Being Seen

We all have a profound need to be seen.

In the Zulu tribe in South Africa, the country of my birth, the most common greeting is

Sawubona

Psychologist Valeria Sabater writes of this beautiful salutation that

“All my attention is with you. I see you and I allow myself to discover your needs, to see your fears, to identify your mistakes and accept them. I accept you for what you are and you are part of me”

It is an unselfish act of giving. Here the focus is entirely on the other and not the self. It is also a way of saying “I see your essence, your True self”.

Some characteristics of the Sawubona experience are that it is

1. Rare

Did you ever feel that the person you met/dated/worked with did not have the remotest interest in you?

All they wanted was an audience. They wanted to use you and your ideas.

Try conversing with a narcissist. You leave with the bad taste of loneliness in you mouth. This is the saga of the child seen through the lens of his/her parents’ neurotic needs or the partner who feels invisible with his/her significant other.

2. Profound

We all act as mirrors for each other. And seeing our true self through the eyes of another can be deeply affirming and highly transformative. Most of these experiences are not paradigm shifting or earth shattering. They can come from small events. Yesterday a former client informed me that one question I asked had helped change the course of his life.

In passing I asked, “What do you want your legacy to be?’ In that moment he decided not to just build a large and influential organization.

He set his intention to serve and empower all around him.

At his recent retirement event hundreds of colleagues shared how important he had been to their lives.

Such was the ripple effect of Sawubona.

The social protocol when one is the recipient of that greeting is to respond

“Yebo, sawubona”. This means “I see you seeing me”

You know it at your core when you have been seen.