I’ve been feeling the need to humanise myself a little just lately.
It’s all too easy (especially when you see all the ‘highlights’ on the likes of Facebook) for others to see just one side of you…and not the true you…the whole you.
So I want to share some things about me that you may not know, and if you’d like to share anything about yourself that humanises you, please feel free to join me.
I honestly believe that we all share so many experiences, that if we knew these about each other, our connection would be so much stronger…and the world a more compassionate place.
I was bullied at school…just as many of you were I’m sure. Philip B and Christopher W were my two demons.
Over 30 years ago now and I can STILL remember their names.
They used to call be ‘rubber lips’, a ‘boff’ and a ‘show-off’.
They used to take the mickey out of the clothes and shoes I wore.
I used to sneak different shoes to school to stop them picking on my school shoes…but then ended up getting into trouble with both school and my Dad!
It was horrid! They got me into smoking…we used to pick up used butts from the street and smoke them…and I wasn’t much over 10 years old!
And then they used to try to blackmail me…saying that if I didn’t have sex with them, they’d tell my Dad that I smoked.
I didn’t even properly know what sex was then…it certainly terrified the hell out of me so when they said I had to do it with them I was petrified…completely petrified.
At the time this was all going on, my parents had split up and my brother and I were living with my Dad.
I loved my Dad and was happy living with him but these two bullies made my life such hell on a daily basis that in the end I told my Dad that I didn’t want to live with him any more…I wanted to be with my mum.
But I never told my Dad the real reason for wanting to leave…I just needed to get out. I worried that if I told him the real reason, he’d find out about the smoking thing and I’d get into trouble and…I just had to get out.
So I just told him that I wanted to be with mum now.
And you can imagine how that made my Dad feel.
He just assumed for many years that I just didn’t love him enough, didn’t want to be with him as much as I did my mum.
It’s only relatively recently that I told both my Mum and my Dad what had actually happened.
Understandably, my Dad was upset that I’d never told him the truth at the time.
I was still bullied for being conscientious when I moved to my mums, albeit on a lot milder scale.
It was only really when I went to a private school in my teens and was then with girls who were more like I was, that I started to fit in.
So I guess for many of my formative years I didn’t fit in and following my parent’s divorce when I was only 7, I desperately wanted to…I wanted friends and I needed to be liked!
So how does that affect me now?
I certainly don’t like conflict and am quite a people pleaser. Rejection, whether it’s intended or not (and my rational brain knows that it’s largely not) can have a very adverse effect on me…and I have to remind myself continuously not to take things personally.
Which is tough when you run your own business and effectively, your business IS you.
If I’m not included in something, my default position can be to assume it’s a deliberate and personal exclusion. I have to have a word with myself to adjust my internal response.
So it has its effect even now. That ‘stuff’ that happened all of those years ago.
I don’t allow it to wholly change me as a person but it IS part of me and a part that I’ve learned to live with, understand and manage through conscious shifts in my responses.
So when you see me as confident, positive and upbeat, remember that while that’s all still me, I have to adjust my internal responses to life, to people, to circumstances DAILY in order to be that way.
Sometimes it’s a natural demeanour, but depending on what’s been thrown at me on a specific day, other times, more effort’s involved.
There’s a saying isn’t there?
“Be kind. For everyone you meet is going through a battle you know nothing about.”
I always try to remember that and live by it. Because unless we know someone well, REALLY well, we don’t really know what’s going on in their heads do we?
And when people sometimes react to a situation in a way we don’t expect, we can use this saying to give us the compassion needed to appreciate that they may be going through their own battle.
Because we’re all very human…and I think that sometimes, we forget that.
What’s in your past that nobody knows about? Are you willing to share it to humanise the world a little more?
