If you’re human, you’re in a dance between standing out and fitting in… because these two impulses are always at work inside of us. 

There’s our conditioning to fit in, rooted in our culture and passed down through thousands of years via epigenetics. It’s tied to the tribal awareness that if we want to keep food on our table and be taken care of when we’re sick, we better fit into the tribe. 

Then there’s the soul’s impulse to bring something new to the world, which requires us to stand out. This impulse is rooted in the soul’s awareness of the much more expansive truth of who you are, what your soul’s intent is for this lifetime (what you came here to do), and why you’re the one to do it.

If that soul contract calls you to be a trailblazer, it’ll require a much bigger dose of standing out than most people ever encounter or have to wrestle with (so if you’re in the ring, be kind to yourself). 

The question is this: how do you dance with these two impulses and needs?

I won’t say it’s always easy, because it’s not. But it can get easier – much easier, in fact. 

It requires two (almost paradoxical) things: to connect so you can disconnect.

CONNECTING: Coming Home to Yourself

If there is ONE thing that will help you stand out with ease and freedom, it’s coming home to yourself by knowing, appreciating, and loving who you are. That’s when you can STAND in who you are. 

When you’re at home inside yourself you stop continually trying to seek a home of acceptance in others. You’re at home inside—and it’s a good home. It’s a place where you can drop into your being and rest inside yourself. 

The further away from this home you are, the more standing out feels scary, risky, and dangerous. The more dropped into your being you become, the more fruitful, fun and freely you can stand out. 

DISCONNECTION: Moving from the Search for Acceptance to the Willingness to Lead

The paradox is that deeply connecting with yourself is what allows you to disconnect from the work you do and the results produced even being about you. The more you can disconnect from the need for external approval, the more easily you can be a steward of the work and conduit for it.

This isn’t about me being liked or accepted. This isn’t about me having everybody go, “Oh, they’re so great.” This is about me leading. This is about me putting a stake in the ground for the people I’m here to lead, and leading them… 

The beauty of all of this is that you become increasingly more comfortable being polarizing. Not everybody will like it. Not everybody will want to be a part of what you’re up to…

But the people that you’re really here for will feel the resonance with it and know that you’ve got what they’ve been asking for. And isn’t that the point? Don’t you want the people that your work is meant for to know it unequivocally? 

That’s when the people who are waiting for you see it, sense it, feel it, and respond to it. Something wakes up in them because you’ve given yourself the permission to go where their soul is calling them to go. Ultimately, they see you as a living key that opens a portal to a whole new world they long for.

What a gift.