28/01/2026
Recently, another writer ( Crystal Clarke, PhD )
introduced two new words from South Africa that I just found myself fawning over.
Sawubona
— this ancient Zulu greeting that means “I see you”
And
Ngikhona —
the reciprocation of the greeting which means “I am here”
Because beneath all the metaphysics and models is a very human truth:
Consciousness expands in the presence of being seen.
Identity unfolds when it is recognized.
The nervous system softens when it feels understood.
People arrive into themselves through acknowledgment.
Sawubona is a door into the thing all my writing points toward from different angles:
our existence is relational,
not isolated.
Why a single greeting holds what our culture has forgotten
In Zulu, this is a greeting that carries more weight than a thousand conversations:
Sawubona translates to
“I see you,”
but not in the casual way we use the phrase.
In its original meaning,
Sawubona is an act of recognition.
Not just of your face, or your role,
or your surface — but of your full existence: your ancestors,
your history,
your invisible battles,
your potential,
your humanity.
When someone says Sawubona,
what they’re really saying is:
I see the whole of you.
I acknowledge your presence in the world.
Your story matters here.
And the natural reply — Ngikhona — means:
I am here.
Because you have seen me,
I can arrive fully.
“I am here” is only activated by being seen.
Presence isn’t automatic — it’s relational.
It’s a beautiful invitation to come into ourselves through recognition.
It is not something we see much of today… with all the small talk and unanswered “How are you?”s.
We don’t even give that phrase much weight any more.
When we do take pause to give a reply, it is often not genuine anyhow.
Modern culture has the technical ability to connect with almost anyone on earth, yet the emotional capacity to truly see each other is shrinking.
We have:
endless communication
scarce understanding
constant visibility
very little recognition
performative interaction
almost no presence
We talk to each other’s projections,
not to the person in front of us.
We react to identities,
not to the internal world of another human being.
We form opinions on a surface,
never touching the depth beneath it.
Sawubona cuts through all of that.
It is the opposite of the algorithmic gaze,
the transactional introduction,
the quick judgment,
the flattened idea of a person we build from assumptions…
To See Someone Is to Become Responsible for the Seeing
In many African cultures, to see a person means you now carry a tiny piece of their existence with you.
Sawubona carries the implicit promise:
“Because I see you,
I must treat you as real.”
Your story becomes part of my landscape,
it is something to honour.
It’s the kind of seeing that contains no performance, no branding,
no negotiation for status.
It’s slow attention.
It’s humility. It’s presence. And it’s almost extinct in the day to day of our modern social world.
We live in an era where we present identities like clothing — curated,
aesthetic,
symbolic.
People meet the version designed to protect us,
not the one that breathes underneath.
And because of that, we experience:
connection without depth,
attention without understanding,
intimacy without presence,
conversation without recognition.
Loneliness is no longer a lack of people — it’s a lack of “Sawubona.”
We stand in crowds,
we talk endlessly,
we share everything publicly…
…and yet we still remain unseen.
Recently, I had a moment that perfectly illustrated this.
I ran into a group of people I’d met only briefly before — the kind of passing impression where they “knew of” me,
but had never actually spoken with me beyond surface pleasantries.
As we sat and talked — really talked — I kept hearing variations of the same sentence:
“Oh, I always thought you were…”
followed by a description of someone I’ve never been.
Or:
“That’s surprising — you’re actually much more…”
as if they were meeting a contradiction rather than a person.
It wasn’t malicious in the slightest — just revealing.
They hadn’t ever seen me.
They’d been interacting with a projection: secondhand opinions,
quick assumptions, borrowed narratives from others — everything except direct experience.
(Which, of course, they are not to blame for! They had never had the chance to fully meet me previously.)
It only reminded me how easily we mistake appearances for their realities.
Or a one time impression for their entirety.
How rarely we pause to ask,
inquire,
or witness.
How often we look through the lens of stories,
not eyes.
The Nervous System Recognizes Being Seen
You can feel the difference immediately:
When someone listens with their eyes
When they hold space without trying to fix you
When they aren’t waiting for their turn to speak
When they’re curious about your experience, not your reputation
When they reflect something back you didn’t know how to name
Recognition has a biology.
Co-regulation.
Softening.
Safety.
Integration.
Ngikhona: “I am here” can mean:
my nervous system has arrived into the moment,
because I trust that I am safe in your gaze.
Most people have never felt that.
They’ve felt compliments.
They’ve felt attention.
They’ve felt performance.
But Sawubona/Ngikhona is different.
It is being known.
A strange truth can emerge when you study human development:
We can sometimes discover ourselves through another’s acknowledgment.
Without recognition,
many times,
identity contracts inward:
“I’ll just be who people say I am.”
I’ll play the part they expect.”
I’ll hide what doesn’t fit the narrative.”
I’ll never show my raw edges.”
“I’ll keep myself small to remain acceptable.”
Sawubona dissolves that a bit, doesn’t it?
Because the moment someone says “I see you,”
a different part of you steps forward…
the one that doesn’t need explanation to exist.
Sawubona is not just a greeting — it’s a discipline.
A way of relating.
A way of holding another human’s existence with care.
It asks you to:
pause
look
acknowledge
Witness
Soften
Welcome
Allow
It requires the courage to not project, to not assume,
to not reduce someone to your idea of them.
It’s not easy.
But if practiced,
even subtly,
it changes everything.
Imagine conversations where your first intention is:
“Let me see you clearly.”
Imagine relationships built on:
“Because you see me, I can be myself.”
That alone could heal more than self-help ever will.
Sawubona Can be the Antidote to Loneliness
Loneliness is not the absence of people —
it’s the absence of presence. ( as noted by Carl Jung.)
It’s speaking and never being heard.
It’s existing and never being recognized.
It’s trying to express something true and having it received as noise.
If you look closely,
so many of our collective wounds come from the same root:
We have forgotten how to see and be seen.
Sawubona reminds us that:
your presence is activated through acknowledgment.
Ngikhona is the arrival.
And in that exchange, something ancient returns —
two nervous systems synchronizing,
two lives witnessing each other,
two worlds saying:
I am here because you saw me.
We don’t need more followers.
We need more witnesses.
We don’t need to be more visible.
We need to be more seen.
Sawubona is an invitation into human depth.
To greet someone like that is to remind them:
You are not an object in my world.
You are a world in your own right.
And when someone replies:
Ngikhona —
you feel the truth of it:
you helped them arrive into themselves.💚
