You’re Normal I promise

It shouldn’t be brave to show up imperfect online but it is. It shouldn’t have to take so much courage to show our imperfections, our flaws, our emotions. But it does. It shouldn’t be taught that, unless it gets a lot of likes, our words, pictures, art - our lives, are not enough. But it is. And that’s why I do it. To flex my courage muscle and also to remind myself it is safe to be vulnerable and imperfect. It is normal to show up with all my messy magic. Even if the world tries to tell me it isn’t.

Honestly I think normal is overrated - nothing is “normal” and therefore everything is normal. Plus, normal does not equate to healthy. Many things our society has deemed normal are so totally not ok. We give space and power to ideals and rules that should not be acceptable, let alone normal. We also give power to one version of normal. Everything needs to look like this picture of “normal” that someone deemed the correct normal and if it doesn’t we should feel shame or embarrassment around not fitting into that ideal.

If you were to travel around the world, or look back on different time periods, you would see that what is normal changes drastically. Furthermore, normal can vary so drastically from person to person. I think humans want to feel normal out of a need of safety and connection. We want to be validated in our experience, to know we are not alone, to feel ok for where we are at.

That is why social media and sharing online can hold so much power. It gives people all over the world the opportunity to connect with a wider range of normal that we never have been able to in the past. But, as they say, with power comes responsibility. We must be honest with what we are portraying as our “normal.” If we are choosing to be open and invite people into our lives, we must take responsibility for what we are sharing.

We need more people brave enough to show up as their own unique selves, with all of their imperfections and messy magic.

We need to start creating normalcy around a wide range of experiences. This is so important because it reminds us that not only are we not alone, but it’s ok to be having your own unique experience. Your experience is valid simply because it’s yours. And therefore it doesn’t need to be anything different.

So normalise accepting exactly who you are and where you are at, regardless of what is present for anyone else.

Normalise owning your own, and others, messy magic with confidence and acceptance.

You’re normal, I promise. And you’re also not - and that’s magic.