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If you have lived your life as an outsider, as a slightly odd or different person, if you are a loner, one who lives at the edge of the mainstream, you have suffered. Yet there also comes a time to row away from all that, to experience a different vantage point, to emigrate back to the land of one’s own kind. – Clarissa Pinkola Estés
I have rarely belonged in my life.
Wherever I’ve gone, I’ve always felt like the outsider looking in.
Even when I have found a morsel of “insiderness,” it has constantly been amongst the misfits, weirdos, black sheep, and those who are introverted, neurodivergent, or highly sensitive. The deep feelers and deep thinkers.
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Perhaps you can relate. Perhaps you know the strange sort of melancholy that comes with being an outsider. One who, in the words of writer and philosopher Colin Wilson, “sees too deep and too much.”
But despite how alienating it can feel to not fit in, to not belong, being an outsider comes with sacred gifts often not accessible to the insider.
In the above quote, Clarissa Pinkola Estés talks about experiencing a different vantage point and moving back to “the land of one’s own kind.” That’s my goal in this article: to help you find a new way of seeing and valuing your outsider nature. Because what you have is a gift.
The Sacred Gifts of the Outsider
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. – J. Krishnamurti
It hurts to be the eternal odd one out, to be the square peg in the round hole, to feel like a stranger in a strange land.
So much of the deepest loneliness we can experience as humans is to feel like an exile amongst our own kind. Whether self-induced or externally inflicted, being an outsider is not for the faint of heart.
In fact, it often takes tremendous courage to choose authenticity over belonging; to be true to our deeper instincts, even when we don’t know who we are or where we’re going yet. All we know is that we don’t want to live out the same old boring life script handed to us by parents, social media, or society.
As someone who has been an outsider her whole life and has spoken to many outsiders through lonerwolf, which is for outsiders (in case the name isn’t self-explanatory enough), here’s what I’ve learned are the sacred gifts carried by outsiders:
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1. Outsiders understand the true nature of belonging
Strangely, as an outsider, you’re more likely to grasp the deeper nature of belonging than the average insider. (By the way, I define an insider as someone who either naturally belongs or desperately seeks to belong.)
True belonging starts first with the self. If you don’t belong to yourself, if you don’t understand yourself and what makes you unique, you can’t authentically belong. If you don’t embrace yourself in all your weirdness, you quite simply can’t belong. If you haven’t explored your inner world, understanding what makes you tick, you can’t truly belong.
Why? Because true belonging requires self-awareness, self-understanding, and self-acceptance. In two words: inner work. It demands living from an authentic self. Without these qualities, we default to a socially fabricated false self. And you can’t authentically belong when you’re living from a false self.
In the words of Brené Brown (emphasis mine),
Being ourselves means sometimes having to find the courage to stand alone, totally alone… So as I dug deeper into true belonging, it became clear that it’s not something we achieve or accomplish with others; it’s something we carry in our heart. Once we belong thoroughly to ourselves and believe thoroughly in ourselves, true belonging is ours.
2. Outsiders see through the lies and delusions of society
Insiders who flock together in their crowds are more likely to fall into the trap of groupthink: the tendency to make judgments and decisions based on pressure or popularity, not what is true.
Groupthink is responsible for so much suffering in the world. It’s responsible for so much narcissistic, irresponsible, and cruel behavior. From the recent TikTok trend of mothers terrifying their small children by showing them a ghost filter and filming it for strangers (which is fucking stupid and abusive if you ask me) to people justifying the genocide in the Middle East and the murder of 20,000 children, groupthink destroys critical thinking and replaces it with delusion.
Being an outsider gives you a different vantage point. Removed from the intoxicating pull of groupthink, you see things as they are, in the brutal, often uncomfortable light of day. (Of course, outsiders can be wrong in their judgments and misguided at times. But they’re less likely to be due to their distance from groupthink’s influence.) It’s a painful but powerful gift.
