Perception of Grace | LOH #188

What do you wish people saw in you?

Is probably one of the most relevant questions you can ask someone you’ve only known a little while. How we want to be perceived dictates how we dress, how we act, how we speak. And in turn also bespeaks our value system, our moral code, our priorities…

So that might be why the Ladies of Hive are asking this.

How do people see you? How do you wish people saw you?

For me, therapy revolutionized the way I thought people saw me. Through therapy, I came to understand that people outside of myself didn’t actually see all my insecurities and perceived flaws. Gaining a more balanced understanding of how people see me, I’d say, I’m seen as free, bit rebellious, bit hippie, unusual, artistic, bohemian. Clever. Quiet. A bit awkward.

I’m also quite fortunate physically in that I have a long vertical line, good features. I’m also quite tall and my angular features tend to catch attention, from what I’ve noticed. I’m someone to take note of, and (my therapist told me) I walk this world with confidence.

Which brings us to the second, more trickier part of the question. As I am today, I’m happy with how people see me. I don’t concern myself as much, and when I do, I realize I generally project the above features, so have nothing to worry about in how people see me.

It’s a trick of the light, though. How people see us has very little to do with what we look like. It’s all about how we see ourselves.

One of the biggest revelations for me in recent years has been just what a huge impact my mood and my inner peace and happiness make in my outside world. Right now, I feel myself as someone confident, at ease, happy, friendly, fortunate. I’m happy with my life, with how I look, with how I spend my time, with the people around me... and all that translates in my interactions.

That’s the thing. As long as you feel ugly, self-conscious, stupid, awkward, or any such negatives, that’s what will permeate your interactions and dictate how others see you. Obviously, it’s an uphill battle. It takes trust, as well as falling on your nose a few times. It takes confronting bad things both in your past and in your present. But it is, in the end, worth it.

For me, the past twelve months have marked a radical shift in perspective, attitude, in how I feel in general. I find myself, through an amalgam of things like therapy, better social interactions, dancing, travel, and just perhaps growing older, I find myself a lot more at ease with who I am. I feel more confident. I feel beautiful. Lately, I’ve been styling my hair to highlight natural curls. It’s unusual for me, and some days I look really great, others I look a bit poofy or fluffy. Well, if I’d done this at 20, or even 23, I would’ve felt so ugly on those poofy days. So self-conscious and awkward. I often did when trying new styles or things. Felt like the whole world was laughing and thinking look at this little girl trying something new... and not too well.

Now, I don’t honestly care. I feel beautiful a solid 95% of the time, if not more. I walk out on them poofy days with the same level of confidence and feeling gorgeous as I do on the days my hair looks like a magazine shoot.

Because inside I am those things. I feel happy and confident about where I am and what my life looks like, so how I look or how I am perceived doesn’t bother me as much.

This isn’t to say I don’t on occasion come across a baffling reaction to me, or a weird interaction. I try, on those occasions, to assess. Am I projecting something off? Am I being fake somehow, or am I perhaps putting out conflicting signals, one I wouldn’t want to transmit?

If the answer is yes, I try to modulate, so that my behavior and speech reflect my mood and my personality more closely. But when the answer is no, I think okay, then maybe this person isn’t attuned to reading me too well right now. Maybe our personalities don’t mesh, that’s fine. Or maybe, as is unfortunately sometimes the case, they’re testing for weak spots, for insecurities to use against me.

Whatever the case, I’m wary of interacting with drama-seeking, self-involved, or petty envious people. Right now, I’m trying to narrow the gap between who I am inside and how I am perceived outside. It just avoids so much confusion, so much needless angst.

Drama I have no room for in my life right now.