To be seen

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Men vs Women brain

It is a cliché that men and women feel loved a different way, and it is so true in many ways. Most men feel love primarily through sex and the common joke is that men think with their penis instead of their brain. The famous comedian Robin Williams used to say that the problem is, God gave man a brain and a penis and only enough blood to run one at a time.

Trump and Melania lack of intimacy

Women feel love primarily by being seen. They feel seen by getting a gift that shows we know what they like, by doing an act of service that we know they will appreciate (ex. cooking dinner on a night where we can feel they are exhausted, or taking the kids when we can see our spouse needs time for herself), by saying something nice and specific about her outfit or hairdo, by remembering special dates related to our love story, by selecting activities together that she enjoys, by noticing how she feels, by giving her heartfelt compliments about who she is as a person. What is important is that she has to feel unique, special and differentiated to show that you truly see her. This is why if you buy an expensive ring without making a conscious effort why this is the perfect ring specifically for her, the gift may not be appreciated. They will also not feel the love if you buy standard red roses, with a landmark card and balloon for Valentine’s Day or organize a trip a ski trip when she is really a beach person. Men feel always so confused about it and unappreciated. They performed the action, spent the money, made the effort but she is still not happy! It is because there was no conscious effort to make her feel seen in the offering and the man way of showing love was not differentiated. It has to be tailored in a way your partner feels seen as the unique person that she is, that you made the effort to understand who she is, and you have penetrated her inner world to do so.

So men try to make their partners feel seen to get laid. Women give sex to their men with the hope to be seen. It is often a frustrating transaction. How did we get there?

For a very long time, men were mocked to show any type of feelings as it evoked weakness. We were not allowed to show sadness, fear, shame, anxiety, grief, despair or helplessness if you were to be considered a real man. So we had to suppress all of these emotions. We were shamed and ridiculed for our feelings but we were always praised and envied by other men by mating with attractive women. This is why so much of our self-worth and identity has to do with sex. In this process of repressing our emotions, we lost the subtlety of being and the appreciation of the invisible things that make life magical. We lost touch with the incredible love to be experienced when we are seen as a person. So we compensated by being seen in ways that are very tangible and more quantitative: our material possessions, the physical beauty of our wife, our societal status, our medals, the school we are from, our profession, and all of our accomplishments. This may be comforting for the mind but it does nothing to our emotional being. In my career, I have met many very successful people with outstanding achievements but very few carried the radiance that you can see with genuinely happy and loving people.

baby funny face

I spent time recently with a friend and her 11-month-old baby. The baby kept frowning at me, which was funny, cute and surprising. The mother told me that when she saw this funny expression the first time on her baby’s face, she praised him a lot and gave him a lot of attention as she found it so adorable. The baby felt seen at that moment. So he is doing it now to everyone around because he is craving for being seen, as this is one of our most basic emotional needs. He does not understand yet you frown at people you are unhappy with. A lot of the attachment traumas we suffer come from the fact that we either have not been seen enough as a child (neglect) or seen in something unpleasant (abuse). It is so incredibly important for a baby’s development to be seen as a bundle of joy, which means to be adored, celebrated and treasured.

God created man in its image

In my own interpretation of the Creation, God divided itself in trillions and trillions of life forms to see Itself. When he was One and non manifested, he could not see Itself, could not know Itself and could not love Itself. God, too, risked everything for the sake of love and fragmented as a result. When someone awakens, it is said they develop God consciousness. Basically, they are able to see God (or themselves) in everything and everyone. Seeing the spark of the divine in all of creation is the highest form of love we can ever experience. Loving is seeing one’s divine nature in the mirror of creation. First, we require very specific mirrors such as a twin flame to experience that state. Later, as our ego becomes more diffuse and less rigid, all of our creation can reflect our divine nature. Poets understand this more than anyone. A dog running on the trail, the scent of a rose, a river flowing, a sunset on the horizon, the smile of a child. All of it can remind us of who we truly are, so that we can feel seen and loved.