3. Outsiders have deeper empathy for the plight of others
Being on the outside looking in gives you a deeper understanding of those in a similar position. If you mostly experience love, acceptance, support, and belonging in your life, how can you put yourself in the shoes of those who haven’t experienced that? It’s much harder.
Outsiders find it a lot easier to identify and empathize with the “other weirdos” and exiles out there because they’ve been there. They are there. This is why outsiders often make the most empathetic teachers, therapists, caregivers, professionals, and, in general, human beings.
4. Outsiders are more creative and plugged into the muse
To enter the deeply creative state that Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi called “flow,” you need to step outside of the crowd into a place of focus and solitude. You need to be an outsider.
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Being an insider means you are pulled in many directions. It’s hard to be creative when your life is focused externally and when you care about maintaining the status quo.
Creativity, on the other hand, is by nature subversive. It breaks through boundaries; it questions, it looks at things upside down and inside out. It’s weird. It’s the unicorn in the crowd of sheep. It’s the person dressed as a banana doing the chicken dance in the posh gala. You get my picture.
5. Outsiders are more spiritually aware
This might sound self-aggrandizing, but is it … if it’s true? Look at most of the mystics and sages of the past, and you’ll notice one unifying theme: most of them were outsiders.
They would wander off to deserts, caves, mountains, and the wilderness to be with themselves and the Divine. They would receive visions, messages, and other ‘downloads’ that they would then pass on to others. Sometimes, entire religions would be formed around these outsiders’ insights.
When we look at the archetypes of the wanderer, seeker, witch, shaman, hermit, healer, mystic, and sage, we see that all these are faces of the spiritual outsider. All are on a quest to reconnect with the Divine in one way or another. All need to be on the outside looking in, or, as Jesus said, to “be in this world but not of this world” to achieve their objectives.
Spiritual awareness requires that distance. It requires us to leave behind the skin of the insider and embrace the role of the outsider. This is the path of the lone wolf, the way of the outsider.
***
Being an outsider can feel like a curse or a blessing, depending on the angle you look at it from. What’s important is that you take responsibility for the narrative you create about it.
Yes, being an outsider comes with many downsides. Outsiders have shadows like anyone else. In some ways, they suffer more.
But in other ways, we outsiders experience more depth of thought, feeling, and spiritual insight. We may feel a lot of alienation, but we also have the ability to find more authentic self-belonging, which leads to truer connection with others.
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$3These connections may be smaller – maybe one or two people accept us – but those ties are often deeper than the plentiful but shallow-rooted ones created by insiders.
Tell me, what is your greatest challenge as an outsider? What is your greatest gift? I’d love to hear in the comments.
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A perfect outlet for my inner dialog the last day or so… Ive been contemplating these exact ideas in my mind. Weighing the pros and cons of being such an intune enlightened individual.
Ive been struggling with my awareness recently. Hypervigilant is my minds only mode & the world we live in today is not a wonderful place. I am an individual of action & solutions. I am very morally driven & recently lost my whole life to the in-just system without the ability to fight back & i see it happening all around me as an innocent bystander- having been through similar experiences without resolve has me feeling guilty and helpless all in the same hand.
recently, ive been asking myself… what actual good is all this knowledge, all this ability too see, this deepened understanding… if there is no action… if there is no outlet to apply the gifts youve been given.
leaves me feeling quite useless and without purpose.
I’m sorry to hear that you feel useless and without purpose, happyhippy.
Perhaps there is another form of action that you haven’t tried? Another path or door you haven’t opened. We tend to get stuck in certain patterns in life, not realizing that there’s a whole world of possibilities out there. It only takes a bit of experimentation.
