Being Seen


“According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.” Jerry Seinfeld

This quote from Jerry Seinfeld beautifully captures the ambivalence that many therapists feel about anything to do with promoting their practice. I don’t know how many of you would prefer to be dead than speak about your businesses, but it is no understatement to say that it evokes anxiety and fear in the hearts of many. It can leave people feeling exposed and vulnerable. So, inevitably, we avoid it, or we find reasons not to do it, or become really busy with other things so growing our business gets pushed to the end of the queue.

In my view, it goes without saying that in order to be in business, any business, we have to be willing to be seen. If we’re not being seen, no one knows we’re in business, so we have no customers.

Now therapists don’t need a huge number of clients, but we do need a steady flow to counteract the natural attrition of clients finishing and leaving. Short term work means we need those clients more frequently, so the flow needs to be faster. Long term work means the flow can be slower. But whatever sort of work we do, we do need a flow of clients.

And so it follows that we need to be seen.

hiding 1For many of us, being seen doesn’t come naturally. We have been conditioned from birth to hide or defend those parts of ourselves that are not acceptable to our families, or our friends, to our schools, or religious leaders. Over time we become expert at hiding or defending, so much so that we don’t always know what we are doing or why. (This hiding and defending is also as true for our gifts and strengths, as it is for our faults and failings.)

When it comes to standing up in public, or making ourselves visible by promoting our services, all the messages that we learnt as young children, and all the meanings and interpretations we have been adding ever since kick in and tell us it’s not safe to be seen for who we really are.

So there’s a fundamental dilemma. We need to be visible in order to tell people we are in business, and to attract clients in to our practices so that we can help them in the way we have been trained to do, but we believe that we will be unsafe if we do so.

I recently made some changes to my website, and for every change in the look, the text, or the format I found myself wondering about how others might view what I do. The same thing happens whenever I do anything to promote my business or my practice. I start to feel anxious and exposed because I have no control over what happens once I put something out there.

People will read into my promotion (my flyer, my website, my business card, hiding 2my elevator speech or my advertisement) whatever they are going to read into it. They may feel supported or encouraged, or they may feel dismissed and offended. They may see what I don’t want them to see, those very things I’ve been working so hard to keep hidden, my guilty secrets. They may misinterpret what I say, or read something in to my words that I never even dreamt of. They may decide that I am the only therapist for them, or that I am the last person they’d ever want to share their problems with, and their decision may be based on the colour of my hair, or the way I hold my head, or because they once had a school teacher with the same name.

So I ask myself if maybe I should make it as innocuous as possible, and play it as safe as I can? But then there’s a risk in that too, isn’t there? If it’s too innocuous it will have no life in it, and it will be invisible, which kind of defeats the purpose. So how do I resolve all these dilemmas and conflicts for myself? I don’t. I take it very slowly, one step at a time, becoming accustomed to each new discomfort as it arises, feeling the feelings it evokes, making a decision about what’s best for me, and then taking action.

What challenges come up for you around being seen? Do you find it hard to show yourself? Is promoting your practice a challenge for you? I’d love to hear from you on this subject, and if I can help you with any of these issues, please contact me here. I offer a free 20 minute consultation.

Love_EFT__web_version01And just in case I’m not the only one who struggles with these things, I’ve made a short tapping (EFT) video about being seen. I hope you enjoy it. Let me know what you think. Click here to watch the video.