We live in a society in which so many of us are made to feel invisible.  Victims of date rape on college campuses are shamed into silence, while rapists like the Stanford swimmer get out off with 3 months of prison time. Presidential candidates are allowed to body shame and demean women repeatedly, even during the debates, and the victims are criticized for speaking up. People on the margins, from the homeless, to the drug addicted, to the abused, are not valued because they broke the rules for how to behave, and therefore they have no voice.  Older women, who no longer turn heads, are made to feel invisible, as though their looks is all they have to offer the world.  And women like Hillary Clinton, who dare to run (and possibly win) for president are made to feel shame for campaigning rough and dirty like a man.  She is not just a pretty face– and in fact never was– but she is smart and she is tough and she is very threatening to a lot of people, because she is daring not to be invisible.  At all.

As a woman raising kids, I often feel invisible.  Somehow my kids’ doctors and nurses feel comfortable calling me “Mom.”  I have had to remind many nurses in many offices that the only people allowed to call me that are my kids, and to remember that I have a name, which is Melinda. It is demeaning not to call someone you regularly see by their name.  Before Civil Rights, white people felt entitled to call a black man “boy”, which is thankfully no longer acceptable.  For the years that I was pushing a double stroller with two young kids, I was invisible, because nobody wanted to deal with the hassle and the noise that two babies bring.  I was kicked out of the library multiple times for my baby crying, even though libraries are for kids.  So I wrote letters reminding the library staff that I paid taxes for access to children’s books that my kids wanted to read.  I refused to be invisible.

But on the small things, it’s so easy to remain invisible.  If someone says something that hurts us, how many of us actually speak up?  How many of us share with people that we are religious or passionate about art or care about politics or are struggling with something in our lives?  Or do we instead post happy pictures on Facebook and let everyone think that our lives are perfect?  That’s making yourself invisible by playing small.  To be honest, many of us are so scared about fitting in and being liked, even as adults, that we don’t really show who we are.  I have noticed over the years that since most people know me as a mother and a life and vocal coach, I haven’t talked a lot about my music, even though I have two albums out and I’ve been a professional musician since my late teens. (You can check out my music at www.melindastanford.com.) The fact is I got busy with raising kids and I was surrounded by busy people who didn’t have time to listen to my CD’s so I gradually stopped talking about it.  I became invisible.

Not anymore.  Now that my kids are older and I’m finally coming up for air, I’m making myself heard and known in a way that I haven’t been able and willing to before. The fact is, the greatest gift we can give our kids, other than our time, is the example of putting ourselves out in the world again and again, even if it means stumbling and falling over and over. What other choice do we have? Giving up should not be an option.

Here is one of my favorite quotes from Marianne Williamson, which I’ve written about before:  “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure… We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?” To claim your world stage, notice where you are invisible and take one step to change that.

This is a giraffe hiding, but animals do it for the right reasons

As business philosopher, Jim Rohn, once said, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”  Some of us have dreams we haven’t taken seriously because the people around us are too busy expecting us to be there for them, or to just sit around and be stuck, because that will make them feel better.  Making changes and going to the next level of success can be very tough, because it sometimes means making new choices about how you spend your time and with whom.  If people expect you to be the friend who is always there for them and you’re now working 24/7 to finally get that novel done or to launch the new business, they may be hurt.  This is where setting kind but firm boundaries and saying no more often is helpful.  If we don’t set those boundaries that allow for our dreams to flourish, we can easily get pulled back into what is comfortable and easy–which is not writing, not working, not achieving.  We want to be the good friend, the caring parent, the helpful person who never says no.  But is it worth it, just so that we can be the person who is always there no matter what for everyone?

At the end of your life, do you want to have gone for your dreams or pleased everyone around you?  You get to choose, but it’s not possible to do both. The family and friends who really care about you will respect your new boundaries and cheer you on as you say yes to yourself, one step at a time.  The others will fall away. In order to move to your world stage, you have to consciously choose who gets to come with you and whom you need to leave behind.  So this week, raise your standards for what you can and will achieve and notice who is still standing beside you.