Be the Weirdo Who Dares to Enjoy

If I could bottle up and sell a single magic elixir to the world, it would be a potion of self-acceptance. Because the truth is, as the LP song goes, we are all strange. And I think the world would be a kinder, more joyful, more vibrant place if we could all celebrate that instead of rejecting the weird parts of who we are or trying to force ourselves into conformity.

So this week’s episode is a call to let our metaphorical freak flags fly – even if they’re just those little mini flags and we only wave them in our living rooms. 

There is so much freedom and joy to be found in embracing who we are and letting ourselves like what we like. In honoring our desires and the things that light us up.

Y’all, we do not need to dim our shine for anyone. Or hide our pegasus wings because the horses are jealous.

So, let’s all take a moment and make some more room for the parts of ourselves we tend to try to hide away. Let’s invite them to the table and see what happens when we treat our quirks as assets instead of liabilities.

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Read the Transcript Below

Hello, friend.

Today’s episode goes out to anyone struggling with insecurity, with people pleasing, with worrying what other people think, and all of that inner critic gunk that can come up. This one’s for you. And for me. Because historically that stuff has been a big deal to me too. Yay for personal growth!

And the title of today’s episode, “be the weirdo who dares to enjoy” comes from Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic, which is a book about creativity and tapping into the magic that can unfold when we let ourselves be creative and we let go of outcomes and just play. It’s also a lot about play.

And there’s so much richness in this saying for me about being a weirdo and about the daringness of enjoyment, the courage and the bravery it takes to fucking enjoy the shit out of life.

And that’s weird. That’s unusual. That’s not something that we see all that often. So much of media is full of self -loathing and all of the bad shit in the world.

And so today’s episode is a pep talk for being a fucking weirdo in the ways that we claim our joy and that we really lean into enjoyment of both who we are and how we show up in the world and the things that we like.

I went to the Oregon Renaissance Festival this weekend and there’s a lot of weirdos at a Ren faire. Let me tell ya. And it’s great. I loved it. It was so wonderful. I was not particularly dressed up, but that was just because I don’t happen to have that stuff in my wardrobe – yet! That’s totally possible on my horizon. But there were just all these people who were so happy to be in costume and to be in this magical little environment of make believe.

And so one of the things I want to parse out as I talk about being weird, celebrating being weird, leaning into being weird, is that weird is super contextual. So walking around in a suit of armor at the Ren Faire is not weird. That is what people do. That’s why they go to the Ren Faire. Even the guy that was like walking around in a little gladiator outfit without a shirt on and some mask on, like that wasn’t weird. That was great. I enjoyed that.

But like if you’re walking down the street on a Saturday afternoon in the downtown of most cities in a suit of armor or a corset with your bosoms hanging out, like that’s weird. And while to a certain extent, like I’m not trying to yuck that yum. Like if you want to walk around with your bosoms out or in your little gladiator outfit on a normal ass Saturday, like great. I applaud that and support you. But for the rest of us, I’m hoping to get a little bit more of a like nuanced approach to weirdness.

What I want to play with today, what I want to talk about today is the ways in which the things that sometimes make us feel weird, whether it’s parts of ourselves or the things we like, it’s all contextual. And the more that we can welcome those parts of ourselves, the more we can celebrate and let ourselves like what we like, the more joy and freedom and fulfillment there is to be found.

At the Ren Faire, y ‘all, I got to pet a skunk. Some lovely, delightful, non-employee human of the faire, somebody who just like was coming to the faire, has a pet skunk and they brought that pet skunk in a baby carriage to the faire and I got to enjoy petting that skunk. It was very soft.

This was the highlight of my fucking day. And it happened because some delightfully quirky human was like, not only do I want to gift myself with a pet skunk, but also like, I’m gonna take my skunk to the Ren Faire and let other people pet it. And how marvelous is that?

And I’m not saying that like we should all go get pet skunks. I don’t want a pet skunk. I’m quite content with my cat. He’s lovely. A pet skunk probably comes with a lot more, you know, maintenance than I really wanted to deal with. But like, it was just this beautiful moment of the way that our weirdness can really light the way for others, can bring joy to others.

In the recovery rooms, we talk a lot about coming to see how our experience can benefit others. We share about what we’ve been through, the things that we’ve done, the things that we’re ashamed of and that have been really hard for us. And in that sharing, we get to model vulnerability and we get to show other people that they’re not alone in those experiences and in the hard things and the things that they struggle with.

And that’s an element of what I want to talk about today as well of just this idea that really sharing who we are with the world is a gift that we both give to ourselves and to others.

