there’s some shame around around it and shame around what they think will be seen by others ultimately what’s the fear there what what would make it that if someone’s giving us a heartfelt compliment that we’d push it away rather than receive it uh two things come to mind the first one is the I’m bad right if we’re given a compliment and they’re saying oh this is awesome but we actually think we’re bad then it’s triggering a Badness or if we’re actually being seen there’s that fear of they’re going to see that something about me is flawed so it’s that shame piece that you named but I also think that there is an empowered piece that very often we don’t allow ourselves to see or other people to see right our our empowerment our wholeness our goodness we can’t see our own goodness therefore can’t let someone else see our our goodness our power so I think it’s two two sides of the same coin in a way that see I’m bad or see I’m good neither acceptable there’s another reason we won’t receive a compliment because uh Pride you know pride is one of the seven deadly sins and it’s like most of us assume if we take on the compliment that we will become arrogant and uh prideful and narcissistic it’ll go to our head so we can’t really let it in because we can’t hold our wholeness right we can’t hold that we’re good and bad we’re flawed and perfect we’re um human and everything right we’re all of it and so when we can’t hold both realities and we’ve been told that pride is a deadly sin then if we let a compliment in going to be like oh no can’t be that so it gets pushed out yeah that’s interesting because like when somebody you know the phrase don’t let it go to your head seems like analogous to don’t let this go to your false image of yourself and so it’s it’s almost as though like the fear is if I actually let in this compliment it will go to my False Image because there’s no way I will actually let myself see it deeply in myself exactly right and I think that is the earliest way that parents stop seeing kids kids come home and they’re like look what I did and often you’ll hear the reaction don’t let it get to your head right which is the parent not seeing the accomplishment or the work that it took to do or the joy and the excitement so right there it’s like nope you’re not going to be seen and don’t let it so I think don’t let it get to your head and don’t be seen are like synonymous with each other sadly yeah as a parent what what what emotion would be avoided in your case if you were if you were reacting that way to to one of your daughters I would say several different emotions if I’m not allowed my own excitement and a kid comes to me say look what I did I’m going to be like Tamp it down kid right excitement isn’t allowed or Pride right isn’t allowed or Joy isn’t allowed or um a sense of accomplishment like I don’t have that sense of accomplishment because you keep got to got to work harder so any it could be any number of those things aren’t allowed in my system and probably be different for each parent I was at a I’ll never forget my kids were at one of those jumpy houses they were jumping with friends and other kids and they’re going bonkers and it’s totally safe it’s set up and designed by insurance companies right like nothing really I mean maybe one in a million times things can go wrong but it’s really overdesigned for protection and I remember another father being like don’t get too wild in there it was like right because his wildness wasn’t allowed so he couldn’t allow his kids wildness so whatever piece different for each of us joy excitement Pride accomplishment success yeah that’s fascinating I’m now thinking of this perhaps uh polarity or dichotomy or dilemma double bind between being seen in a certain way and allowing our wildness yes yeah the and the minute we start needing to be seen in a certain way to be safe in our families which happens to all of us it is a tamping down of our wildness and it is a tamping down of our our musculature and our authenticity and who we really are and and our wildness and I do love our wildness and it’s why I love when we do emotional work because I do believe that anger work and grief brings us back to our wildness brings us back in touch with that yeah what what does it tend to look like when you’re working with a client and you know they’re working on something related to being seen maybe it’s one of many things they’re working on at a time but this is something that starts to move in them and their the wildness starts being seen and welcomed and coming through what are some of the first what does that Journey look like I would say it’s different I never think one case fits all it usually involves getting some ground some safety um feeling their bodies and then um compassion compassion is a big piece in it if we can be with our hearts and be gentle with ourselves then we can actually start to see our whole selves we really need to have compassion to see our our um beyond our false self beyond that mask we need to have a lot of compassion so having it often entails a lot of compassion for self and then compassion for other right that and that tends to be bidirectional so the more we can have compassion for other people’s imperfections and failures then we can have compassion for our own and then we can see ourselves more and more and see them more and more and I I do see compassion being a huge part of the journey to seeing ourselves and allowing ourselves to be seen because the more compassion we have on board then we’re not afraid of our shadow and our imperfections our selfishness and our greed and our um loneliness and our anger and our rage we’re not afraid of all of those parts so we can see them and then we can allow other people to see them and