Seeing Each Other Fully: The Courage to Belong.

Because truly seeing one another across disability, difference, and discomfort asks something of us.

my morning walk - seeing through the fog

When We Stop Looking Away

We don’t mean to look away.

But when something feels unfamiliar or uncomfortable like disability, aging, struggle, or pain, it seems our eyes shift before our mind has time to understand. It’s easy to think we’re seeing clearly until something or someone pushes its way into what feels safe or familiar, challenging our understanding of what we see and inviting us into a deeper kind of belonging

Yet, what we look away from can have much to teach us, not just about others, but also about ourselves.

Though this begins with disability, it’s really about something much larger, the way we often look away from the things and people who unsettle us. It might be disability, race, poverty, aging, or pain we don’t understand. We create distance, believing it protects us. But the truth is, none of us are exempt from needing to be seen, or from learning how to see better.

Whatever stories our lives hold whether it’s of advantage or struggle, visibility or invisibility, in our bodies , our identity, or our circumstances, or like me, a mix of the above, we all have room to grow, to see, and to take up space in this world. And we are in it together.

We were never meant to live alone, small, unseen, or unheared. Each of us is here to take up room, fully, purposefully, and as part of one another’s lives.

Seeing Beyond the Fear

Disability can arrive in an instant or be present from birth. It can come through illness, accident, or simply the passage of time. None of us are exempt from the limits of our body.

Yet, our culture treats disability as something that happens to other people. Language gives this away, “them,” “they,” “those.” We distance ourselves, as if doing so could keep us safe.

But disability isn’t out there somewhere. It is part of being human.

When we deny that truth, we don’t create safety, we create separation. And that separation keeps us from the things we most need; connection, understanding, and our shared humanity.

The disability community is one of the largest, yet least represented, minority groups in the world. It’s also the only minority group that anyone can join at any moment. Let that sink in for a minute.

I recently had a conversation with a friend about the importance of representation, and a few days later listened to a person with a disability share about their own realization of hidden racism. That moment struck me because awareness, when brought into the light, begins the steps that can move us closer to freedom.

Disability is not comparable to race, gender, or any other experience, yet it intersects with all of them. It is the one minority group made up of every other, of every ethnicity, gender, faith, and background. And within each of those groups, people can and often do hold biases and beliefs not only about others, but about themselves.

Awareness doesn’t belong to one identity. It’s a shared human calling, the work of unlearning what we’ve absorbed and learning to see one another more clearly. Truth, when faced with honesty, is the beginning of real change. We can’t grow without first seeing what we have hidden from ourselves. Real and sometimes uncomfortable conversations, especially within community are what pull us toward growth.

Hidden Assumptions and Judgments

The most powerful obstacles, are often not intentional. Instead, they can be the assumptions and judgments we don’t realize we hold. We may think we see clearly, but we all are looking through lenses that have been shaped by what comforts us or is familiar, our culture, our experiences, and often our fears.

These are sensitive things to talk about but, they are too important to ignore or pretend we are so enlightened they don’t apply. I don’t say them as someone standing apart. I say them as someone still learning. I write this not at you, but with you because awareness grows into grace best in the light.

Judgments are often made without awareness, yet these judgements decide for us who belongs, who needs help, who is “strong” or “weak,” and what kind of life counts as full.

And let’s not fool ourselves. I like to think I don’t have biases, but that can not be true because we ALL do. People move around believing they’re above it, blind to how steeped they are in it. Not seeing, denying, ignoring, or pretending because they think themselves better than that, and it’s just uncomfortable.

But discomfort is not the enemy. Lean into it and learn what you didn’t know before. That’s where growth begins.

Each of us holds a unique balance of privilege and challenge, visibility and invisibility. It matters that we keep learning to see, to grow, and to make space for one another. True seeing begins when we admit that we don’t always see clearly, when we choose humility over certainty, and when we let awareness become the start of change.

pausing for moments of presence

From Reactive Compassion to Restorative Seeing

When discomfort meets fear, it can become reactive compassion, a quick, emotional impulse to relieve unease rather than understand someone else’s reality.

Reactive compassion rushes to fix. Restorative seeing pauses to be present and experience what is with acceptance.

Restorative seeing is the kind of compassion that looks without turning away, that listens without needing to repair, and that honors the wholeness that already is.

It says: “You are not a project. You are a person. Your life and experience matters now, not only when or if something changes.”

Acceptance and the Deeper Kind of Healing

fAcceptance is not giving up hope. It is giving up illusion, the illusion that worth and purpose depend on ability, speed, or independence.

Jonny and I still pray for healing, and hope for it to come but, we also pray for acceptance with presence. We ask for strength, purpose, joy, and connection right now, in this life as it already is.

That kind of prayer doesn’t dismiss hope. It enlarges it. It reminds us that wholeness is not postponed until healing arrives. It is possible today, in belonging, in love, in shared humanity.

Jesus words to the apostle Paul, remind me that grace continues its work growing strength through limitations, carrying us in ways we often may not see. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Making Room

I once wrote about being asked to move to the back to make room. It wasn’t asked unkindly, it was asked with intent to solve a problem. Yet, without awareness, it can carry an unintended message that lingers. Disability is often treated as something that takes up too much space, as if our presence is an inconvenience, or our inclusion is a favor that makes someone else a good person.

Making room for disability is not wasted space. It adds value. Every person has the right to take up space, to belong, to be part of the whole. We are ALL here to take up space! And it is space well used. The space we occupy is not a loss to others, it is our place in the fullness of community that adds to its wholeness.

The Light They Offer

There are special people who show up and offer something different. They don’t rush to fix. They offer light. They show curiosity without judgment, encouragement without agenda, and presence without fear.

Those special ones choose to be present, to see, to learn, to honor what is, to lean into discomfort. Their presence brings light where pity and quick compassion cast shadows.

An Invitation to See

Jonny and I are not alone in these experiences. Many people, of all walks of life, live inside the tension between how they are seen and who they truly are.

So here is my invitation:

Let discomfort become your teacher instead of your excuse.

Let difference become a mirror that shows you what you still need to learn about being human.

And let presence be the prayer that restores more than words ever could.

When we stop looking away, we begin to see.

steps towards seeing a path

Author’s Note:

Writing this piece felt deeply personal. It’s about growth and building bridges, not walls; about letting love and presence speak louder than fear. My hope is that it invites reflection, and honest conversations. I’d love to hear what this stirred in you. What are your thoughts, your stories, your hopes?