How to Deal with Being Different.

Photo by Thiébaud Faix on Unsplash

Have you ever walked down a sidewalk, and felt like you were being stared at by every passerby. To the point where you thought you might rather return home or wish you could turn invisible? 

Realising that you are different can sometimes be a hard beanstalk to climb. Especially when those surrounding you seem to fit in so seamlessly in the petri-dish you find yourself stuck in. 

Here is the good news. And also, here are some resources so you know I am not smoking something on a lazy Sunday spitting out motivational words to make you feel better for 30 minutes or maybe a day. 

So the first, how I know being different is a compliment and a path not many are courageous enough to embark on, is the legendary writer, Dr Seuss. A writer and author, a one of a kind man able to string together his words and thoughts into meaningful sentences. The great thing is that he initially intended these words for children. Yet here we are. Old-children-adulting, seeking for reason. 

You is you and that is truer than true. 

-Dr Seuss.

There is this ‘famous’ Pinterest quote that reads, “Be Yourself, Everyone Else is Already Taken”. 

This would be an easy saying, perhaps not so easy to live by. Finding your true self and being content with that truth is not always that easy. 

Reading the book, Daring Greatly by Brené Brown talks about vulnerability. Finding peace with being different and unique. Brown also refers to daring greatly and the idea of vulnerability as living wholeheartedly. A quote from this book, “Wholehearted living is about engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness. It means cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think, no matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough. It’s going to bed at night thinking, yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.”

It is important to note here that media and society have been constructed to herd most of us in the same direction. A ‘manifesto’ written by Kelly Cutrone in her book, Normal Gets You Nowhere, has some very good truths. One of the many says, “Do not simply believe what you hear just because you have heard it for a long time.”

You might find yourself in one of those Petri-dishes where you are all expected to display the same under a microscope, you do find people who encourage and support you, finding and being your own unique self. In the book by the therapist, Lori Gottlieb, she writes “…to capture the process in which humans, struggling to evolve, push against their shells until they quietly (but sometimes loudly) and slowly (but sometimes suddenly) crack open.”

Finding comfort with being different is a journey of self-discovery, but definitely worth the discomfort in the process of being, vivaciously, vulnerably and vigorously you.