I had always wanted to fit in. Despite the fact that my mom told me at an early age that being different is a gift, I just wanted to be ‘normal’ like everybody else. She often said: “You don’t want to be like everybody else. Being different is beautiful; it is a blessing that you should be grateful for.”
But I didn’t believe her. Having gone through school while most people looked at me funny was not my idea of a blessing. The first few years of my life went very well. I had a great time in kindergarten and preschool. I was open, trusting and social. People found me charming and funny. But as I was growing older, I became more and more sensitive to my environment, I could sense things about people even without exchanging a word, and I quickly learned that what people sometimes said and what they truly felt were very different.
At a very young age, I started seeing angels, fairies, lights, and my dreams became more and more vivid as if I was living another life when I was sleeping. Besides my mother, I couldn’t really talk about this with anyone else. People, even in my own family, either didn’t believe me and thought I made it all up or found my stories upsetting and disturbing because they contradicted their own belief systems. After a while I realized that it was better just to keep things to myself.
I captured this picture in Port Moody, BC on March 4, 2015
When I started attending school, things got even more complicated. I have always valued honesty and I didn’t know how to function in an environment where people were wearing masks and were playing games. I could tell from a mile when someone was lying to me and many times I just knew what others were thinking. But in order to fit in with my classmates, I began wearing a mask too. It was very exhausting. I didn’t talk about my extrasensory abilities even with my closest friends. People thought I was just too sensitive. And I felt myself growing more and more isolated. I buried myself in my studies and just concentrated on my classes and learning. I graduated elementary and high school with honours and got accepted to law school. I was going through life focusing only on my studies and my career, and from the outside I’m sure my life looked very successful.
And there were times when I felt successful. Happy even. My family was proud of me and I tried to ignore everything I saw, heard, felt or dreamed. I just wanted to be ‘normal’ and fit in. I successfully developed a mask, a cloak that I wore around others. But deep down inside I knew I did not fit in, no matter how hard I tried. And some people who were close to me could tell that there was more to me than I let them see.
The initial feelings of success and happiness started to fade eventually and I grew increasingly unhappy and stressed. Keeping up the charade was more and more tiring. And slowly but surely it came to a point when I decided to just accept the fact that I was different. That I would never fit in. And I didn’t have to.
The first step was to be honest with myself. I was born an intuitive and it didn’t matter how much I wanted to ignore this, it would not go away. I also realized that the reason I was not happy with my job and was so stressed was because I was not doing what I came here to do. I chose to study law and to work for the government because I wanted to be ‘normal’ and get away from my gifts. But I could never get away. My intuition got stronger and stronger as time went by. Once I realized that I could actually help others with my skills, my whole perspective changed. I stopped running away from my intuition and started embracing it.
The second step was to come clean with my friends and family. It felt liberating. I didn’t have to pretend any more. I could be just me, no masks, no cloaks, just me. I didn’t care about what others thought of me any more. I finally felt free. That sense of freedom came with a lot of uncertainty though. I had to figure out how to move forward from there.
I am an intuitive. This is what I came here to be and do in this lifetime. This is how I can best contribute. I know there is a long way ahead of me but I also know that the first time in a long time I’m following my path. And being different actually feels good. It feels natural. I know now that my mother was right. It is a blessing and I am grateful for it. Once I found my niche, my calling, being different turned out to be the greatest gift of all.