Vaillant burning heart

As a number of my male friends, I have done poorly in my life making my partners feel seen. This has been an area where I struggled in all my love relationships despite my best efforts. I do not think my children felt seen by me too when they were younger and the same pattern limited so of my friendships for the same reason. My parents did not have parents when they were young so they never developed a sense of what it is to be truly seen, felt and understood. Most of our childhood traumas are more about what was not done to us rather than what was done to us. What is not healed in one generation is passed on to the next and I was no exception. An important event happened this week that may finally shift this pattern and this cycle of suffering. I was sitting with an older and very self-aware friend just trying to connect. For the first time of my life, I felt in my body the conscious sensation of being seen by him. I felt he could truly penetrate my world and see me. He made some insightful comments about me that made me feel differentiated and unique that brought tears to my eyes. For the first time of my life, I could understand somatically why women feel love when they are seen because I was this time on the receiving end and I could feel it myself with my whole being. Before, it had just been a mental concept for me, something I had to do to make my partner happy. I was not aware I had the same need to be seen too. I realized how to see each other is the easiest and more natural way of sharing love. And that sharing love is the most important thing we can ever do in our lives. I was bringing in me the capacity of feeling loved the same way the feminine does so naturally.

couple texting lack of intimacy

We need to be very conscious of social media. Like every tool, it can be used in positive ways to stay connected with family, friends, acquaintances or fans. It can be a learning and marketing tool, a way to share information effectively, or a source of inspiration. But it can also disconnect us from each other. So many people now would rather be on their phone rather than really connecting to the people that are in their physical vicinity. We make them feel small, unimportant and unseen as a result of looking for that small dopamine high. Let’s remember that connection and making each other feel seen is our most powerful way to share love, and there is nothing more important we could do at any given moment. And if you need to respond to an urgent email or text, then consider the other person and consciously ask for their permission to do so.

Joseph, Mary and Jesus family

For millenniums, we dominated women but we lost ourselves as a result. We felt threatened by women because they could create new lives through childbearing when we could not. We felt desperate for the love of women and hated this dependency so we attempted to control them. Jesus was the living example on how to marry the divine masculine and divine feminine within us. The patriarchy that was in charge at that time felt very threatened and quickly eradicated any mention of the feminine from his teachings once they became mainstream. During a meditation, I received the transmission that the sign of the cross that most Christians practice had been in fact corrupted. It was supposed to be:

  1. In the name of the Father (right hand on the forehead)
  2. And of the Mother (right hand on the heart)
  3. And of the Son (right hand on the left shoulder)
  4. And of the Holy Spirit (right hand on the right shoulder)

Father is the Yang energy, fire. Mother is the Yin energy, water. From there, the whole world is created. The Son is Christ consciousness in a human body (Jesus of Nazareth), the union of the divine masculine and the divine feminine in one human body to show us that heaven on earth is possible. The Holy Spirit invokes our own responsibility to live a life that is aligned with our soul direction and the higher principles of this universe. So we felt so threatened by the feminine that we enslaved it. By doing so, we lost touch with the invisible world of feelings and impoverished our life in dramatic ways. We stopped perceiving subtle feelings and seeing the spiritual world. God, angels, guides and demons became myths and fables for the weak and superstitious. Science took over spirituality. While this was healthy in a way, we went too far the other extreme in order to compensate from the abuse of religions. We got trapped in a material world and our own material creations started to dominate us as most of our lives are now driven by material pursuits. We can only reverse this trend by bringing back the feminine. And we can do it by learning to love as a woman, by loving intimacy, being seen and being loved as we are seen for who we are. We can rediscover this truth in ourselves by really getting in touch with what feels good. It cannot be a mental process. Let’s ask ourselves what we are really looking for in a relationship and not forcing the answer. It is time for us to make the invisible a priority over the visible. The feminine is supposed to symbolize pure, unlimited, unrestrained and free flowing energy. The masculine has to do about focusing and directing this energy for manifestation but not controlling it. In the same way, when we try to control the energy of love, it goes away. Love goes with freedom and expansiveness. Through our inner work, we can reconnect with the spark of light that is pure love within us, and look for ways to reflect this light back through all of our relations.

