MMM: On Being Different

What do you do when you feel like you don't fit into any particular community? When there isn't one place that feels like home? When even amongst family, people you have grown up with and have known all your life, you feel out of place?

What do you do when it appears, you turned out to be different?

I was listening to a really fabulous call this weekend with Mary Manin Morrissey (I list her in my "Recommends" section below). I love her because almost every word that comes out of her mouth is transformational.

On this call she says, "The content of our life becomes the curriculum of our own evolution."

In other words, that which we might perceive as our greatest obstacle, is actually the thing that will grow us the most.

So, what if being "different" was just part of the curriculum of our own evolution? What if, in this lifetime, the thing that would advance us the most was embedded in our own individuality?

Because the thing is, what is the alternative?

For years I had Thoreau's saying posted above my desktop because it appealed to my logic. Yes, if I am not I, who will be?

If you are not you, who will be?

Because we can only be who we are. And we only have ourselves to work with. Only we can be in charge of our piece of greatness in this divine plan.

But it doesn't happen if we are not willing to embrace it.

Sure, we'd like to be different. We would rather be an extrovert than an introvert, blue eyed instead of brown eyed, tall instead of short, not freckled instead of freckled, male instead of female or female instead of male, skinny instead of overweight. We would rather be a different race, ethnicity or color. We would rather possess a different skill set, mental faculty, talent or artistic expression. Ad infinitum.

But what if being different was the blessing and not the curse?

What if within this package of who we are, there were nothing lacking? What if, with what we have to work with, we had all the tools we needed to live out our success?

What would we do differently then? Would we stand a little taller, speak a little louder, act a little prouder?

Because the thing is: We are who we are. At what point do we make the decision to claim it?

When does it become okay to embrace the thing we cannot change?

The course of our life, in being different is, as Mary states above, to accept the curriculum of our own evolution. The question is, are we going to drop out? Or are we going to ace it?

We often seek mirrors to reflect back to us who we are. But when we are the kid in school who stands away from the crowd, who makes different choices, who takes a different path, who takes the road less traveled, we don't have the reflectors that say, "you're good, keep going, you're moving in the right direction". There is no crowd to affirm our differences.

We have to do that for ourselves.

And so instead of asking the question, how can we be more like others, we must live in the question, how can we become more ourselves?

And move forward with faith, trust, and a divine sense of purpose.

Make sure this Thanksgiving, when you are giving thanks for the blessings in your life, to also pay homage to the gift that is your unique expression: for all it's given you, for all it's burdened you with, for all it's blessed you with, for all it's taught you, for all it's expressed through you, for all it still has to say.

Because never in all of time, ever again, will there be a life that expresses itself quite like you.

So, celebrate it. While you still can.

To those of you who live in the states, I want to wish you all a very rich, abundant and HAPPY Thanksgiving!

And to ALL of you who subscribe to my memo, in the spirit of gratitude and thanksgiving, I want to say THANK YOU for your loyal readership and your very kind emails. I love writing these memos but I like it even more that you read them! I am lucky to have a venue through which I can express my gifts, talents and the art of being "different" (when there is no path, you create your own!)

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Om Freely,

Sonya