The power of being different

Inspiration shot August 2022

I’ve always been different. A loner. A thinker. I haven’t always felt understood. Never really belonged anywhere. Didn’t want to belong. Maybe I told myself that’s what I wanted, because I didn’t understand the social ‘rules’ and how people interact with each other. Over the years I learned the ‘codes’, but they always felt strange to me, like I was learning the rules of a game I didn’t want to play anyway. When I tried to be like others I didn’t feel happy and besides, I never managed to blend in anyway.
Later I discovered how I could turn my differences and previous ‘weaknesses’ into my strengths. Now I can be completely my authentic self.
Many special people have felt like outsiders when they were young (and often still do today). What if we no longer see our authenticity as a ‘disability’, but instead discover its power and learn how to use it?
This Inspiration Shot gives some tips that may also be useful for the kids around us (and our ‘inner child’).

Letter to my younger self

A few years ago, I was invited to contribute to a book, giving my younger self the advice I so badly needed then. As an adult, I wrote everything I needed to know as a child. Read my letter and maybe you’ll write one to your younger self too?

Survivor and bullying

Recently I showed someone the final episode of my Survivor experience (turn on the English captions). The fact that everyone was ‘against’ me and treated me so unfairly still has impact. The only reason I didn’t doubt myself, while 7 people ignored me or argued with me, 24 hours a day for 10 days, was that they started doing that from the first minute we met. If they had waited a little longer, they would have had me believe it was because of me. Now I know it had to come from somewhere else. Of course the entire TV production is aimed to create conflict. I still don’t understand how a group can target a single individual aiming to ‘break’ that person.
How do you deal with outsiders? Do you perceive them as threats? Are you curious about people who are different, or do you exclude them? Do you let yourself be affected when others react to you this way, or can you put it in perspective? What can we learn from this?

Workshop: Find your own voice

Inspiration bites