What If Your Version of 'Normal' Is the Thing Keeping You Stuck?

There is a sentence I wrote recently that seemed to strike a nerve:

“You have the absolute authority to reject the patterns foisted upon you by family relationships, societal conditioning, and early-life survival strategies.”

On Facebook and other places I mentioned it, most people nodded. Some people shared it. A few probably rolled their eyes.

At the time, I thought it was reasonably insightful. Then I went for a walk and realised I was asking the wrong question. The better question was: How would you know which patterns need rejecting in the first place?

Because the hardest thing about childhood conditioning is that it doesn't feel like conditioning.

It feels like normal.

Most of us think we'd recognise an emotional trap if we saw one. That's the problem.

The most powerful traps don't feel like traps. They feel like common sense. They feel like:

·        Being the peacemaker in the moment

·        Avoiding conflict in the moment

·        Putting everyone else first in that moment

·        Coping… moment by moment

·        Never asking for help because it risks getting the opposite in future moments

·        Proving your worth every… single… moment

For years, I thought those things were simply part of my personality. I thought they were evidence that I was resilient. You know… Capable. Independent. A good person.

I didn't realise many of them were survival strategies. And I certainly didn't realise I had the authority to reject them.

As children, we don't get to choose the emotional rules of the households we grow up in.

We simply learn them.

If expressing a need causes conflict, we learn not to ask.

If vulnerability attracts criticism, we learn to hide it.

If approval feels conditional, we learn to perform.

And because we learn these lessons so young, we rarely question them. Why would we? They're normal. And they work moment to moment to moment.

Which, I guess, is how they become our version of normal.

The strange thing is that we can carry those rules into adulthood without ever noticing them. We call them personality. We call them standards. We call them values. We may even quietly think of them as virtues.

Meanwhile they're actually influencing every friendship, every relationship, every decision, and every expectation we place on ourselves.

One of the biggest surprises of my adult life has been discovering that some of my greatest strengths had a shadow side.

Being self-reliant sounds admirable… Until you realise you've become incapable of asking for help.

Being resilient sounds impressive… Until you realise you're enduring situations that should probably have ended years ago.

Being accommodating sounds kind and good… Until you discover you've become responsible for everybody else's emotional comfort while neglecting your own.

For a long time, I genuinely believed that coping was the same thing as thriving.

Now I know it isn't.

Looking back, I can see how many invisible contracts I was living under.

·        Keep the peace.

·        Don't rock the boat.

·        Be grateful.

·        Work harder.

·        Try harder.

·        Carry more.

·        Need less.

·        Prove yourself.

·        Earn your place.

None of those rules arrived with a signature line at the bottom.

Nobody formally asked me to agree to them. They simply accumulated over time with me as their informal champion.

And because they felt normal, I never realised I had a choice.

That's what makes these patterns so powerful. Not that they're hidden. That they feel reasonable.

Freedom rarely arrives as a dramatic act of rebellion. More often, it arrives as a question. Probably a slightly uncomfortable one.

A question like: Why am I still doing this?

Or: Why do I have to live like this?

Or: What do I actually want here?

Because once you start asking those questions, something shifts. You begin separating who you are from what you've learned. Who you are from what you've endured. Who you are from what once helped you survive.

That's when choice enters the picture.

I think many people secretly believe that changing somehow makes them disloyal, or – heaven forbid - inconsistent.

But growth often requires exactly that.

Not rejecting your past. Not denying your experiences. But, instead, recognising that the strategies which once protected you may no longer be helping you. Realising that:

·        The peacemaker is allowed to have boundaries.

·        The over-achiever is allowed to rest.

·        The self-reliant person is allowed to ask for support.

·        The person who learned to shrink is allowed to take up space.

Many people spend years asking: Why am I like this?

It's not a bad question. But, if it doesn’t provoke an answer, at some point a more useful question appears: Do I want to continue being like this?

The initial question taps into the blueprint.

The follow up question gives you permission to redraw it.

I believe that's where your journey towards emotional freedom really begins. Not when you discover why you became the person you are. But when you ask that second question, answer it, and realise you have the absolute authority to decide who you want to become next.

Because none of us gets to choose the version of normal we started with.

But we do get to choose whether we keep living by it.