If Being Different Is A Crime, I’ll Put On The Chains Myself
The freedom to be yourself, to be different and authentic should not be frowned upon. Being happy with or without a partner, having a strong character, doing healthy crazy things from time to time as a reflection of our joie de vivre should not be criticized. Thus, “if being different is a crime, I will put the chains on myself.”
They say that to face life you have to overcome defensive barriers. Now, but what happens when one / a has already overcome their fears and insecurities and it is the others who dare to wire us up? One thing should not be different from the other. Inner growth, that which allows us to be free and authentic, implies being strong psychologically and emotionally to stop being permeable to the pins of the environment.
Yves Pélicer, a doctor and psychiatrist at the Necker hospital in Paris, is known for offering the general public really easy-to-understand and highly educational psychiatry books. His approach always defends the same principle. Psychology must give us the dignity of being unique and different human beings. Only when we allow ourselves and others to be who we truly want to be will we find happiness.
For this reason, being different – in a world in which the female model is almost always so homogeneous and restrictive – is undoubtedly a personal challenge. We suggest you reflect on it.
The complex adventure of being yourself
In most psychological approaches we are taught the value and need to always be “yourself.” Now, you have to refine the idea a little more. ” Being yourself” does not include temporary or accidental characteristics. Thus, if my partner has left me, it does not imply that I am “someone who does not deserve to be loved”; If I am out of work, I am not, far from it, a “failure”.
Self-acceptance is not related to this type of fortuitous events. Nor does it suppose, even less, to accept what others say, think and expect of us. To be oneself is to make a beautiful fabric with our identity and essence to wrap ourselves with it every day. To be faithful to each of its tonalities, its strengths and try, in turn, to be better as we move forward.
Now, this process of integration and construction of the self also involves sitting down and dedicating time to a single purpose: to really know who we are. Far from being the classic philosophical question, behind it there is a vital aspect.
Knowing who we are implies in turn discovering if the life we lead is in tune with our identity. If I am a positive person, restless and full of dreams, I cannot be next to someone who only speaks to earth my illusions.
All this can be positive, there is no doubt. And there will be women who will. However, what is behind all this is also an “over-demand” : in addition to the implicit rule that we are all equal. The single mother is still singled out. The woman who is happy with her extra kilos is criticized for being sloppy, for not taking care of herself. The one who succeeds and does not want to live motherhood is also viewed with surprise. If she lives motherhood and breastfeeds in public, she is also singled out.
Being different is actually having the courage to be normal. Because normality is precisely being yourself in each of our actions and decisions. What will never be normal is to get carried away by other people’s schemes, by stereotypes and by what others establish as expected, in their desire to control the lives of others.
Being blissfully imperfect in a world that aspires to false perfection is definitely the healthiest thing to do. Because there is nothing better than enjoying the freedom of being oneself without fear every day, breaking every chain that appears in our path and that tries to tie us down.