and so what’s the what is a common emotional Journey when when someone starts to let go of or they’ve they’ve worked through or seen behind the desire to be seen in this like self this false self-image what are some of the emotional patterns that they’ll start to bump up against and and learn to welcome to deepen into that Journey the one of the first things I see people bump into is having to grieve all that they ignored all the ideas they had all the parts of themselves that they had to kind of stamp down in order to maintain a false front so there’s a grieving part and hand in hand with that usually anger and fear so there’s a huge emotional experience that happens trying to think of the other parts of themselves that bump into and then you start bumping into the imperfect part the shadow truly right the um and some places well the parts of the self that weren’t allowed the parts of the selves that are Petty or not smart or not compassionate if you always had to be smart in your family and that’s the the kind of the front you hold up then you have to bump into the parts of yourselves that aren’t smart or are slower or not understanding all the other parts in the shadow or the parts that are um all the it’s the disallowed Parts really we have to see them to to see ourselves to see our um our loneliness and our grief and our hurt and our rage and our all those like selfishness all those parts that were not acceptable if I look back through my life instances where somebody really wanted to be seen or I really wanted to be seen like all of those are the parts that really wanted to be seen and it might have been like oh I want to be seen for doing the dishes but it’s on some really deep level it’s what you just described that is actually wanting to be seen and a conflict will just continue you can you can see me for doing the dishes five or six times and it won’t necessarily change the pattern unless like those deeper things become unless the wildness yeah is welcome yeah the wildness I love that phrasing yeah so for for somebody listening right now what is something that they could do today if if they were to identify somewhere in their life where they’re in a relationship they’re like oh I’m in this kind of tension or there’s there’s a dynamic where I noticed that I’ve really been wanting to be seen what’s something that they could do an experiment they could run some tool something they could try that could change that Dynamic for them I’d say two offhand one is see yourself right like oh I see how hard I’m working or I see how much I want it and just have a little practice of oh these are all the things I see about me so that you’re practicing that internal gaze of seeing self and then the bidirectional um doing it externally as well see your partner see your community share things you’re seeing with them see your direct reports and acknowledge you see like oh I see how hard you work to get the dishes done or I see how hard you’re working to get XYZ I see that you hit all those goals Way Beyond their due dates that’s awesome like really seeing acknowledging yeah I love how that the there’s a kind of twist on the Gratitude practice there and this is a kind of gratitude practice that you can just do yourself internally and like with others but it doesn’t have to be a partner it can just be something you do in your life absolutely it does not require anybody else yeah just you yeah which is great because you can do it anywhere anytime you can go to sleep like oh I see how hard I worked to hit my XYZ today I see how much time I gave to my kids oh I see how much joy I had with my garden I love how that’s like a flip from the state of Desire like I know that I want to be seen and therefore this this tool this experiment you provided is to actually do the seeing like be the seeing you want to be in the world or something like that there’s a reason that phrase is so widely used in such a hit right because all all of those things if we want more love in our lives I want more love in my life the more love we share with our community it’s it’s that mirror effect it comes back to us and we’re practicing the muscle so when it does come back to us we can receive it because often times we want to be seen and we can’t see all the ways we are being seen you know it might be that our partner is telling us things all the time but we’re like blocking it or literally not hearing it or not translating it as being seen so the more we do it the more we work that muscle and make ourselves available to actually being seen as well and I really like the way that you included the seeing of yourself in that as well because I could imagine there’s a lot of people who’d be listening to this and be like oh yeah I can see I’m an understanding person I can see what’s going on in these other people that I’m having conflict with I am understanding but if they’re not giving themselves that seeing if they’re not seeing themselves then there’s still something in that hungry ghost that’s missing that’s right that’s right yeah seeing themselves and letting them have that inner felt sense of being seen right letting your own body feel it I see how everything that comes with that and everything that comes with that that’s right that fear and the grief yeah letting it hit the body hit the heart and the gut ricochet around like a pinball machine well this has been lovely thank you Tara. Brett always a joy. Thanks for listening to the art of accomplishment. If you enjoyed what you heard today please share it with a friend and remember to follow us and rate us in your podcast app. The art of accomplishment was produced and hosted by myself Brett Kler and Joe Hudson. Mon Kelly is our production coordinator. This episode was edited by On Replay.