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Being Invisible
And Difficulty Asking For Help
Dyslexic kids are often misunderstood, marginalized, ridiculed and bullied. If you’re dyslexic, you may have learned to keep a low profile so you don’t stand out. You may have learned that being invisible is safer.
There is an old study that shows that babies in orphanages stop crying when no one comes to help. Dyslexics can have a similar problem. When you asked for help—how to read, more time to take a test, support for your ideas and dreams—no one wanted to help, or no one understood the kind of help you needed, or people told you something was wrong with you. It’s easy to stop asking for help when you are judged for asking.
Help On The Quest:
It’s only one part of you that keeps you invisible. Though it might feel like who you are, it’s actually only a part. You hired this part long ago to keep you safe. When you’re a kid, you don’t have a lot of choices. You do whatever you can to make sense of the world given the experiences you have, combined with your temperament, personality and family system. You can look at it this way—your True Self, which naturally shines, had to go underground in order for you to survive. Your True Self is still there, with all of your gifts, untarnished and untarnishable. But—in order to survive you may have hired Invisible Guy or Have to Do It Myself Gal or Protector Self to step in. They kept you safe in a world that had limited choices. But they also keep your world small if they are running the show.
Have you ever watched Star Trek: The Next Generation? One of the jobs of Captain Picard is to take into account the various opinions of all his top officers and then make a decision about how to act. He takes the best information, and also uses his valued intuition, sometimes making a choice that surprises everyone. The part of you that keeps you invisible is a bit akin to Worf, the Chief Security Officer. Confronted, say, with a sweet old lady with a flower, Picard, all the officers, and the entire crew might know that she is safe. But Worf’s typical response, in his low growling voice, would be, “It could be a weapon!” There’s nothing wrong with him saying this—in fact it is his job to be cautious. But he is not the captain, and ultimately Picard must decide what to do. The point of this, is for you to imagine yourself as the captain of your life on your sacred journey. You have the final say. Of course you have a Worf! But who is your Captain, your True Self? A great way to play with this is through visualization. Put on some interesting, trippy music, relax in your chair or on the couch, and use your great dyslexic imagination and visual or sensory gifts to take a little trip where “you have never gone before”—back home to your birthright as you imagine yourself as Captain, making choices and using your intuition!
Please note, the exercises you will find here are not meant to replace professional help. If you find that they are activating to you, please seek the guidance of a professional. If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area and would like a free consult to see how I might accompany you on your journey, please reach out and call me at 415/668-5130.