Are you ready to marry the feminine and the masculine within yourself?

The Human Doing

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Yesterday, we went hiking with the family and visited an aviary with birds from all over the world. I had decided to organize some fun family time as I understood how important is “together time” for Winter, Teal and our extended family. Teal and I travel often and I have many activities and responsibilities that occupy my time and I recognized I was not present enough to my stepson and members of the extended community such as Graciela. As we were about to start on our day trip, Winter started to act out and refused to come. A couple of years ago, if it had been my children, I will have raised my voice and coerced them into getting into the car, shutting their feelings as I felt I knew better what was right for them. Fortunately, Teal knows better and she took the time to engage a dialog with her son. She got him to a point to express his discomfort. And as we were driving to the mountain, he started to give us to our awe a remarkable speech on the power of the attachment theory with the words of a 7 year old. He expressed how his heart was starting to feel distrust as people acting as nannies would come in and out of his life. He felt very connected to a community member that last year for a variety of reason had to leave us temporarily and as a result he is now feeling a resistance to get close again to new caretakers as he feels they would leave and the pain of separation would be too great to handle. He explained in a remarkably clear way for a 7 year old what he needed to feel very close to this individual again. She felt so moved by his words that she started shedding tears. I used this opportunity to ask Winter about our own personal connection and with his hands, he showed me the separation between him and I which was significant. He basically said that I was around but not really there. His statement moved me deeply too. He is right that I am not really present to him as a stepdad as I have not made it a priority and often find myself delegating his caretaking to other members of the community. We talked and we decided together to spend at least once a week some time just the two of us so that we can truly connect and feel closer to one another.

As we drove back in the evening, I told Teal that I felt a heavy heart and would love to do a process with her on it, before working on the computer. I had pain in my upper neck, which was an indication I was repressing emotions. Teal helped me work through some triggers and did some body work on me. Her hands are truly magical as her extra sensory gifts showed her visually the stuck energy in my body. At that point, she felt I was ready for an authentic talk. She confronted me that while we spent the day together, she felt I was not really engaged and present with the rest of them. It was hard to hear at first as I had organized the full day to make it fun for everyone, and it felt like all of us had a good time. I reviewed then the day in my mind and could see her perspective. I had spent the day a lot in my own mind. I did not make particular efforts to engage with anyone. I found myself a couple of times alone during the activities as I was either before or behind our small group. I asked to read my book in the car instead of going to the store shopping for clothes for Winter. I started to feel bad. I tried to do the right thing by organizing a fun family day but I had failed. I had been physically present but not emotional present to the family. As a result, my wife was actually starving of connection after a day dedicated to spending time together as a family! I pushed my projects aside that evening and made sure all my attention and focus would be on her and us.

Teal was right. I was acting as a human doing and not a human being, and I was making them feel while I was with them that I did not want to be there and that I would rather work on my projects. I became conscious that I had the same pattern with my previous family. I would go on hikes, often leading the way in the front of everyone, not curious about my children inner world, feelings, endeavors, content with a shallow connection while this would our only day off in a busy Silicon Valley work week. Shortly after Alina and I separated, I tried to make the time spent with my children special, and I would organize special trips, time with friends or activities during the time I had them. They however complained to me that what they really wanted was to connect to me instead of always being distracted. I felt unappreciated as I felt I was really trying to make our time together special. I was making them feel that they were not enough by themselves for themselves and that I had to always add more stimulation to make the time spent with them acceptable. This was not my conscious intent. This was more my own projection. I felt subconsciously I was not good enough that they would enjoy spending time with me without additional entertainment. People around me often feel that I would rather do something else than truly being and connecting with them. Despite my 25 years on the spiritual path, I felt disabled in my connection abilities. I was feeling powerless to create the very feelings in myself and others that are so important to me.

