When you look at yourself, either figuratively or literally, whom do you see?

Do you see who you really are, or do you see yourself through someone else’s eyes? Have you chosen some eyes to see yourself through that reveal you as the greatness you are and can be? Or have you bought a downsized version of yourself that isn’t even you?

A famous writer on child psychology from the psychoanalytic point of view, Erik Erikson, wrote that one of the tragedies of human existence is that we internalize our parents’ points of view before we are old enough to evaluate if they’re valid.

Gary Douglas, best-selling author and founder of Access Consciousness^®, has taken this observation much further. From his point of view, it’s astonishing how little of us actually exists within our own self-image.

From the moment we are born, we are as infinite and aware as we are now, if not more so. Because we are in small bodies and do not yet speak English or Swedish or whatever our native language would become, most parents assume we are not aware and are not knowing.

Little Sponge Bobs or Sponge Bobbettes that we are, we absorb all the energies around us, including the secrets, unspoken points of view, judgments, limitations, and other goodies. Because we do not yet experience any separation between us and the world around us, we absorb all that psychic debris and all of those fixed points of view as if are our own.

Douglas has named this collection of psychic garbage A-E-I-O-U PODS, his acronym for:

Asinine piles of debris

Erroneous piles of debris

Idiotic piles of debris

Obnoxious piles of debris

Useless piles of debris.

It’s only when we reach the age of 2 and learn the word “No” that we begin to separate ourselves from what’s around us and develop our own points of view.

It’s these very points of view that we absorbed from our parents as infants and toddlers that teenagers rebel against. They are desperate to separate from their parents and be themselves, yet “themselves” includes these points of view that aren’t actually theirs but that they believe are theirs. If you’ve ever watched or experienced an argument between a teenager and their parents, you’ve seen this in action first hand.

Most unfortunately, these points of view that we absorb from our parents, family, and those around us also include our points of view about our bodies and ourselves. We tend to look at ourselves through our families’ eyes even long after we’re grown, even if the family member whose eyes we’re looking through is no longer even alive.

The whole scenario is revealed as even crazier when you ask if the family whose eyes you’re looking at yourself through ever truly saw the real you.

“Are you trying to look through your family’s eyes at you to see you but they could not see you because they could not perceive you, they could not know you, they would not receive you, and they saw you as a rag doll in the corner who was supposed to be who they decided you were supposed to be?” Dr. Dain Heer asked participants in his first Symphony of Possibilities last month in Santa Barbara.

“They did not see you, and they did not get you at all. How many of you are still trying to find yourself through their eyes, rather than going, ‘They didn’t see me, so what would I like to choose?’

“Your life and living is a creation. What would you like to choose and how would you like to create it?” Heer continued.

To some extent, almost all of us suffered this fate. Some families—usually only a few out of any hundred in classes where the question has been asked—were kind and caring. But how many were able to fully acknowledge who you were? How many people grew up in a family where their greatness as an infinite being was acknowledged? Probably almost no one who is now a parent can say yes to this, but the times they are a-changin’. There are some people who are teenagers and in their 20s who have been raised that way.

For those of you not fortunate enough to have been raised by a family that did actually see you, consider this: Are you still looking at yourself through their eyes? If so, aren’t you looking at yourself through the eyes of people who cannot see you? How crazy is that?

Might this creation, this endless quest to be seen by the blind relatives who cannot see you no matter how intelligent they may appear to others, be the source of the universal longing to be seen, longing to be known and seen just for who we are, which so often combines with a reluctance to be seen because we don’t want to receive the judgment of those who do not see the real us but judge us anyway?

Is it time to end the futile game of hide and seek? What if you would be willing to look for the infinite being you have always known you were? Forget about your family—are YOU someone who could see him or her? Do you dare?

This kind of exploration of our crazy minds creating the paradoxes, the pain, the suffering, and limitations in our lives is what Dr. Dain Heer explores in his book, Being You, Changing the World, as well as through his live workshops offered world-wide. Being You workshops are open to anyone interested, without pre-requisites, while the Symphony of Possibilities workshops require completion of the Access Consciousness^® core classes Access Bars®, Foundation and through Levels 1, 2 & 3. The class schedules can be found on the website, www.accessconsciousness.com