Today, let yourself bend the rules, take a chance, rebel, be inconsistent, stand out. Give yourself permission to be “new in the now.”
What is so attractive about being a misfit? We Americans glorify our James Deans, Marilyn Monroes, Janis Joplins, Neal Cassadys — our Thelma and Louise outlaws, our rebel geniuses. The American mystique reveres those who burn bright and die young, who are talented yet wounded or deeply confused, those who are vulnerable and shy but show up anyway and it kills them to offer their essence.
Maybe we all feel like misfits — our country is a land of misfits who left their various tribal cultures to make new lives. We champion not fitting in, and being stand-out individuals. I feel this way too — fitting in is like a sacrifice, as though the culture has all the power and once I acquiesce totally to the tribal mind, it will tell me who I can be, and I’ll slowly suffocate.
I want to make sure I’m not buying into a myth that keeps me limited, though. I like what medical intuitive Carolyn Myss says about pulling out all the power cords we have plugged into the tribal mind, and sourcing ourselves directly from our own divine nature instead of from the culture. That when we dare to not feed the culture in the manner to which it’s become accustomed, by not automatically buying into society’s traditions, it rejects and betrays us. This frees us, but it takes continuing courage to buck the system and not do what’s expected.
We misfits have to be careful, though, about getting caught in a mystique based on victimization. Sure, it’s challenging at first to express a different vision, an unusual creative turn, especially to audiences who are used to the status quo. We can get so used to rejection and criticism that we glory in it and miss the next phase of the process where suffering is transformed into love.
Instead of being a victim misfit, we can take the role of teacher, inspirer, leader, healer, entertainer. When one person expresses a new view, the tribe reacts to suppress the disruptive force. But when that person speaks lovingly, inclusively, patiently, encouragingly to the others, they get interested. “Do you mean, I could do something like this, too? Do you mean, I can be free to express and create from my own inner vision?”
This is how the misfits become shamans and holy people, artists and builders, modeling a new way for society to evolve in alignment with inner truth and universal laws, instead of resisting to their death society’s external rules and regulations.
Photo by Emmet Gowan (one of my all-time favorites!)
Copyright by Penney Peirce