Is normality what hides reality to diminish our true appreciation of the present moment when we impose on ourselves a vision to fit into a mold? A mold that the group seems to fantasize in sync but basically each in their own way because you can’t have a unique way of visualizing what is complex.
Is it okay to hurt yourself to become « normal » as the saying goes, no matter what?
Limiting beliefs
To think that there is a noble, clean and unique « way to be » is to believe in fairy tales. And when finally you no longer believe in such stories and fantasies, you feel compelled to pretend you still do to fit a distorted, shapeless image that doesn’t truly reflect your sadly hidden individuality.
The real slips away from our present when we get lost in the semblance, and the absurd theater of life sets in to crush our spontaneous impulses and our sweet fantasies that make life a joyful playground. We therefore live dissociated from ourselves and strangers to each other.
But who is this scary other and why is it so disturbing to face difference? Do the vulnerability and singularity of the other prevent us from being content? Is the other so powerful or perfect when no one is? Does the other have the means to look « so good » while misery is seen all around and some people can no longer hide their stress or as underprivileged, they simply never could.
When we put ourselves down or let others judge us by making their own religious or cultural beliefs the norm, pointing out some issues they may personally be going through but denying or hiding to look good, in addition to economic considerations which unfortunately consolidate all the fake superiority statues in society, we get lost. And when that happens, you’re staring through a dirty windshield, anxious because you’re trying to be yourself without really trying, you’re moving in a fog.
Judgments
I’ve seen so many people label others for traits they themselves have and hide because « it’s wrong », « it’s not normal ». And yet the double standards were glaring, the vulnerability on display, the abuse of power blatant, the oddities impossible to miss. Is it normal to pretend to be normal? And again, what is “normal”?
Many people hide their pain while judging others for quite similar conditions that they dare to address openly and publicly. But what about the children? What will happen to them if we keep pretending it’s « abnormal » to be different? That there is necessarily a good unique formula that everyone guesses but no one really knows?
‘’You make me ashamed », I heard too often when I was young and much older, while I let myself exist proudly, looking up and not down as I used to most of the time. The anguish would have disappeared at these precious moments, the laughter had come to empty the anxieties from my body and mind. So I was ashamed, ashamed of having been rejected in my simplicity, blamed for my natural freedom. I was ashamed to exist suffering from a visceral need to be loved simply for who I was. And I haven’t healed yet.
What wrinkles say
Time passes, we look at ourselves and each other and these timelines imprinted on our skin should tell the story of our freedom to exist, not be the marks of a painful existential emptiness experienced during the years spent doing « as if » only to leave holes in our memories
Instead of moving forward together pretending that we are not the same, because we are singular, let us rather move forward being aware that it is because we are different that we are able to support each other, able to work in society with complementarity.
Growing up with the certainty that many things in oneself must be hidden or changed in order to reach a frightening « normality » is an illusion that hurts a lot when we finally understand that life is a choreography that we must create ourselves. by listening to the music we love, not remonstrances and scary voices that forbid us to vibrate each of our strings to exist proudly. We can exist in our own way, because it is completely normal to be different.
The power of money should not make us forget that it can be easy to lose or gain it, but that dignity is not negotiable and it is by being proud of our individuality that we can protect our mental health and our presence in the world.
Santé Mentalité inc. 