Special is deadly

24 Apr Special is deadly

The “I am special” story is the deadliest story there is.

Most of us, if not all of us, have a story. The story goes something like this:

I am special. (Yay!) And that makes me different!

And actually, sometimes, and maybe all of the time, I am so special that other people cannot understand me. And then… as it goes … therefore, I cannot be loved, understood, connected with, or befriended. 

…I stand out. I am different.

This story can swing in one of two ways. Either I am special, ie. better than all of you(s). Or I am special, ie. worse than all of you(s). 

In either case, I am so special, different, unique, weird, iconic, princessy, prince-like, subversive, etc. that I just do not fit the mold and therefore … I cannot, will not, should not, absolutely damn well better not …  be a part of the community, the relationship, the team, the group, the mainstream, or the program.

And while, there may be lots of programs and groups that you do not want to be a part of for various good, rational reasons, all of us definitely need to belong to communities, relationships and families.

Marking ourselves as special implies automatically that somehow we are different and that some unnamed (but implied) other is therefore NOT special. When we get to be special, others therefore have to be the dreaded “basic”. We can’t all be special. Whether we like it or not, our specialness is predicated on someone else being lame. Ouch.

That equation may bother you, but probably not enough to dampen the appeal of being called special. Because being special, being someone’s special something, being the most specialist special something is the most seductive feeling in the world. Isn’t it? Who doesn’t want to be the special someone? Or the special something? Or, oh my God, the specialist some ONE at some THING!? 

Until all of that specialness catches up to you, and your are standing alone, tied up in knots of specialness, and looking around unable to connect with all those (obviously) average people all around you. How could they possible understand someone as special as you?

Special doesn’t always have to feel good. You can also feel so special and DIFFERENT, it can also feel like special bad, special misunderstood, special weird, special broken. And you stand far away and confined by your exceptionality. 

The truth is we are all singular and we are all absolutely not. The story we have told ourselves, and likely been told by our parents and lovers about our uniqueness is just not true. I tell my children every day that they are special and perfect – and that is honestly a terrible thing to say, and it is a culturally trained way to say I love you. Valentine’s Day cards and weddings and Romantic Comedy films fill our heads with nonsensical crap about specialness that ultimately creates a deep craving in each one of us to stand out as the “diamond of the season” (thank you, Bridgerton). However, the longing of our souls and the sustainable need of our humanity is to exist in community, in loving relationship with friends and with many others, and to realize our interwoven similarities over our obsessive need to be unique and different. A world based in commonality heals and repairs rather than creates wedges and hierarchies.

It is profoundly complex work when really you think of it. Overcoming the divide of specialness transcends both the geo-poltical perverse, divergent nationalism, populism, and the individual narcissistic navel-gazing of the twenty-first century. It is humbling work. And I have found, at least from my lens of the very intimate, somatic work I do in my small basement temple, it requires a great blanket of love, emotional intelligence and grace.

I have written on the walls of our space:

One woman’s story is every woman’s story

And I say that phrase almost every class, because it is so easy to forget that we can fall back into each other’s arms and see ourselves in each other’s reflected gaze. 

However, in order to do that, we have to drop the heavy shield of specialness and let others see just how basic, ordinary and common we really are. When we do that, the magical and the specialness become a shared quality of the many – something generated by and with and for the group, and only because our average human was willing to let herself be seen and known.