You are not for everyone
From going to great lengths to fit in - to realising it's not personal, and just being more me.
This has been a tricky one for me.
The notion of not being liked by someone for no particular reason used to come with quite a sting.
What has your experience been?
I spent many years of my life acting from the unconscious motivation of needing to be liked. Or, to put it another way, I would do almost anything to prevent the pain of rejection.
I would please and appease. Be useful. Agreeable. Low maintenance. The rescuer.
I would do what I had to do to fit in. And at times, it cost me dearly.
The thought of not being liked used to poke my deepest core limiting belief: I am not good enough. It's a core limiting belief most of my clients have too - and they've reached a point in life where they can no longer operate from that place.
Along with this belief came the pain and humiliation I would feel with rejection - because I had attached a meaning to it: If I am rejected, there must be something wrong with me. Sound familiar?
I now know this is simply not true. For me or for you.
For years, whenever I got the vibe of not being liked, of being judged, or even the slightest hint of rejection (perceived or real), I would shrink inside.
Ashamed that I wasn’t cutting the mustard with said person, I would immediately feel that I needed to fix something about myself.
I can trace some of this right back to being 13 years old.
I had a boyfriend, and then another quite close together, and my main friendship group collectively turned their backs on me. The heartbreak was visceral.
The only way I knew I had been rejected and ostracised was when, one morning, I was missed out from the walk to school.
Our little ritual was always the same. The first girl would walk to the next house, then we’d collect the next girl, then the next, gradually gathering everyone until our group was complete. We’d arrive at school together, meet up at breaks and lunchtime, then do the walk home in reverse order.
But that morning, they changed the order of the pick-up so they could collectively miss me out.
I watched them all walk past together.
Heads down. Not looking at me.
They just walked past.
I was devastated. Confused. Deeply hurt.
I walked to school alone that day.
And I spent the day at school alone too, with no idea what I had done wrong.
It later transpired that they were jealous because I had a boyfriend, and then another in close succession. But at 13, I didn't know that. I just knew that I had been rejected.
And somewhere in that experience, a little girl learned that being rejected meant there was something wrong with her.
Moments like this are pivotal.
They can be deeply painful and, because the humiliation is so visceral, they can become etched into our memories, shaping our beliefs about how we should behave and who we should be in order to do well and to be liked, accepted and included.
These moments, without a strong sense of self, can steer us away from being ourselves and towards self-abandonment - something I did for years.
I’m relieved to say that as I get older, I care much less about being liked or being popular.
What I want now is to feel free to be me. And I’m the closest to that I’ve ever been. I love guiding clients towards this liberated way of living too.
Like me, or don’t like me.
I now, at last, realise: It’s not personal.
Coming to this greater sense of self hasn’t been without its challenges.
It has taken a lot of work to heal the wounds of rejection, to overcome people pleasing, and to find the self-recognition, belief and worth to know that I am, in fact, a good-hearted soul worthy of love, joy and happiness.
It has taken a long time not only to like myself, but to actually love myself.
And it has meant coming to terms with another reality: I am not for everyone.
And that’s okay.
And neither are you, by the way.
We all have a unique energetic imprint. We resonate with some people and clash with others.
It’s not personal. It’s energy.
Tosha Silver writes about this through the lens of astrology in her book Outrageous Openness:
“I consider each astrology chart like a piece of music. Anyone you mesh well with has a complementary vibe. A harmonious song is thrumming in each of your souls.”
She goes on to say:
“The people who match you one way or another, will come. The ones who don’t will fall away.”
Reading that chapter was a revelation to me at the time. But it took several more years before I could begin to embody the reality of it.
Because when someone doesn’t like you, or you simply don’t fit together, it can still feel personal when you have spent a lifetime believing that rejection means you need to change.
As I have stopped striving quite so hard to be liked, included and accepted, there are people who have fallen away and I have grieved those friendships and connections.
That my inner circle is shrinking has been a frightening prospect at times and those are the moments when I can still make it personal. I can temporarily forget that perhaps we have simply grown apart. That we no longer resonate in the same way.
And that’s okay too.
Most of the time, though, I feel more free. Lighter. More myself.
There is such freedom in knowing that I don’t have to contort myself into a version that will be acceptable to everyone. The only way to do that is become a chameleon. And that's exhausting.
So here it is:
You don’t have to be liked by everyone.
You don’t have to belong everywhere.
And you don’t have to keep yourself small enough, agreeable enough, useful enough or easy enough to ensure nobody rejects you.
You just have to be you.
And that is more than enough.
It always has been.
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