On my self-hypnosis seminars, my hypnotherapy training and at many other times, I challenge the use of the word ‘normal.’
It gets used in some ways that are not immediately obvious, but are utterly crazy… It is a word that the NLP community would refer to as a nominalisation, that is, it can mean one thing to me and another thing to you and something completely different to someone else. So when it is used, you all agree on what it means, yet it could be (and probably is) referring to something totally different than the other people you are talking to.
And what’s more… What is normal? Who is to say what normal is and is not?
I find it happening a great deal… That is, people telling me how abnormal they are. They grew up in a family that perhaps were all advocates of ‘normalcy’ and insisted that anyone outside of those parameters was the black sheep of the family or just to be labelled abnormal.
Many people grow up thinking they are crazy if they are not ‘normal.’
Someone I spoke to this week had all their abnormalities readily pointed out to them throughout her former years. The ways she was different and in their opinion, abnormal.
Grrrr. This is what kids do. Kids who know no better on the playground point out who is overweight, who has a visible scar, who is wearing different clothes, who likes different music, who is not in the ‘normal’ mainstream.
The adult versions of people longing for normalcy are normopaths. These are people who plain and simply have a fear of difference. They find safety in normalcy perhaps. They even draw parallels with ‘different’ and ‘insane.’ Which I tend to think is not the most sane way to think, is it?
These normopaths go on to create a variety of character traits and life rules that are within the realm of normalcy according to them. Those people that do not fit in with the normopath’s stereotypes are then considered abnormal, i.e., insane.
Throughout my own lifetime, the people whose work I have adored and admired are often those labeled abnormal… And are more often than not the most fascinating and creative people.
Any student of mine or therapy client, if it is appropriate and pertinent is helped to embrace their difference as a sign of depth and beauty. Those who consider themselves normal, however, often need a great deal of support and reassurance to discover that they are not, as they fear, insane and do not need to continue to aspire to fantasy notions of normal in order to feel good about themselves.
Off the top of my head this morning, I think of some of my favourite people… Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Alex Higgins, Jonny Rotten, George Best, Diego Maradonna, Eric Cantona, John McEnroe, Hans Christian Anderson, Oscar Wilde, Bill Hicks, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Marlon Brando, Andy Warhol, Jack Kerouac, and just about every artist I love, every ground-breaking author… The list is endless… How many of these fit in to the classification of ‘normal’? None of them would want to, would they?
Many people attempt to live this life by living up to a rather fictionalised idea of what normalcy is. This then sometimes leaves those of us unable to meet this idea of normalcy potentially feeling bad about ourselves, especially those not equipped with or taught the notion of celebrating their own uniqueness.
Many people experiencing the ideas of normalcy for the first time, start to relate to the issue both personally and professionally.They can have some eureka moments when they step out of the shackles of attempted normalcy.
I think when explained well, any therapist sees the usefulness of pointing out to their clients that their feelings of abnormality are in fact, signs of richness and uniqueness to be celebrated. The discussion can also clarify the fact that those who say they are normal can often be so difficult to reach on any real, connected and emotional level.
What I am suggesting here today is that a person who believes in being normal, thinks of them self as normal and defends being normal may actually, have some emotional problems and those of us who celebrate our uniqueness, our foibles, our quirks, idiosyncracies and eccentricities, may just be much more together… Knowing of who and how we are, with a pride in that and a genuine appreciation of ourselves.
I’m going to have a crazy, insane kind of day, being an absolute lunatic and not doing anything considered normal… I may be in a padded cell by morning and unable to blog, my apologies in advance… 😉
On the bell curve of humanity, the majority (what most would class as normal) is by nature, in the middle, average, mediocre.
So, striving for normality is to strive for mediocrity. Only at the boundaries is genius born 🙂
Very well said Andy, thank you 🙂
I’m at primary school and the annual trip to Cornwall has just been announced. I’m really excited about the trip and I know my friends will be going. It’s first come, first served so I hurry to make sure I get the permission slip and money in as soon as possible. I get everything sorted and hand over my permission slip and pay my money. I’m so happy and I imagine all the wonderful things I’m going to do on the trip, how much I’m going to enjoy the trip and how much fun my friends and I are going to have on the trip.
Then I’m told to go and see one of the teachers. I’m told (in just about the most humiliating way possible) that I won’t be going on the trip. I don’t understand. I got my money in before most people did so there must have been space for me on the trip. I ask for a reason. None is given and, even though I’m young and I could have got the wrong end of the stick, I do sense an element of them enjoying making me feel this bad. As if making me feel bad has really made their day. I burst into tears and get quite upset. My parents complain but they are offered no reason or explanation either.
