Many years ago, I was in a dark place, so, as one does, I decided to try therapy.
At the time, I was dealing with extreme anxiety and existential dread.
For context: I was planning on starting a family, but the thought scared the shit out of me. I would literally wake up at night and enter spirals of terror.
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This inner calling just wouldn’t go away, despite the intense fear, so I decided to seek out traditional therapy.
I was also learning how to drive at the time, something I had put off for ages due to my particular blend of neurodivergent sensitivity. (And while I know the basics of driving, I still choose not to, because the sensory input is too much.)
All of these issues, combined with my lone wolf nature, made me feel weird. “Not normal.” And so that was, at times, reflected back to me in therapy.
Don’t get me wrong. Therapy is great for many things. But some of its traditional teachings are based on the premise of trying to get you to adjust and fit into society.
This is somewhat cynically affirmed by Sigmund Freud himself, the father of psychoanalysis, who once wrote,
Talk therapy turns hysterical misery to mundane unhappiness.
Mundane unhappiness, eh? Well … that doesn’t set the ceiling very high, does it?!
But, nevertheless, it’s true.
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I started to notice that not only did old school therapy* often seem to reinforce this idea that you need to be “normal and well-adjusted to society” to heal and be successful, but so does every form of media we consume on a daily basis – and almost everyone we’re surrounded by in daily life on a subliminal level.
All these external inputs reinforce the message that “you need to be normal and fit in” to be worthy.
(* Please note that I’m talking about old school talk therapy here. There are newer forms of therapy emerging that are more validating, such as transpersonal, somatic, and trauma-based modalities – some of which I’ve experienced and have benefited from. If you’re in need of serious help, please do seek out therapeutic help. Help from a professional is always better than no help, so keep that in mind while reading this article.)
Here’s Why Trying to Be “Normal” is Costing Your Soul
Some of the greatest souls in history were outsiders, lone wolves, free thinkers, or artistic weirdos who didn’t quite “fit” in.
I think of people like Emily Dickinson, Nikola Tesla, Carl Jung, Frida Kahlo, and Buckminster Fuller – and that’s only scratching the surface.
Trying to be “normal” costs you your soul because it:
- Dims your inner light
- Cuts you off from your wild instincts
- Disconnects you from your innermost gifts
- Suffocates, distorts, and twists you into a tiny box that steals your self-sovereignty
- Causes you to forget who you truly are beneath the mask you automatically and unconsciously adopt, making it hard to find the “authentic” you in the first place.
Feeling empty, stuck, lost, and disconnected are all signs that you may be under the “normal” spell and have separated from your true self.
Indeed, in the words of philosopher and spiritual teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti,
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
How to Reconnect With Your Authentic Self? What I’ve Learned …
Here’s the truth that I see reflected in not only my own experience, but the aforementioned great souls of history:
You don’t need to fit in. You just need to discover your truth.
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By “your truth,” I mean:
- What you deeply value and need on a core level
- What your ‘sacred wound’ is (aka, the transformed pain that you offer as a gift to the world)
- What you are passionate about are deeply drawn to
When I was creating the Soul Work Compass, I kept these elements in mind.
The goal is to help you systematically discover your wound, your truth, your lantern, your commitment, and your purpose – all summarized in a golden document for you to reference daily for the rest of your life.
Without being anchored in our Soul’s truths, it’s so easy to get fooled into thinking “I have to try and fit in” or unconsciously try to “belong to the crowd.”
And don’t think you’re above or beyond this type of behavior either. We absorb it subconsciously each and every day – it’s all around us 24/7, 365 days a year – so it can and often does have an impact, whether we know it or not.
Four Recommendations
As such, reconnecting with your truth ultimately means:
- Discovering your Soul’s ‘origin story,’ aka, core wound, and the toxic core beliefs that keep you stuck in needing to “be normal.”
- Finding your core needs and values to ground and orient your life (see: the SWCC)
- Doing the inner work of self-love, inner child work, and shadow work to cut cords with old thinking patterns and heal unresolved wounds.
- Having daily reflective practice like meditation or journaling that allows you to meet yourself honestly
If you’re new to this path, I would start with a daily reflective practice. If you’ve been on this path for a few years, then I’d move to discovering your origin story, core beliefs, core needs, and core values because they’re foundational forms of self-knowledge.
After that, I’d do more intensive and focused inner work, starting with cultivating self-love.
Embrace Your Weirdness – It is Your Road to Freedom and Fulfillment
That personality flaw you’re embarrassed about … what if you need it to find your deeper purpose?
That weird thing about you that you try to keep hidden … what if it’s your sacred gift in disguise?
So long as you’re not harming others, embracing your weirdness and being okay with “not being normal” is not just liberating, it’s also about reclaiming your power. It’s about walking your own true Soul’s path.
Everyone and everything – even respected institutions like psychology – try to strip away these quirks and smooth them out to make you more palatable.
But the world doesn’t need more blind conformity, sanitized sameness, or empty homogeneity. We need independence within interdependence. We need the whole shimmering spectrum of color.
In the words of poet Ralph Waldo Emerson,
To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
So keep being yourself.