I am experiencing major growth and internal transitions and the one area of worry is parenting. I have always been codependent and others oriented. And as a parent, always overdoing and fitting the role of being the person my parents couldn’t be for me. As I do shadow work and let go of these labels, my tolerance for others has diminished as well as the expectations I place on myself. I find myself falling into states of guilt and self-criticism between self-care and isolation. I can’t be around people anymore which leads to my children not experiencing the play dates, outings and crowded events that they were used to. I just don’t have it in me. It takes so much energy to put the mask back on or to expose myself to chaotic stimuli. I also struggle with balancing between authenticity and having appropriate parent filters. My primary goal is to make sure they have a good foundation for life and lately, I feel as if I’m failing. I would appreciate any advice.
I’m sorry to hear of your struggle, Hana. Shadow work is powerful, but based on what you’re saying (the self-criticism and guilt), it sounds like you’d be best laying off it for a while. Focus on simple self-care and self-love instead. Those provide the best foundation for shadow work. If even that’s too hard, focus on embodiment: getting grounded in your body. Learning to calm and relax your nervous system. Try Holy Basil tea as a wonderful entry point and some yoga stretching each morning or evening.
As for your kids, why not go to the local library? There are many events on in the library that often don’t involve much input from yourself. As a neurodivergent HSP and introvert, that’s where I go to primarily socialize my son. Where I live in Australia, there’s an abundance of programs for kids: baby rhyme time, todder time, lego clubs, craft clubs, and so on.
I hope this helps 💜
Hey Lonerwolf. Your email came at just the right time. I think my greatest challenge is feeling like ” Have I isolated myself too much?” And then after reading your email I feel like it’s the right thing for me to do right now and I’m ok with that. Thanks for your spot on email. Warm regards Henriette
Thanks Henriette for these affirming words and for sharing your experience 💜
We are outsiders because we are different and do not fit within the norms of what society expects of us. But perhaps we aren’t truly outsiders after all—there are so many of us. We just tend to go unnoticed because we withdraw, remaining solitary in our otherness. What you are doing is a wonderful way to bring people like us together—all across the world. 💖
Well said Nicky, and thank you 🌙
Thank you so much for this! Your writing touched me, on a deep level. My biggest challenge over many years has been thinking something was wrong with me when I didn’t feel like I “fit”. Thankfully, this has eased up quite a bit as I have gotten older (I’m 77), and I actually appreciate being ‘different’. I think my greatest gift may be one I am paying more attention to at this point in my life – spiritual awareness.
Ah yes, spiritual awareness. What a beautiful gift 💜
Well now you’re talking!
Burn away the mystical effluvia of woo-woo and you get…YOU. And I’ve got quite a bit of time for Colin Wilson, Krishnamurti or St Theresa of Avila for precisely that reason.
To the earnestly idealistic, pattern recognition can kind of look negative — even nihilistic. It’s not, of course — any more than the shadows are purgatory on a stealthy budget.
It’s like rich-kids-in-rags pontificating about Jungian shadow integration but when the discomfort rolls in they run for the hills — like a performative teenage gothic with ill-advised piercings!
I guess you can’t buy a numinous thrill.
Anyway — great stuff as usual. Keep up the good work.
Haha, thanks Steve. 😄
The greatest challenge as an outsider is loneliness. It’s the urge to have deep conversations with people who only focus on Facebook and football. It’s the knowledge that, after losing a soulmate of 40 years, the odds of finding another one are slim to none.
I know what you mean- I have had that loss too, recently. It’s terrifying to be all Alone again…but i keep getting the nudge- this is for a reason, there is something for you to DO with all this now. Just wait, trust the cosmos, and remember Love still is the basis of everything, however it may look in the moment. Take care of yourself!!!
Lots of love to the two of you. You are seen 💜
Thank you Aletheia Luna and Mateo Sol for your being. My greatest challenge as a 75 year old Outsider has been to accept and understand myself as just one potential perfecting soul of eternal divine creation. My greatest gift(blessing) is finding the truth, beauty, and goodness in that same challenge! You both are loved and appreciated by this soul forever!
