Veering from the Pack
It is instinctual to want to belong. Tribe mentality. The only way to survive was safety in numbers.
It stands true today that we can accomplish more as a community, as a team, than trying to do it alone. But. Like anything, there are times where the tribe mentality can be more harmful than helpful. When it costs you your authenticity, costs you belonging to yourself.
It's engrained in us from the very beginning of our lives. And we seek out connection from our earliest days. Part of it is a desire to belong. To be seen as "like" the rest. To not draw attention to ourselves in a way that puts our differences on display, and potentially makes us look weak. I have two distinct memories as a kid that have stuck with me around this. One was being at a pool party, and wanting to be like the other kids who were swimming without their swimmies. My swimming skills weren't there yet, but I refused to be the outsider. So I took my swimmies off and tried to hang like the rest of them. The result? My mother had to jump in and save my ass. The second occasion was in elementary school. I vividly remember puking up all of my school provided chocolate milk and graham crackers all over the other kids artwork. MORTIFYING. Even more mortifying, it happened more than once. Resulting in the teacher declaring that I must be lactose intolerant, and forcing my mom to pack me juice instead. Putting me on full display, once again, as an outsider. As if I wasn't already due to the whole art-puke thing. The reality was that I was just an anxious kid with a nervous stomach and a tendency to barf when nervous (along with a hatred for milk). I think these early experiences inform a lot of our decision making for the rest of our lives. Particularly as many of us grew up with this idea that there was a right way of doing things, a right way of "being," and in contrast, anything outside of that was going to be met with dissaproval. And for many of us, that was detrimental. We just wanted to belong. We still do.
The truth of the matter is- IT'S ALL MADE UP. Anyone can make up anything- including you. Now with social media, there is no limit to the amount of people who can shout out their opinions from the rooftops, and report the information as facts. And maybe their confidence really resonates with you. Maybe it really makes you believe what they're saying is fact, is the only way to do something. The only way to interpret something. The only way of being. And if it does resonate with you, great! But what if it doesn't? Then what? Are you wrong for viewing things differently? Is it more important to belong, or to be authentic to you and your beliefs, and your way of seeing the world? Of your way of doing things?
On the flip side, I was talking to someone recently about a shared situation, that came up really randomly in conversation. The other woman I was talking to said, "I feel so much shame about this because I feel like no one talks about it." Shame. Feeling other. Not belonging. No matter how different you are, how different your opinion, your approach, etc. is- chances are, someone out there shares it. Or someone would benefit from hearing your unique perspective. But beyond the benefit of others, really it's about ourselves. It's about living our truth, whatever that may be. About following our own intuition and path. About the freedom that comes from expressing our own experiences. The last thing we need in this world is more people just doing all the same things. It doesn't lead to growth, to evolution, to all of us sitting in our own power and bringing our uniqueness to the world.
Sometimes when we've been following the "pack" long enough, we may not even know any differently. I stayed in the same job industry for about 10 years. It was all I knew. There were things about it that were amazing, and there were things about it I'm glad were part of my path, but aren't part of my present. But I wouldn't have had that perspective without getting outside of it and creating some distance. Experiencing different environments and different types of people. And when we're finding our way and our path, it totally makes sense that we have to try on other people's ways of doing things. To see what works for us. But when you figure out what does and doesn't work for you, make sure you pave your own path from there. Think about the concept of "misery loves company." It can exist anywhere in your life, but it's often talked about in the workplace. And think about that. We care so much about belonging, of being relatable, that we'll stay in a miserable situation. OR, we just make ourselves miserable by relating to people who are, and eventually we become it ourselves. That's really mind blowing, isn't it?! It can really make you think that everyone hates their job. I know that across all of the jobs and industries I've been in, I've witnessed this.
Unsubscribe. Unsubscribe to the idea that you have to be miserable. That you have to do what everyone else is doing. That your success can only look one way. That your path can only look one way. That you can only look one way. As someone who's spent a lot of time working on myself to get to the other side, to finding my own way in life- I can tell you- it's pure freedom. I’m not saying it’s easy to chart your own path and head towards the unknown. But if you feel called to venture from the pack, come with me. Come to the other side- but come in your own way, and on your own time. There's no one way to do anything.
Xo