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$3If this article helped you or resonated in any way, please let me know in the comments. Writing about these topics can be uncomfortable and challenging at times, so it’s always good to know if I’ve hit a chord (and whether I should keep writing on these types of themes). Thanks for being here and reading, kindred soul.
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Not exactly toxic positivity’s poster boy, but I like what Charles Bukowski had on his gravestone: “Don’t try.”
Not don’t make an effort, but only act in alignment with your authenticity. Do what unfolds naturally.
I can think of all sorts of artists, individualists and free spirits who were flawed, cranky, contrarian, weren’t exactly consulting their dream catchers and earnestly doing shadow work, but there was a love, passion and generosity to their spirit and they were unrepentantly themselves.
I wish there was a better word than “neurodivergent,” which sounds like the clinical diagnosis authoritarian conformity has always imposed on idiosyncracy to make it manageable, but if it wasn’t for neurodivergence and ungoverned aberration, the human race would still be living in caves, because majority-rules prefers the reassurance of continuing what was done yesterday.
Thanks for these thoughts, Steve. There is an alternative to “neurodivergent” – neurospicy. It’s a tongue-in-cheek way of saying “not normal” 😆 And you make a valuable point about aberration being needed in order to evolve as a species. So true!
I feel particularly other at this time of year when the Christmas Machine gears up and the commercialization is shoved down my throat and people rush to show “they belong”. Your comments on talk therapy resonate with me, I do find somatic experiencing and trauma informed therapy helpful as I deal with C-PTSD and PTSD which is very under diagnosed and rarely addressed inside most therapy modalities. The wounds of narcissistic abuse require inner child work, journaling and body centred focus. The body keeps the score.
Body-based therapies can be very helpful, absolutely.
I like how you phrase it: “the Christmas Machine.”
You might want to check out Roger McFillon at Substack. As a mental health professional he has a lot of good insight about the therapeutic agenda of fitting in which harms folks. Refreshing to hear from a therapist.
Ooh, I’m going to look him up now! Thanks for the suggestion, San. :)
I was visiting a friend years ago, when I found a a book of Sufi. I opened it at random and it said to do whatever you can to be liked by others. It shocked me after hearing being yourself is key to happiness. I read on. The idea was that to be liked is a much more pleasant experience than being disliked. Fit into whatever moment you find yourself. Choose being liked over being yourself. How would address this?
I would need to read the exact Sufi quote to have an opinion. But initially my thoughts are that Eastern wisdom translated through a Western mind can often lead to misunderstanding the original context.
It’s so easy for me to feel like something is wrong with me because I don’t seem to belong anywhere. This is especially true around the holidays. This article was a reminder that I need to align with my own spirit and values. I look at the “group think” today and do not recognize much that resonates with me. I am most at peace when I withdraw from all that noise and static. This article validated my natural loner wolf tendencies just when I needed it. Thank you.
Thank you for sharing this, Belinda <3
Normopathy is wide-spreaded and often invisible. It’s dangerous and not “normal”.
“Normopathy” – now here’s a word I haven’t heard before! But I like it. :)
Great article. If I have any regrets, its that I seemingly took so long to accept my ‘weirdness’, but I guess the ‘Journey is everything’. I’d never change who I am now, except maybe the anxiety I still feel – and that’s a work in progress. I still have core wounds (hip pain), and have tried many ‘therapies’ – all to no avail, so that’s a journey I’m still on,
Thank you for your vulnerability, Marion. <3
Here’s a song for you that I love from an artist I treasure….It goes with the theme you offered today about being normal. https://open.spotify.com/track/3rxCrHQLDfMlZM6pKdxyzR?si=9eee38db90174390
Thank you for sharing, Sage. :)
It’s amazing how wonderful these texts are. As I’ve mentioned several times in other comments, I’ve been through a lot in this life precisely because of people’s need to fit in. We often believe that, in order to be loved, we must give up ourselves to feel a sense of belonging—and that belonging is a good thing, and only then will we be loved. It is an external search in which we relegate self-love (true love) to neediness. However, every time I tried to fit in, I felt that something was missing in me, that it simply wasn’t me. That’s when I came to understand that “being normal” is nothing more than being part of the majority—which clouds one’s own brilliance for fear of the responsibility of letting one’s light shine. Yes, therapy can help in some cases, but as I see it—at least for me—following paved roads overshadows both my authenticity and my truth. That’s why I decided it’s better to be strange to others than to be strange to myself.
“it’s better to be strange to others than to be strange to myself” This is so wise. Thanks for sharing.
“We often believe that, in order to be loved, we must give up ourselves to feel a sense of belonging—and that belonging is a good thing, and only then will we be loved. It is an external search in which we relegate self-love (true love) to neediness.” –– Powerfully said, Hans. Thank you for this insight 🐺
Beautiful article .
I really needed this. I’m tired of being ‘different’ and people have always pointed out how I’m always looking like the epitome of melancholia.
Why can I not, instead of ‘different’, be ‘unique’!!!
This was an eye opener.❤️
I appreciate you sharing this, Aadya. I’m glad you’ve found it validating 💜