We’ve had a big weekend in the Marshall house, with the last day of school coinciding with my son entering double digits. There’s been lots of partying, lots of taxi-ing (and dodging traffic) and of course, lots of cake.

As we tucked into the cake I had made with the finest of my dark chocolate stash, I asked my kids for their verdict.

“What’s a verdict?” asked my son.

“Kind of like what they do in Masterchef.” I told him.

“Well it is a little bit dry, and the chocolate is a bit too rich, and I would prefer Smarties instead of M&Ms…” he started

“Yeah and the M&Ms aren’t in a pattern…” my daughter chimed in.

They tore my cake apart.

Hang on. Something wasn’t right. What I was hearing did not add up with this slice of heaven I was tasting, so I changed the question: “Do you like it?”

“YEAH!” came the resounding answer.

Isn’t it funny how what we choose to see, and say, can completely redefine our experience? (And when we go looking for things to criticise, we can miss the glaringly obvious, that what we have is good)

This weekend hasn’t just been full of fun and cake. A couple of my good friends are currently going through some really tough times. When I was searching for something to encourage them, I came across this in some notes I made last year:

“I see you.”

“Then I am alive.”

I’m told it’s a Zulu greeting, a beautiful way of saying hello.

What we see we bring alive. When we are seen, we come alive. 

To one of my friends I told her I saw strength. Even if she didn’t feel it right now, I can see it, therefore it is alive. In a coaching conversation last week, as a client described to me her fear and doubt when trying to prove herself in a new arena, I saw evidence of the very thing she didn’t feel confident in. I saw it in plain sight, but it wasn’t until I spoke it out that she saw it too.

We all find ourselves in that place from time to time, where we need someone to see something inside of us to know that it is there. For someone to say “I see you, and this is what I see in you”, for a word of encouragement to speak life into it, and into you.

Who can you encourage today? What do you see in them, that they may need reminding of? What can you speak life into today?

It goes the other way too. What we see, we bring into being. As the saying goes,

“Worrying is using your imagination to create something you don’t want.” – Abraham Hicks

When we focus on the things we don’t want, we bring them to life too. As human beings, we have an amazing ability to create something out of nothing. Everything we create starts in our imagination. It begins with what we see.

When we see fear and frustration, that’s what we bring alive. When we see hope, strength, possibility and courage, those are the things that come alive in us.

What will you create today with your imagination? What do you need to see? What vision do you need to reimagine, to bring back to life?

I’d love to know your thoughts – what do you see? And what do you need to see? Let me know in the comments below, and give me a shout if you’d like to do some reimagining together.