Profound and beautiful. Sending love back to you, Scott! 💗
Thanks for this writing, a lot of this resonates with me. One thing I identify more with as an outsider is an otrovert personality because I’m not always introverted. This post brings to mind the book “The Gift of Not Belonging: How Outsiders Thrive in a World of Joiners,” by Rami Kaminski. I’ve healed a tremendous amount of anxiety by accepting and embracing that I never belong or fit into groups, and I no longer pressure myself to try harder to conform. It’s really refreshing to truly belong to and feel most at home with oneself. Loneliness feels like more of a friend now, and though I do enjoy time connecting deeply with other people, I always can’t wait to get back home to myself. Living alone again has made this quite clear.
I’m glad you feel that sense of comfort with yourself, Cara. What a gift 🌙
Wow! This comment came at exactly the right time. Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about being an outsider for as long as I can remember. Of course, in the beginning it was much harder. There was very little information available, and it was difficult to find answers that were good enough to help me understand why I am the way I am. And honestly, I still believe there’s a lot more to discover about that.
Although I identify as an introvert and a highly sensitive person, I try not to label myself too much. I believe that, even when we share certain traits, we’re still unique individuals, different from one another.
And let me tell you, being different isn’t easy. We go through so many unpleasant experiences that we often need to find something that reassures us about who we are. Sometimes it’s painful because even the people closest to us are unable to understand the struggles we face.
Anyone who shares this outsider profile knows that overcoming everyday obstacles feels like a never-ending challenge. However, there’s also another kind of outsider that’s problematic: the outsider consumed by their shadow side. I’ve met outsiders who don’t handle the balance between light and shadow very well and end up becoming just as harmful as some insiders.
The outsider who manages to find the balance needed to move through life, and I’m not talking about performance or success here, but about someone who has found their own inner safe harbor, will be an incredibly fulfilled person.
Despite all the difficulties that come with not fitting in, I can say that there are also strengths and gifts that can be incredibly valuable. Personally, besides thinking outside the box and having a rather original way of thinking, at least according to what people tell me, I seem to have a very sharp perception. It’s as if I constantly see patterns everywhere, which makes it difficult for me to fully identify with ideologies or groups.
On top of that, I have a very strong intuition. It’s almost as if I can anticipate situations and quickly recognize people with bad intentions. What’s funny is that I’ve always been seen as a shy loner, a very reserved person. But it seems that this feeling of strangeness and not belonging is actually a form of sensitivity that makes me experience and absorb everything very intensely. Only those who have these “superpowers” can really understand what that’s like.
What’s even more interesting is that, despite all the criticism directed at certain practices that many people consider absurd, and some of them truly are, it was through exploring and reading certain authors that I was able to understand myself better.
Even so, psychology itself still seems to have many gaps, gaps that are unlikely to be acknowledged because there’s so much resistance toward anything that isn’t considered scientific.
That’s why I always say in my writing and comments that people who identify as outsiders need to trust themselves and reaffirm their values. Otherwise, you’ll often be treated as if you have some kind of pathology, and people will constantly try to change you, unless, of course, we’re talking about a truly serious situation.
Now, if you’re not harming anyone, learn to love yourself unconditionally, including the pain that comes from not being accepted by others. Embrace your own sovereignty and live according to your values and worldview.
Being different isn’t easy, I’ll say it again. But it’s far better to live life on your own terms, even with all the obstacles that come with it, than to spend your life trying to be someone you’re not and living in constant conflict with yourself.
That’s the worst battle of all, because you can travel the world in search of answers and still never understand why you’re dissatisfied and unhappy. The pain becomes even greater because you’ll be dealing with both external and internal conflict at the same time.
So, be an outsider to the external world, but an insider to your inner world.
“I always say in my writing and comments that people who identify as outsiders need to trust themselves and reaffirm their values” –– this is so critical! What you say about the dark side of outsiders is also very true and worth exploring more. Being on the outside looking in can be a tremendous superpower IF it’s guided by a deeper connection to the self. Your last line is also pure gold. Thank you Hans for this thought-provoking share and exploration of your own experience as an outsider! 🌙