"Quodlibet" by Mimi Stuart ©
Live the Life you Desire
Intimacy requires letting yourself be known, and this requires knowing yourself and accepting yourself, ordinariness and all. To have a fulfilling relationship, you need to be strong enough to acknowledge your failings, to own your talents and uniqueness with equanimity, and to accept your unexceptional qualities with dignity. It takes courage to risk not being accepted for who you are.
The media glamorizes some of the tackiest eccentrics, turning them into celebrities, often making people feel less-than in their every day normality. It causes an unfortunate need to feel superior, special, or even freakish in order to feel worthy of love.
The fear of not being liked is really about not accepting ourselves. It’s easier to accept who we are when we realize that most of the joy we experience comes from authentic commonplace moments when we laugh at our failings, are true to ourselves, and are honest and naked in our simple truth.
Most humor, love, and connection demands compassion for one another. One thing we can all have compassion for is our commonality, our ordinariness.
What can be more ordinary than a shared comedy of obsessive rituals in the face of the fear of flying, the embarrassing things uttered on a first date, or the delight of a great cup of coffee. Notice how comedians get their greatest laughs by highlighting the quirkiness of run-of-the-mill events and thoughts that we all experience but go by unnoticed.
Wouldn’t it be exceptional to be able to experience unremarkable moments as special or even sacred in their very human ordinariness?
Always remember you’re special, just like everyone else.
by Alison Poulsen