Belonging

On finding my voice, and being at home in the wilderness

It was 1981. I was 14, on a Youth Group camp, with my best friend Rachael.

One of the supervising parents took one look at the pair of us, and said, “right you two- nicknames! One of you can be Stupid, and the other will be Ugly”

Quick as a flash, my blond-haired, blue-eyed, bestie piped up “I’ll be stupid!”

At 14, Rachael had already worked out that being labelled a Stupid girl was infinitely preferable to being labelled an Ugly one.

She understood the power of words.

My mother was a teacher, and even as a child, I was good with words. By the age of 8 I had a reading age twice that of my actual age, and a better vocabulary than most adults, and naturally gifted at a lot of things.

By high school, I was nicknamed, depending on which class I was in, either “the dictionary”, or “encyclopaedia”.

But being labelled as “the smart kid” came at a price.

As a child, I learned two important things: one, people generally only like you to be smart up to the point that you appear to be smarter than them, and two, popularity wins over intelligence every time.

As I moved through adolescence into adulthood, I learned to downplay my natural abilities, in favour of fitting in.

In Brene Brown’s book, The Gifts of Imperfection, she writes:

“Fitting in is about assessing a situation and becoming who you need to be in order to be accepted. Belonging, on the other hand, doesn’t require us to change who we are, it requires us to be who we are.”

My parents did the best they could, but they were a product of their time.

As a girl, I was taught that being “nice”, in other words compliant, pleasing, and passive, was more important than being real and authentic. Fit in, at all costs. Don’t rock the boat.

So I learned to always hold back, and to make other people look good, so that nobody could accuse me of “showing off” or being “too big for my boots”. I spent my life trying to please everyone, all the time.

The last five years have been interesting, to say the least.

We had a global pandemic that upended life for everyone. My kids are now adults. My dad passed away, and we buried his ashes next to mums.

Suddenly I was no longer “on call” for everyone all the time.

It was weird. Who was I, when I wasn’t trying to be all things to all people? Did I even know HOW to be truly, authentically, me? I felt pretty stupid for a while. How did such a supposedly smart person get to to this age and not even know who I am? I didn’t know what I liked, but I knew what everyone else liked. I didn’t know what I wanted, because I spent all my time helping other people get what they wanted.

A lot of hard work and therapy later, I realised it was probably BECAUSE I was labelled a “smart” kid that I stayed stuck so long. I was logical, sensible, reliable, realistic, pragmatic, capable, and totally detached from my inner feelings and needs. I lived in my head, trapped by the same expectations and limiting beliefs that had kept generations before me stuck, and helpless to change their circumstances.

One of the hardest things to learn, is that you cant think your way out of a problem with the same mindset that created it.

Change requires a shift in perspective.

I am now at an age where I am more afraid of dying without ever having really lived, than I am of pissing other people off by not being who they expect me to be.

I joined Toastmasters, because I have always been good with words. But I used to let other peoples words define me.

I was good with words, butI used them as a shield. I used them to fit in. I hid my true self behind a wall of knowledge.

Brene Brown writes:

“True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in yourself and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being a part of something and being alone in the wilderness. True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are, it requires you to be who you are.”

Its taken me a lifetime to finally believe in myself, belong to myself, and find my authentic voice.

So now, I want to share my most authentic self with the world. Shine my little light from out here in the wilderness, and maybe, in some small way, help someone else find theirs.