As I went deeper into my process with the support of Teal, I realized the trauma was coming from dad side. His mother would rarely visit him when he was a child. He subconsciously felt she would rather not be with him as she felt shame for the relationship that had given birth to him. Their infrequent meeting was more a painful reminder that there was something wrong and bad with him. My grandmother always lived in her own world too and always had difficulty connecting with family members at a deeper level while appearing as a socialite to the outside world. She had a sister called Tati Jojo who was very kind to us, and we developed a much deeper relationship with her, and this created some jealousy on my grandmother side as she could not understand why my sister and I felt closer to Tati Jojo than her as she was not aware of her relating pattern. We are dealing here with generational trauma. My grandmother mother died when she was 11. Her father quickly remarried. The new wife did not like her and her sister. They were kicked out of the house and had to start working at the post office in their early teens to sustain themselves. Then, 50 years later, my parents divorced when I was 10. My sister and I stayed initially with my father but because of the insecurity of my stepmother and the codependency of my father, I was sent back to be with my mother while I had asked my dad to stay with him. Again, I felt powerless not to repeat the same pattern. My son was 11 when Alina and I separated. While I did everything on my end to fight for an integrated family structure after the divorce, my children were taught to hate my new wife while they never met her, and from their perspective, they felt abandoned by a dad that would choose another woman over them. Any family trauma that is not healed, repeats from generation to generation, often in a tragic way.

After my parents divorced, some of the most painful time I experienced was the time spent with my father. During that time, I felt invisible. Though the times we would spend together were rare, he was not emotionally present to me. It felt like he would rather do something else and be somewhere else. I felt non-existent, small and unworthy of love. He often had hurtful comments or clumsy gifts that made me feel worse about myself. From his perspective, he felt he was making efforts trying to be a good father while still acting from his hurt inner child not very differently to what I am doing today with my closed ones. I understand that he often thinks of me and believes he loves me however his actions more often than not send a different message. He is not an abusive man. He is actually doing what he can but because of his own upbringing, he has incapacity to connect and make other people feel special because deep inside, he feels very unworthy. And I have to accept that he is a mirror of me. My father would often tell me that he and his parents were proud of my school results. As a result, I felt I could only be valued for my successes and external accomplishment not for who I am. I learned that people did not have a real desire to connect to me. I always strived to be the best at school so that I would have a chance to be loved. I became a human doing, and experienced for most of my adulthood relationships that were conditional in nature as a result.

Then Teal brought me to a visualization of the type of father that I really wanted as a child. This father would be fully present to me, he would be a teacher full of wisdom about life and relationships. When we would interact, he would focus and empathically listen to me, he would show concern, have the sincere desire to know me deep inside. He would be excited to spend time with me. I would always be on his mind. He would show small gestures of love making me feel important. He would act as a protector when necessary and always be available for me when I need it. He would encourage me, help me overcome my fears, have a sympathetic ear, and show both strength and vulnerability. As I contemplate who my inner child really wanted as a father, I come to realize the brutal truth that in my present life, I often act more like my father than being the man my inner child has been starving for. From this painful awareness, I feel a sincere desire to change. I understand that to truly heal my life, my relationships, it is time to give my inner child what I always wanted and give it to the closest people of my life. For you Winter, I want you to feel that I enjoy spending time and connecting with you, that you are important to me, that I will be careful with your heart and not pull away, that I am interested to understand and see the unique being that you are. For you Teal, I want you to feel that I would rather be with you than doing anything else in the world, that you are my top priority. I want to make you feel safe, cared for, cherished and adored. I want you to feel that I am an expert of you and always care about your best interest. I want to be your anchor, strength and stability even during the storms of life. I want to share the same qualities to my extended family. As I heal, I sincerely hope that my own children will feel the call of my heart and will consider reconnecting with me as they feel I could improve their lives and support them authentically instead of being a liability.

