Being human is the best part
In my teens - I wanted so badly to fit in with the group… any group. I wasn’t a particularly sporty girl, wasn’t a book worm, I could sing but I didn’t fit in with the band geeks. Theatre felt right, but that was unfortunately, quite short lived. It felt like I learned how to be the best ‘everybody’s nobody’. Even now, as an adult I’ve felt the pressures to fit perfectly into some socio-political party… but blindly agreeing with the crowd has never been my strong suit. No matter what I do - I always stick out. That used to make me really uncomfortable. But now instead of forcing myself to be a spiritual yogi who uses big words to poetically describe the human experience… I often find myself coming out of a breath work session saying, “Holy shit… that felt fucking great.”… and, well - that’s just me.
Labels are both helpful and hurtful. They connect us with like-hearted people, but can suffocate us if we aren’t careful. Each of us are dynamic little beings and when we try to squeeze ourselves into a box - we eventually pop out like a jack in the box. Suddenly, scarily and usually dressed like a clown.
I used to call myself a “contradiction”, as if it was a bad thing. I felt so socially frantic because I was so caught up in the image someone else had of me. But our lives are like a movie, and everyone just gets snapshots… stills, photos of that movie. It’s not up to us to determine what photo they get or what they do with it - it’s just really not our business.
And it’s okay. It’s okay to appear as a ‘contradiction’. Confuse people. You were not born for a million people to like you. Or even to understand you. Be an introvert AND the life of the party. Be the baddest bitch there is AND a conscious, evolving light beam. Do your meditation AND drop it low. No more chopping ourselves up into bite size pieces, presenting as a 2d image of who we really are. I hope you get the feeling that you can show up. Fully, wholly you. Because I will. And if you’re anything like me… and I think you are… You’ll know that sometimes we are going to go deep and talk about purpose and meaning, but we will catch our breath again at the surface by laughing at inappropriate jokes, momentarily setting the self-help work down and twerking it out, maybe lighting a j, and being completely and totally human. Because really - that’s the best part.