My friends went on the trip and, the following year, my sister went on the trip so I got to hear all about the trip but I didn’t get to go. Now, there will be some who may say: perhaps you were a disruptive pupil and they didn’t want to take you because of that. Well, firstly, I wasn’t a disruptive pupil and secondly, if that was their reason then why didn’t they say that?
Unfortunately, this was just the start of the “let’s have fun making Martin feel awful about himself” game. So much more humiliation, isolation and emotional bullying to follow. It was a daily struggle which usually began with me being in floods of tears and ended with me running home in floods of tears. I fought for so long with a strength I wouldn’t understand until much later in my life. But I couldn’t fight forever. I tried getting out and, one day, I walked out of the school gates and headed up the road. I was so scared but I knew that whatever was beyond the horizon had to be better than what I’d left behind me. Eventually, the school sent my sister after me and spent the rest of the time laughing about the incident. If I wasn’t wrong as a person than I was a figure of fun.
People have gone through far worse and, perhaps, I’m a little over sensitive to things. But it’s hard to not get a complex about yourself when you go through that kind of thing. I never really took on the negative beliefs and perceptions about myself that had been given to me. Something protected me. Something I am only just beginning to understand. But I was certainly encouraged to think of myself as being “ugly, disgusting, wrong as a person, an outcast, a figure of fun…” the list goes on.
As a child, I just sort of assumed that I’d one day end up happily married and living in a nice house with a dog….you know, the things kids imagine will be their futures if they don’t happen to want to be footballers when they grow up. Going through those things as a child shattered that vision of my future and left me terrified that I would end up alone, that I was ugly and unloveable. It took me a very long time to realise that the opinions of disgraces to their profession and disgraces to the gene pool don’t and shouldn’t matter.
I couldn’t get rid of the negative stuff I’d been given. But I could hold it in place and create a stalemate. It meant I would carry it with me as emotional baggage but it also meant it wouldn’t be able to inform my life. It would sit as the things I would fear might be true but it wouldn’t sit as the foundation of my beliefs about myself. Unfortunately, I’m a man who hedges his bets. The worst thing I did back then was to “cloak” my authentic self. Just in case those horrible people were right. I never pretended to be anyone or anything I wasn’t. What you saw was still what you got but I still cloaked my authentic self. You’d see some of it and glimpses of it but you’d never really see the whole of it.
The negative stuff worked out that joining forces was a good idea so they merged to form a depression that became my constant companion. Never informing my life but always the face pressed against the window of my life looking in. I lost touch with the celebration of who I am that is my authentic self. Amazing people loved me and love me and positive things happened in my life. Every now and then, one of the negative perceptions would give up the ghost and it would cause me physical pain as it left.
The negative stuff had never given up the aim of getting inside and taking over and I began to fear that losing all the negative stuff would mean losing myself. Because that’s what my authentic self is. A self without the negative stuff that I’ve carried for so long. A self comfortable and happy with himself. Even a self who loves himself in a non arrogant way. I feared my authentic self. Release that and I’d be amazingly powerful and vulnerable at the same time. What if, by releasing the authentic self, I became someone I didn’t like? What if people found the power of the authentic self too intense and I ended up alone?
Sometimes, I tried not to let the love of others in because I knew full well that doing so would call to my authentic self. People who love me told me they wished I could see myself the way they saw me.
Confidence is another issue and I’ve managed to create self esteem in the past. But it’s often been like holding onto a bird intent on flight. It didn’t last that long. But now, self esteem is holding and it’s calling to the authentic self. Good things from the past are finally being celebrated the way they should have been all long: as being at least partly because of me. There’s a way to go yet and the battle is getting nasty with the depression scared and ready to use anything to hold on. But to be free of the negative stuff. This isn’t about making sure bad things never happen again in my life. This is about releasing and accepting who I am so I’m better able to deal with any bad things that might happen.
If it’s not too much of an arrogance to make such a request can I say this: I think the release/return of my authentic self could use a bit of a fanfare and I’d love it if that fanfare came in the form of other people celebrating and accepting themselves.
In our differences, we shall find our common bond.
Everything happens for a reason. what happened to you as a child might or might not be entirely your fault or the fault of others. But what is more important is that you realize what it is your supposed to learn from this experience.
I went through some of the similar experiences that you did as a child, but now I have learned that it was mostly me putting myself in those situations. I think, and if you believe (not trying to push any religion) that God has a purpose for it, and I am still trying to find what it is.