The Cost of Fitting In

On Sunday, Rev. Dr. Larry King asked us to envision where our beliefs and stories about ourselves came from. It's more than just adopting an idea or behavior as we grew up -- we embodied these. Somewhere along the way, we made meaning from something someone else did or said about us, and never questioned whether it was true. A look, a tone, a feeling we got but were too young to understand, and we filled in the rest ourselves.

Leading us through a meditation, Rev. Larry gave us a filter to use on whatever we question about ourselves: would I still choose this if I were completely alone, with no one else's voice in my head? Or a memory, a feeling, something we interpreted differently than it was intended?

Who Told You Who You Are?

Rev. Larry suggested we apply this question broadly: the food we eat, the movies we watch, the partners we adapt ourselves to. If the answer is no, you're editing yourself.

Untangling that takes more than noticing a thought. Some of what we picked up along the way never registered as belief at all. It was simply who we were, until it wasn't.

Rev. Larry didn't spare himself from the question. Early in his career, a promotion depended on trading his overalls and long hair for slacks and a haircut. He took the trade and spent 25 years at that company, working his way up to division manager. And while he didn't hide that he was gay, he never brought his partner to the office Christmas party.

What We Trim to Fit

Family traditions and rituals often hold steady despite a long-lost origin story. Rev. Larry told a story about a family recipe, passed down three generations, with a step nobody could explain. What became a ritual started as a necessity; when the ritual's origin was revealed, they discovered that need no longer existed. (Curious? Watch Sunday's talk here).

That lesson can apply to a lot of what we know about ourselves. Those origin stories may have no reason for being at this point in our lives. As other speakers have pointed out, so much of what we learn about ourselves happens in childhood, long before we can make sense of what that actually means for us. And, long before we can decide if it really fits, or if it's who we even want to be.

When Help Isn't Helping

The hardest example was a former ministry client. A mother was sending thousands of dollars a month to a daughter in active addiction, doing what she thought was the right thing that fit her belief of what a good mother was. To anyone on the outside, though, it looked a lot more like enabling. Rev. Larry asked her a hard question: was she helping her daughter, or making the addiction easier to sustain? Sometimes the role we were taught to play, in this case "good mother," is the very thing standing between us and what really matters.

Ask, Then Take

His question for the week: next time you notice a behavior, or are faced with a choice, ask where it's coming from. What do you actually want, or is it what you think you're supposed to want? While he shared that it may not get easier, it's still a question worth asking.

He closed with an Ernest Holmes quote that gets at why Science of Mind still works: we're dealing with Intelligence, the power behind everything is infinite, and we're already part of it. Ask for what you want. Then take it.

As someone who thinks a lot about what holds this community together, I think it's this (at least in part): we're willing to honor each other as we work to become who we really are, over and over again. It takes practice, and we get to do that here. There aren't many places in our lives where we can question who we are, grow into our authenticity, and still be loved, no matter what.

With gratitude,

Laura