🩶 TREE 681: Outside in the shades
On Tuesday I wrote about the problem with going all-in to a new thing without working on your interior stuff. It’s easy for me to see that problem because I don’t have it. I have the opposite.
I do work on my interior stuff. I see a trillion shades of grey in almost everything. (Notice the ‘almost’? That’s the grey talking.) I feel like an outsider. I have an outsider’s perspective. I live on the edges of things. I’m fairly mercenary in personality. These traits are useful for my work – being creative for other people.
The down side is never feeling like I fully belong. I’m good at participating. I’m really bad at actually committing to things that involve relationships with people who aren’t my wife and kids.
Some of this is probably who I am and who I will always be.
Some of it has to do with totally devoting myself to God’s plan for my life and then experiencing the evaporation of God. (You can trawl through my autobiographical posts from the summer if you’re interested.)
Some of it is there are things I need to get better at.
I can do something about 2 and 3. I’m not sure what yet.
I’m telling you this because I have a feeling that some of the FFOREST folk may be in a similar place. Other FFOREST folk may have helpful things to share because they have learned to to belong. If you are the former, congratulations! You’re not alone. If you are the latter, please speak up. The rest of us are listening.
Thank you
Jeff
P.S. Secret Santa time is just around the corner. Give your lucky person my book.
You know on Christmas day when the presents are opened but Christmas dinner isn’t ready and and there are a couple people who don’t know what to do? If a copy of my book of short stories goes in at least one stocking in your house this year, Christmas day ennui will be banished.
Hi! It’s me! A couple years ago I even purchased an e-course about how it’s ok to be a lone wolf. Jeeeeez. Participating in group things is kinda painful but in an effort to try and find this proverbial tribe everyone keeps talking about, I keep trying. I do even find weirdos just like me, but I think they feel like they don’t belong either so the connection is lost. It’s the double whammy that the great gold prospector Yukon Cornelius put so eloquently: “Even among misfits you’re misfits.”
To belong somewhere means that we matter to someone. Mattering is the root. And self worth is the root of mattering. The more I shore up my self worth, the less terrible I feel about being an outsider. Some days I need to be cool with mattering to myself. A daily struggle though, that’s for sure! And #1 up there is most likely true.
In any case, I don’t need to feel like I belong here in FFOREST to know that this work of yours matters. Your keen “outsider” ways of looking at the world inspire me to think and you also provide me with the space to make my random comments. In the wise words of Hermey the Dentist Elf, “we can be misfits together!”
Speaking of Christmas, thanks for mentioning your book this week as it reminded me to leave my review! Amazon and Goodreads ✅✅
I usually don't feel like I belong. And I can focus on that feeling...how much I feel like I don't belong, or I can just let it be there—without judgment on the feeling. Also, as I learn to "belong to myself" -- a self-esteem, self-care task--it matters less that I don't feel like I belong, because I'm free to bring myself, my uniqueness, my gifts, into any situation, and be at peace. Feeling like I don't belong--for me--has been rooted in my focus on what other people are probably thinking about me. Surrendering that is an awesome, continual assignment. Thanks Jeff!