Feeling different and how to get over it – Part 1

This is the one topic that I believe we all can relate on. There are, of course, those among us that have found a coping mechanism to deal with feeling different, but at the end of the day we all have battled with feeling unique.

Being unique would not disturb many people if others during their childhood, usually, did not make them feel small or insignificant because of being unique. I won’t cast the blame all on childhood memories, but we do need to understand how we feel about ourselves, is, an indirect result, of how we were treated during our most impressionable years.

If you were insulted as a kid it probably, all things considered, would have a greater impact on your psyche than if you were thirty years old and someone called you “ugly” or any other undesirable term. That is because as children repetition has not built up yet. So, with that said, if someone makes a negative remark it sticks much closer, grime and all. When we are older we understand that “people will be people,” so we can shrug a disparaging comment off with greater ease. As a kid, when first impressions seem to mean the world to us it isn’t always that easy.

As a kid I dealt with feeling short. I was shorter than my brothers; for most of my life even my twin. With all the emphasis placed on height, being tall (or looking tall) seemed so important. Women, afterall, could be cruel with remarks such as: Shorty, Midget, Short Stuff, etc. It seemed I had no repreieve. Nowadays, I understand that kids were just being kids. Certainly, most of them weren’t saying it in a mean-spirit (maybe some were) it was just my own personal insecurity which compounded the remark. Which made it worse.

Sometimes we do look at others and say they have it made, they may be tall, have great eloquence, know how to handle relationships, stay out of debt etc., but all the time not knowing that they, in some way, believe it or not, are observing a strength in your life and really admiring that. See, there are two types of people, people who are very aware of their own shortcomings and have a heart for those that do, too; and there are some people that have shortcomings but to mask theirs, tear others down.

Most people are very aware of their own failings, and find it hard to be too critical of others. What you may perceive as a ‘weakness’ may not be thought of in the same was as someone else. As one of the few African-American students in pretty much all of my classes, it was easy to feel uneasy whenever I raised my hand to answer a question, or was called on for my ‘expert’ opinion on sensitive discussions, because, in a sense, you might feel like you have no support. That whatever your answer was, somehow you were the spokesman and speaking on behalf of everyone that was the same color and hue as you.

How to get over feeling different is very much psychological. Since we live from the inside out (not the outside-in) it starts with positive confession. We believe much of the junk that is crammed down our throats, and ears everyday so it should be a cinch to, in reverse, play positive feedback into us, which would change how we feel about ourselves on the inside. Until you do that there can be no consistent change on the outside. Sure, you can shop to you drop, diet, add muscle to your oblique, while that is all nice it’s not changing who you are as a person. Merely substituting the person you are.

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Tagged as: Childhood Memories, Indirect Result, Personal Insecurity, Repetition

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