| In my healings over recent months the issue of | | | | think like them or act like them! If this is true for you, |
| isolation is coming up again and again - people feeling | | | | then it can be easy to carry forward this feeling of |
| alone, different, as if they don't fit in with their family or | | | | alienation into the rest of your life, focusing on a sense |
| the people around them. I can completely empathise | | | | of neglect and lack of support. It can be tempting to fall |
| with this as it's something I struggled with for many | | | | in with a bad crowd who may give you an immediate |
| years. I tried to fit in, to make friends within certain | | | | sense of belonging but who, in the long run, only |
| groups but it felt like a lot of hard work for very little | | | | strengthen your sense of being an outsider. I'm |
| return. What I finally realised was that I was looking to | | | | reminded of Hans Christian Anderson's wonderful |
| others for validation, identity, a sense of belonging and | | | | story The Ugly Duckling which illustrates this perfectly. |
| even my own happiness. It was never going to work | | | | The answer is to find "home" for yourself. First, get to |
| because the only person responsible for all of this was | | | | know who you really are, what you love, what you |
| me - I had to find my own centre and source from | | | | care about, the values you live by, your strengths, your |
| which all these things could flow effortlessly and | | | | weaknesses, the dreams you want to chase after. |
| abundantly. | | | | Recognise and understand that you need these things |
| In fact, this uncertainty about who I was and lack of | | | | - your talents, gifts and limitations - to be |
| centredness added to my problem. I was trying to be | | | | acknowledged and accepted and that has to start |
| what other people wanted me to be and emulate | | | | with you. Immediately, you will gain an inner stability |
| those around me because I'd never taken the time to | | | | which cannot be knocked or affected by those |
| work out who I was and what I wanted. When I | | | | around you. Then once you know, love, respect and |
| eventually did, through healing, meditation and spiritual | | | | accept yourself, warts and all, go and find the people |
| development, the truth was blindingly obvious. I'd been | | | | who can love and respect you in the same way. They |
| trying to belong to the wrong crowd! The people I'd | | | | are your spiritual family and you will know when you |
| been working to befriend didn't actually support me, my | | | | have found them because they will make your life |
| values, dreams or goals and I had been subjecting | | | | stronger rather than weaker, they will help you to |
| myself to their negative comments and energy for far | | | | flourish. Limit (or if possible stop completely) the time |
| too long. I had been, indeed, a square peg struggling to | | | | you spend with people who drain your energy and |
| force myself into a round hole. | | | | drag you down. |
| The other important thing to remember is that your | | | | When you know yourself and are true to yourself, |
| spiritual family, those to whom you feel you can belong, | | | | regardless of what other people may tell you, you are |
| may not necessarily be who you think they should be. | | | | working hand in hand with your Soul. As Jungian |
| For many, their biological families cannot accept their | | | | psychologist Clarissa Pinkola Estes puts it, "If you have |
| strangeness and differences from them, wondering | | | | ever been called defiant, incorrigible, forward, cunning, |
| where on earth this little alien came from who doesn't | | | | insurgent, unruly, rebellious, you're on the right track! |