Where is your home…what is ‘familiar’ to you?

“I talked to my friend that night. Now I’m talking to the rest of you.
To anyone out there that is at home feeling uncomfortable in themselves even though they do not like it but it’s all they know.
The one’s that feel at home constantly judging and criticising themselves.
The one’s that feel at home with abuse and insults, with rage and jealousy, with being invisible and put down, with frustration and disappointment, with sadness and guilt, with doubt and fear, with discouragement and despair; those are the ones I’m speaking to.
Perhaps it’s time you transformed your emotional home.”

I knew of an incredibly talented young woman once. She had one of the best voices I have ever heard. And trust me; having grown up with a large extended family of singers and choir-mates, I have listened to a number of voices.

She could really sing! No jokes about it. And she wrote her own music too. We had this thing where I would improvise beats for her using my hands and feet, and she would come up with a really catchy tune. She sang of love and survival, she sang of hope and becoming, she sang of the fear and of victory.

She created the best music. And every time I asked her where her words came from, she would answer with her own question “where do your words come from?”

Every time I complimented her talents, she would brush them off. Thinking back to it now, I do not think I ever saw her take a compliment. Whenever anyone opened their mouths and washed her in praise, she acted like a deer caught in headlights. Confused and bewildered.

She would always stutter and her eyes would dart away from whoever was complimenting her. Then she’d bite the inside of her cheeks and the next thing you’d hear was “Sandy, we really have to get going…we have that thing we have to do” she said, all the while grabbing my hand and pulling me in any direction, whichever direction, as long as it got us far away from ‘those’ people as fast as possible.

I knew the routine by now. And the words she said next were words I had repeatedly heard before.

“How can people be so blind?” she began, “I am not ‘that’ talented. Gosh, my voice even cracked when I sang that word…” she always perfectly recalled her mistakes.

And I always stayed silent.

“I don’t know why they can’t see it. I’m not even that good. And I totally stole that line from Adele’s last song… What’s wrong with them?… Me? A musical genius…” she always added a smirk here, then, “let’s go eat.”

And that was the end of it.

When we had just become friends, I tried to convince her of her talent. I repeated how gifted she was over and over again until even I started to sound fake.

But I soon realized that it didn’t matter how many times I said it, she was never going to listen.

Yes, she heard me alright. But she didn’t listen. She had never listened.

And one day I discovered why.

The Year Spent In Silence….

We were at a spoken word event whose proceeds were going to a charitable because my friend had given the best performance of her life. I had never seen her more at home anywhere else than on that stage. She sang her heart out. She had people in their audience on their feet and got a full standing ovation afterward. I was so proud.

The moment she got off-stage, I rushed to tell her. But a certain older gentleman beat me to it.

At first, I thought he was really laying on the praise and compliments because his body language seemed so animated and passionate. But as I drew closer to them, I started to hear bits and pieces of their conversation.

He was criticizing her!

He was really going in on how she could have hit that higher note better and should have sung after the beat at some parts, and how the song was lacking.

This Dude! What nerve!

She had killed that performance! And I was ready to scream it down his throat until I clearly heard her agree with him.

Wait! Backtrack a second!

There she was, in her shiny black dress and silver shoes, hands folded in front of her, agreeing with this man and holding his gaze! She was looking him straight in the eyeballs as he spewed out his comments.

That’s when it hit me. How blind she was. How blind I had been.

For this was home to her. This was her emotional home.

Criticism is what felt like home. That is where she had lived for years.

The genuine compliments we always gave her? That was foreign to her. Unfamiliar!

No wonder she always seemed tongue-tied and nervous, as skittish as a tiny bird caught in a cage, looking for any and every escape from what she considered alien to her.

That was what our compliments were to her; something alien, something foreign, something unfamiliar. And with unfamiliarity comes fear and doubt and a certain lack of comfort.

My heart broke at that moment, for her. For the doubt, she must have felt every time someone said something good about her, the fear that whatever good they’d seen in her was flitting and temporary. Soon they would open their eyes and see her for whom she really was; someone undeserving of approval and applause.

As human beings, we naturally seek what is familiar. It’s a subconscious effort, not something we are typically aware of doing. But, basically, we go for what we know, and we do so because it is comfortable. Simply said, we are creatures of habit.

But gravitating towards what’s familiar may not always be what’s best for us, especially if what we are gravitating towards is dysfunctional and negative.

People who grew up receiving a heavy dose of criticism are likely familiar with and therefore comfortable with destructive criticism, and likely repelled by praise.

Now, you may be thinking, “How can anyone be content with destructive criticism?”

Well, it isn’t that anyone is happy or at peace in criticism or even let’s say misery. However, we can become accustomed to negative energy, sterile environments, emotional neglect, and emptiness, especially if it’s all we have ever known.

Just as your body can build up a tolerance and need for toxic substances, you can form the same tolerance for and dependence on toxic energy.

I talked to my friend that night. Now I’m talking to the rest of you.

To anyone out there that is at home feeling uncomfortable in themselves even though they do not like it, but it’s all they know.

The ones that feel at home constantly judging and criticizing themselves.

The ones that feel at home with abuse and insults, with rage and jealousy, with being invisible and put down, with frustration and disappointment, with sadness and guilt, with doubt and fear, with discouragement and despair; those are the ones I’m speaking to.