Find Your People

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There's a lot of research, that does not need to be repeated for this blog, about how community and a sense of belonging benefits the individual, particularly the individual's health. What I am talking about in this blog, finding your clan or your people, does not have to do with that research or physical health. It has to do with mental health, growing into who you are authentically, and leaving behind exhausting social norms we follow to fit in or get along in the work place and life in general.

Although you could, or at least some of us could, be fairly content being alone a good deal of the time, do you have a sense about why that is? Is it because being alone is at least better than spending the energy it takes to "fit in" at work or "act as if" everything is great? My sense is that, yes, being alone is at least better than being around others where you feel the need to put on a certain look on your face, or act a certain way, or comply with certain rules and social norms. Somewhere in the world of "what's expected", we lose our authentic selves. We lose our creative style, our sense of self expression, and our sense that everything is okay just as it is. Being other than who we are inside, is tiring, sometimes even exhausting.

I understand that there are reasons for some social norms. Businesses want a certain look. Work places have policies and codes, so everyone knows what to expect. Hierarchies are adhered to, and people "stay in their place". There's a sense of order and expectation that creates a society. However, again, being away from all of that, home alone, allows for you to create who you are outside of that. It's very freeing - so freeing that sometimes we don't even want to leave our house if we have to stifle that.

However, there's a way to be among others and be your authentic self, to be different, to not adhere to social norms, and still have socialization. After all, we are social beings; we need connection. The way to do this is to find your clan, your people, people who also embrace authenticity. This is not to say to find people just like you, so you can get together to talk about people who are not "just like you". That is something different altogether.

This is an urge to you to find people you feel safe around. People who don't need you to dress like them, and want you to dress however you want to dress. People who do not care what you are wearing or what you are up to, not because they do not care about you, but because they support you however you are and whatever you are pursuing. People who don't have an opinion about how you "should" be. They just love you.

Sometimes this can be family, but often it's not. That is why I urge you to search, be on the look out, try things and join things, so you're clan will be revealed to you. Because finding your clan is hands down better than being alone.

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Please contact us if you want to schedule an appointment. Mental health matters.