Read This If You Are Feeling Overlooked And Under-Appreciated

Things that were indeed apart of my identity were things I tended to overlook constantly. Ironically by overlooking myself, I somehow emitted an energy that enabled others to overlook me as well.

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lauren rushing
lauren rushing
lauren rushing

Chances are when you feel like you are being overlooked, you haven’t done the necessary work of looking over and looking after your own needs. You haven’t taken personal inventory and conducted a cost benefit analysis of what you feel you have to gain by wearing your crown versus what you feel you have to lose by claiming your rightful throne. There is obviously something keeping you from taking center stage be it your own fears of failure/success or even your own personal insecurities and beliefs about what it means to own the spotlight and actually stand up and be counted.

Some think that if they assert their needs and begin to take center stage, others will be threatened by them and not want to associate with them. They fear that they will alienate others from them and somehow be hated by the torch wielding villagers of our cast away society. They feel that if they were to articulate their wings and fly the miraculous flight of exhibition, they will consequently draw negative attention to themselves and be a swinging fly strip for the criticism, jealousy and hatred of others.

Others feel that to own their own presence, to actually assert the juggernaut of their identity would be too much work and would require a level of consistency they are just not sure they are ready for. Others know they will be expected to produce, to deliver, to answer the call of their ascension and are plagued with a searing ambivalence about doing so. They struggle with so much agonizing doubt that they opt to live in the shadows of all they could be instead of actualizing everything that they already are.

What these people fail to realize is that greatness demands courage.

Legends will be tested. Your talents if not used in the service of your purpose, will torment you and manifest themselves in destructive ways. You can either create from suffering or suffer creatively YOUR CHOICE but either way, your life demands that you honor your light. In order to do that, you need to sit with yourself and listen beyond the locked persona that lives within. Your patience needs to be the key that frees the beasts gnawing at your release daily.

For so long my inner persona whispered to me a series of fears that interfered with me taking center stage. The destructive voices inside of me screamed audibly saying “They’re gonna find out”, “I don’t want them to know” In a low and ominous tone, these voices tried to usurp my throne. Unbeknownst to me, my inner child was unconsciously playing hide and seek with my greatness for fear that it would be taken away or criticized or not appreciated and so it hid. My greatness hid underneath a parade of inauthentic representatives, it hid.

It did not want the world to know that I liked men, that I had low self-esteem, that I had insecurities because as a man, all those things were not looked upon favorably. But those things were indeed apart of my identity that I tended to overlook constantly. Ironically by overlooking myself, I somehow emitted an energy that enabled others to overlook me as well. In fact, such a vibratory frequency attracted only those beings who were negligent of my needs, my boundaries and by extension, my royalty.

In addition to silently cosigning my invisibility, I realized that I was also externally driven by the counterfeit validation systems of other people’s opinions. I wanted so badly to harmonize with others in a world that was dangerously off key.

I cared too much about what they would think and not enough about what mattered to me.

My principles, my values, my beliefs took a backseat to the prospect of having company when everyone’s company is ultimately borrowed anyway. Your own company, now that’s yours to keep. And I realized that it’s not so bad being alone especially in a world that’s here today and gone the next.

After extensive and continuing inventory, I am now ready to claim my rightful place in the world. My creativity has found voice in many different forms of expression from poetry, to art, to cooking to dance, I find meaning in movement and command attention by extension of my newfound confidence.

Do the destructive voices still visit from time to time in the back of my mind? Yes they do. The only difference now is I have the tools to challenge and extinguish them. So if you are being overlooked, intentionally whispering your life away, hoping to escape the criticism associated with living, STOP IT NOW! Know that you can run but you can’t hide because the external criticism you think you are getting away from by shrinking and playing small is the same internal criticism that will ultimately eat away at you as you cannot cheat your life.

Your life knows your abilities and knows what you are capable of and will torment you until you begin to use the gifts that were given to you. So begin to assess what’s stopping you from living your magnificence. Give thanks for your triumphant life and know that you are worth honoring your inner shine by living out your light brilliantly, exuberantly, unapologetically in the here and the now. Thought Catalog Logo Mark