I remember that in the past I have tried to bring these higher masculine qualities however I am now realizing that I attempted to do so while repressing my inner child. Now, I am committed to bring these qualities within me while staying present to my inner child. My man self not only need to take care of my loved ones but also to my hurt little boy, as he is being reflected externally. This is why relationships are such an accelerated track for expansion. And by living a life with the spiritual catalyst, all my shadows appear clearly and there is nowhere to hide as everything is reflected and amplified.

In my life, I have been a human doing more than a human being and it is not a surprise I spent 20 years in the Silicon Valley where a regular work week is 70 hours without counting the side projects to get ahead. As a human doing, how we feel about ourselves is only connected to our accomplishments. We received compliments as a child only when we achieved something special externally. This is true to me and also to Teal’s childhood. This style of parenting is very common and well regarded in society. While it is better than emotional neglect, most people do not realize the amount of damage done by this parenting style. To be worthy of love, children learn to behave a certain way and accomplish certain results otherwise love is removed. They learn they do not have an intrinsic value. Unfortunately, everyone knows that the satisfaction derived by accomplishments is always short lived. When I was 20, after I entered one of the top engineering schools of France after national competitive exams, my joy only lasted a couple of weeks and quickly turn into depression as I lost the escape mechanism for my own inner void and childhood trauma. Teal told me yesterday that a happy wife will mean much more to me than any of my accomplishments in terms of personal happiness. She is so right. As we grow older, our joy comes more and more from simple pleasure of connecting and relating instead of our past achievements. As a human doing, we develop an addiction to cross as many items from our list in order to feel fulfilled for the day instead of feeling how we have impacted each other lives for the better. As a human doing, failure to perform means worthlessness and that we are undeserving of love.

I can see how this pattern has affected most of my relationships. Every time I have fallen in love, the first couple of months are heavenly. There is no time, just the pleasure to connect with one another. A day feels like a couple of minutes. Then the intensity of the infatuation subsides, and a covert subconscious belief comes in. It makes me feel that unless I am able to have achievements, she will leave me because I am not good enough on my own. So I pull away to focus on my activities in order keep the love I cannot afford to lose. By pulling away, I bring dissatisfaction to my mate that starts pulling away to protect herself emotionally and my very fear of the lost love becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. She feels abandoned, not good enough for who she is and her own insecurity is brought up. She feels unloved and unworthy at her turn. Inevitably, she detaches to make me feel the way I make her feel and the relationship becomes rocky. I become alone in my accomplishments and do not understand why love is going away while I am working so hard, and do so much for my wife and the family. This is the tragedy of the human doing.

Instead, by focusing on our children feelings, values, efforts, how they treat other people, we show them we truly care for who they are, and not only have concerns about their results. Let’s leave that for the corporate world. Transactional relationships may be OK for the business world however they are toxic for family relationships as we need to instill unconditional love to our children to create the new earth. We will then raise children with less fear of failure that are free to experiment and discover their unique gifts, as their self-esteem is not in danger when they do not perform according expectation. We may fear that this attitude may make them under achievers however by doing so, we focus on the very underlying conditions of success and we make them connect to their individual talent derived directly from their inner child. Movement, spontaneity and creativity are natural in children, not apathy. Inactivity and aloofness are the mark of trauma not of a healthy emotional upbringing. Our children can achieve success in two different ways. One will be a direct expression of their being, happiness and creativity, and will often translate in fulfilling and meaningful careers. Other will achieve success at the price of intense inner struggles, coping mechanisms, misery along the way often followed by a crash, realizing later in life that they hate their job and their lives. They will often fool people on the outside as everyone think they are successful. These two categories of success can be observed in all walks of life, especially with top athletes. The human doing is the personality than has repressed the human being or the inner child, the seat of the soul with all its creative, expressive and intuitive abilities. Our human doing has done enough damage shutting down our inner child. It is time to have our human doing serve our human being for a truly meaningful and satisfying life.

Do you want to be a human doing or a human being? What do you want your children to become?

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