What an amazingly powerful feeling it is to be wanted, desired, cherished. When you invite someone into your life, or they invite you into theirs, a connection is created that didn’t exist before and an amazing energy begins to flow. Have you noticed this?

The energy of the invite to be included in someone else’s energy, or that of a group, a family or a business, is really one of the fundamental forces that creates community – or destroys it.

Many of my clients come to me with deep fears around the perceived judgements from other people in their lives. In some cases it is crippling. Living in the fear of other people’s judgements – basing every decision and opinion expressed on the need to meet the perceived expectations of others – is not only exhausting and all consuming; it prevents the authentic self from having its own expression and freedom.

When you get dressed in the morning and agonize over what people might think about your choice of clothes, or censor your true beliefs and opinions because of the fear you may offend someone, or you are convinced that everyone is talking about you behind your back and what they are saying is negative or judgmental, then you are living in the fear of other people’s judgments.

This is a survival strategy that goes back into the mists of time and human evolution. In any society, community or civilization, the need to be accepted is equivalent to survival. Being ostracized by your family or community has been, and still is, used as a very effective way to control the behaviour and beliefs of people. Our need to connect and to be acceptable is deeply ingrained in us as human beings – and it is true. We need to be connected; we are a social species – it is part of our biology.

Certainly we can be on our own, but we cannot survive for any length of time without some interaction, help or support from others. Within your family of origin, you learned what was expected of you in order to be a part of that family … the way you walked, talked, dressed, even the people you were friends with. You grew up learning the rules of engagement in your particular family and community in order to be accepted, loved and seen. And maybe, as an adult, you are still following those rules and haven’t asked some very important questions …

I invite you to consider these possibilities for a moment:

What if what someone else thought of you was none of your business?

What if you allowed them to make up their mind about you, accepting that whatever they think does not define who you are?

What if you showed up and allowed others to see you without getting hooked into what they may, or may not be thinking?

What if, 90% of the time, other people were not thinking of you and in the 10% of the time they might be thinking about you, they were thinking positive, complimentary thoughts?

The point is this – it does matter what other people think about you or how they feel about you, in as much as you need to connect to others to live your life fully. What you choose to do with any information about how someone feels about is up to you. You can let it define you or, you can let it be their experience of you, but not be about you.

Consider then the power of the invite, yours or that of someone else. Being invited can provide you with evidence of your worth to the other; it can show that you are welcome, that you are acknowledged. The un-invite or non-invite can provide you with the same information in the opposite direction. You can choose to allow either experience to be yours – worth or lack of worth.

Or, you can become very clear on who you are and who you came here – to this life – to be. You can stop living in fear that the judgements of others dictate how you live your life. You can open up space around you, energetically, to invite people who support you into your life … those who are confident enough in their own identities that they do not need to question or control yours. You can invite people into your life who have the capacity to gently push you to be more then you may be allowing yourself to be, without judgement or apology.

When clients enter into the space I use for healing, many of them burst into tears, much to their surprise. The space I hold is truly free of judgement or apology – I encourage my clients to leave their self-judgments and those of others at the door and never to apologize for how they have arrived at this point in their lives. And then I encourage them to try inviting new expectations into their lives. I invite them to invite ease or wisdom, co-operation, abundance, freedom or healing into their lives.

What would it feel like if you decided who and what you wanted to invite into your life, and then you did just that?

Megan Edge
Psy-chick Healing Studio
megan@psy-chick.net
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