Most people aren’t lonely because they lack friends, they’re lonely because nobody truly sees them. In a world of constant interactions, at work, online, or in our daily routines, these moments are often shallow, rushed, and forgettable.
One of the best books I’ve read recently on this subject is from New York Times writer and columnist, David Brooks, who authored the book, ‘How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen’ in October 2023. The core idea of his book was that you can divide people into two camps of ‘Illuminators vs. Diminishers’, with illuminators making people feel recognized, clearer, more important, and the diminishers who make interactions about themselves or forget about the other person (often not on purpose). If attention is now the primary currency in our lives, giving or receiving quality attention is the key difference in seeing others fully.
Let’s go into what ‘feeling seen’ means in 2025 and what it doesn’t because it can get confusing if you’re new to this concept. Feeling seen is not about just agreeing with someone, praising them effusively, being ‘nice’ or ‘kind’, fixing their problems for them, dumping your own problems or inadequacies on them to compensate in return for them sharing their issues. Rather, feeling seen is about being perceived accurately and without judgment often, having your inner logic understood and how you see the world, and feeling that your emotions are being recognized rather than just analyzed and interpreted.
An example of this in action could be a friend, a spouse, or a co-worker telling you, “I don’t necessarily agree with you here, but I understand why that matters to you and I see your perspective.” Being able to let that person know that you know where they are coming from in their views and why it matters to them makes a huge difference in your personal and professional life.
Technological and other daily distractions aside, there are various reasons why people don’t feel fully seen nowadays. Most people are not patient in waiting for their turn to talk, rehearse their response in advance while you’re still speaking, filtering everything through themselves and what they would do, or just not wanting to understand when they listen. If you are not seeing someone enough, start with listening to understand the other person rather than listening to reply or putting themselves in their shoes right away. You cannot see someone else while you’re playing their role in your own mental movies or thinking through what you would do, say, or behave in their shoes.
Like any social skill, there are ways to make someone feel more seen and to build up that skill like it’s a positive habit. The more you use, repeat, and solidify these response tactics, the more comfortable other people will feel around you. First, listen to the emotion that they are carrying with their words even if they don’t express it outright. Train yourself to hear the ‘fear, anxiety, pride, shame, sadness, frustration, hope, joy, etc. that they exude with their cadence and tone beyond the words they are saying. Being able to voice what emotions they may be expressing to you in their words is very powerful and will make someone feel very seen. For example, “You sound disappointed, not angry, about ____.” As David Brooks wrote about ‘illuminators’, seeing people’s emotions clearly even if they aren’t telling you with their words what exactly they are feeling is a very useful people skill.
Second, I think it’s key to asking expanding questions, rather than extractive or basic ones. Good questions open doors to a deeper and more fulfilling conversation while bad questions can feel like an interview or an interrogation. A good question could be, “What part of your work gives you the most fulfillment?”, which can expand the conversation and take that person through a positive memory or a feeling of contentedness sharing what they do for a living in a specific way. Rather than an extractive question that may not lead anywhere that we often hear a lot as “So, what do you do?” If the question helps them understand better or explains why someone does what they do, you’re doing it the right way.
Additionally, some other ways to make others feel seen is to avoid pivoting to yourself right away. You should want to reflect on the conversation rather than redirect it to be about yourself or what you would do. For example, you could say “What I’m hearing from you is ____”, allowing that person to know that you were paying attention but also that you heard them correctly in terms of their viewpoint. Remember to ask questions that open the conversation, not trap it. Name specific strengths you notice. These small moves make someone feel truly seen. A friend once told me they felt burnt out by their job. In this case, just nodding back wasn’t enough, but I reflected on their frustrations with their work environment, and it completely shifted the conversation
Naming the strength(s) and good qualities of a person is also an excellent way to make them feel seen. Instead of calling someone you respect ‘smart, clever, hard-working’, go deeper than that by taking why you think they are that way and what it is specifically that led you to come to that conclusion about them. At a meeting once, instead of saying “Good point. I said, ‘I see why that approach would make sense given the constraints you’re dealing with.”
Lastly, people are unfinished characters meaning that they are complex, deep, and contradictory at times. Mr. Brooks’s book emphasizes the need to have a ‘moral imagination’ about someone to get beyond who you think they are just because you know their politics, childhood, job, worst moment(s). Assume in good faith that there is a lot more going on in a person’s life than you currently understand and try to hold judgment about them based just on the information that you have available about them.
Being seen by another person deeply is a great feeling and is increasingly rare these days. Seeing others requires courage, dedication, and attention, which is in short supply. The ability to see and be seen demands humility, slowing ourselves down, removing our ego armor, and being present with them fully. It is also worth noting that the people who feel most unseen by others end up being the worst at seeing others in response as it becomes a negative cycle. If you’re not seen at all or at least a little bit, why would you want to do the same for others rather than breaking the cycle?
Making others feel seen changes you for the better as a person. When you see others well, your relationships deepen, you become a better leader, your conflicts soften or end, and your own sense of personal meaning grows as a result. As Brooks writes in ‘How to Know a Person’, “To know other person well is one of the highest forms of love.” I think this is a great lesson worth imparting on us all to try to illuminate other people as often as people and to do so in a consistent manner. I’ve seen it personally in my classrooms, work meetings, or even casual coffee chats as people light up when someone hears them and not just nods along.
Try this once today: make someone feel truly understood. Watch what happens. Whether it’s a comment, a reflection, a thoughtful question, a moment of real attention without distraction, you can make a positive difference in that person’s life, especially if they are going through a tough time. You don’t need grand gestures, just presence, attention, and care. In a world obsessed with being seen, the rarest superpower is knowing how to see.
