How to stop being ignored and overlooked by others

When I was younger, I was used to being ignored and overlooked by others.

Whenever I joined a group of people who were chatting, and I wanted to contribute, others would talk over me. As if I wasn’t there. Nobody reacted to what I had said. As if I had never spoken.

I don’t think people did it intentionally.

Or, at least most of them didn’t. But, nonetheless, it happened a lot. And it was frustrating, disheartening. And hurtful.

Especially as it took all my courage to join the conversation in the first place. And being cut dead just confirmed my belief that I had nothing of interest to share.

Maybe you experience this in your life.

People talking over you, overlooking you or taking credit for things you said or work you did. Without batting an eyelid.

And, like me, you may wonder why this is happening to you. Why other people do this. 

Could it be their egos trying to steal the limelight at your expense? Or selfishly grabbing praise for work they did not do? Are they just so used to you being shy and kinda invisible? Are they taking advantage or mocking you? 

Or, worst of all, is it possible that you really are that irrelevant?

But, in most cases, the answer is something completely different altogether.

The tight-fitting reason why you are ignored and overlooked by others

Sometimes, people will ignore you out of spite. 

They will make a big show of pretending you do not exist to demonstrate that you are inferior to them. Which, in turn makes them feel better than you. It’s a childish and cruel way to overcompensate for a severe lack of self-worth which narcissists will often use.

But that’s not what I am talking about here.

Today is all about what to do if other people ignore or overstep you unintentionally. They may not even realise they are doing it. They just never seem to notice that you are there.

With no evil intention.

This outrageously annoying issue is also related to low self-worth. But not the other person’s this time, but yours.

You see, every person has a physical body and also an energy body. The energy body typically expands beyond the physical body.

You can sense it when a person walks towards you. At some point, when they get close enough, you may feel unease. We tend to say they invaded our personal space. 

What this means is that their energy body started to overlap with yours. Which can feel uncomfortable if you are unfamiliar with the other person.

If we suffer from low self-worth, and especially if it manifests as anxiety or social anxiety, we tend to contract our energy body until it takes up no more, or even less, space than our physical body.

It’s an attempt to make ourselves as small as possible, so we don’t draw attention to ourselves.

So, we can be safe.

Which backfires for 2 upsetting reasons.

The 2 unintended risks of retreating to safety

When our self-worth is low, it may feel safer to retreat and turn your energy body into a skin-tight spandex suit. But this attempt to protect ourselves results in 2 problems:

1. It makes us invisible

Shrinking your energy body is highly effective if you want to be inconspicuous. Your personal energy field becomes so small that you no longer take up enough space (energetically speaking) for others to acknowledge you.

It’s a spandex suit of invisibility. 

Now, if you are a cave person hiding from a mountain lion, this is useful of course.

But, in our modern daily lives, it leads to us being ignored and overlooked by others. Which can be devastating if we don’t know the reason why it keeps happening. Because it makes us feel worthless, uninteresting and irrelevant.

Which further damages our self-worth and makes us contract our energies even more. As a result, we are energetically overstepped even more frequently.

And the vicious cycle goes on and on.

2. It causes anxiety

Our energy body acts as a safety zone around us, our comfort zone. And the more we retract our energies, the less space we put between us and the world and people around us. 

Our safe space shrinks to nothing.

And our environment draws so uncomfortably close that we struggle to breathe sometimes. Which makes everything around us seem more threatening. 

And can really ramp up our anxiety.

The thing is though that nobody deliberately contracts their energy body. It is not a conscious decision. It just happens. 

So, what can we do about it if we want to stop being ignored and overlooked by others (and alleviate anxiety as a special bonus)?

Why the obvious way out of being ignored and overlooked by others will only makes things worse

Chances are that, if your self-worth is low, you don’t feel comfortable confronting people.

You can’t even comprehend complaining to someone who cut you off mid-sentence. Or setting the record straight in front of the whole office if a colleague stole the credit for your work.

It could lead to conflict, criticism, people shaking their heads in disapproval. And the thought of it is enough to make your chest tighten.

And you know what? 

It wouldn’t work anyway. Not in this particular situation.

Look, I am the first to say that you ARE worth as much as everybody else in this world. That you have the same right to be acknowledged, respected and heard as every other human being on this planet.

Because that’s the truth.

But as long as your energy body remains squeezed into the spandex invisibility suit, you will be ignored and overlooked by others over and over again. Not because people hate you. Not because you are worthless, unpopular and insignificant.

But because your energies are not expanded enough to be noticed by others. Energetically speaking, you have made yourself so small that others struggle to remember you are there.

Even if they try.

So, you would have to demand your right to be heard and appreciated over and over again. Which will only result in others thinking you are being belligerent.

For no good reason. 

Because they have no clue that they keep overlooking you.

So, there is only one true way to escape this frustrating cycle.

A powerful method to avoid being ignored and overlooked by others

This problem (like most) isn’t caused by other people. If you asked them why they kept overlooking you, they would be surprised, maybe a bit offended, that you even suggest such a thing.

They just can’t help it. 

But you are not a victim either. You have the power to fix this. And the best news of all:

It’s actually really easy.

You see, the reason why you are being ignored and overlooked by others is that your energy body is too contracted. So, the solution is simply to expand your energy body.

Just visualise your energy body as a transparent spandex suit clinging to your physical body (which is where it is at the moment). Now, take a deep breath in. And as you exhale, imagine you blow up that super-stretchy suit like a balloon. 

See how it gets bigger and bigger, until it creates a protective bubble around you, maybe 3 or even 5 metres in diameter.

Do this once daily and whenever you feel that others are overlooking you.

In the beginning, your energy body is likely to rebound to its spandex size after a while. Because it has been used to contract for a long time.

Just keep going though. And your energies will settle in the new, more expanded and visible position soon.