And that it takes courage, right? There is daring in that. Vulnerability is inherently a risk and a challenge and requires courage and bravery. And there’s a lot of vulnerability in embracing or sharing the parts of ourselves or the things about ourselves that don’t feel normal, the parts and things that don’t align with our vision of normal. But, you know, news flash everybody, there’s no such thing as normal. Gabor Mate has a book called The Myth of Normal.

Normalcy is a myth. We all have these internalized shoulds, these internalized supposed-to’s, these internalized ideas of what and how we’re supposed to be in the world. But those are all fairly arbitrary and contextual.

You know, in Portland, Oregon, in my daily life, I tend to wander around in leopard print yoga pants and a goofy t -shirt. I have a tattoo sleeve – and nobody looks at me twice. Nobody looks at me sideways. That’s super normal for Portland. I’m kind of an outlier in my lack of facial piercings or hairdo stuff.

But when I go to New York City and I just wear, you know, whatever jeans and a t -shirt, clothing and smile at people. I’m a little bit of a weirdo in New York with my smiley smiles. I definitely get, you know, baffled responses and confusion from smiling at people in New York City. And that’s why I live in Portland!

And that’s why Portland feels like home to me – is because I feel more able to just like genuinely be myself, who is a smiley chipper person. And this is a good space for me in that. And this idea of like being at home, feeling at home in our own skin involves both, you know, to a certain extent, like figuring out where we belong geographically, if that’s within your power to change. You know, like some cities aren’t a good fit for everybody. I’m a big believer in that, having lived in a number of different places that didn’t feel like home, having found a few places that did feel like home.

But more than external circumstances and geographic circumstances, it really starts with feeling at home with who I am. Because enjoyment and joy don’t happen when shame or embarrassment are present.

And so a big part of the journey to enjoyment and fulfillment and happiness and love is really turning inward, unpacking those parts of ourselves that we’ve been like, you don’t belong here, I’m gonna put you in the basement and pretend you don’t exist. We can’t really truly experience joy in who we are until we unpack that, until we bring them out and say, “hey buddy, what is it that you actually need? I’m gonna stop banishing you into the basement, right?”

Let’s not be Dursleys to ourselves – letting the Harry Potter part of ourselves stay stuck in the cupboard under the stairs. Like, we don’t wanna be that way. I don’t wanna be that way.

And so, to provide a specific example, you know, like, I’m someone who cries a lot. I’m super sensitive. I process my feelings through my face with leakage from my face a lot of the time. I cry when I’m frustrated, I cry when I’m sad, I cry when I’m hurt, I cry when I’m angry, like just cry, cry, cry, cry, cry.

And for a really long time, I was really frustrated with that aspect of myself. I was frustrated with that weepy part of myself. I tried to control it, I tried to like say like, nope, not right now, can’t do that. And I don’t wanna be that person and what’s wrong with me for being this way? And the more that I fought with that part of me, the more out of reach really loving myself became.

Because like it or not, what I have come to terms with and what I’ve learned to accept about myself is that I cry. I cry. The end. Like, that’s a fact. And the more I can stop arguing with that fact and actually even start to embrace it, the more enjoyment of myself I have access to. And the more I’ve come to see that, like, that tenderness, that vulnerability, that sensitivity is part of my gift.

I’m really empathic. I’m really attuned to how other people are feeling and how to sort of hold space for big feelings. Like, I have so much capacity for holding your big feelings. Like, and if you need to cry, like, I’m here for you, buddy. I’m here for you. I can hold space for that. I know what it’s like. I know what you’re going through.

And that’s a gift. That’s not something that everybody has access to or is able to offer to people.

I have a lot of access to my emotions and it wasn’t until recent years that I learned that like that’s not a thing that everybody has access to. And in that idea of coming to see how our experience can benefit others and also like how who we are can benefit others. I’ve like learned to really be like, all right, like I’m a crier.

And I’ve had people in my life acknowledge how valuable that is. I’ve also had people in my life who are uncomfortable with it, and that’s okay. Because if I can get comfortable with it, if I can just say, this is who I am, this is how I am, and I’m not ashamed of it anymore, then I have so much more freedom to really lean into this idea that I’m fucking awesome, I’m a human, we’re all different humans.

And I have something like really beautiful and valuable to offer the world that isn’t the same as the beautiful and valuable thing that you have to offer or that my brother has to offer or that, you know, the neighbor down the street has to offer.

And so part of like being the weirdo who dares to enjoy and part of the invitation today is like be the weirdo that dares to enjoy yourself to like really look in the mirror and say like, “man! You are a sweet little nugget of a human with quirks and character traits that are unique and sparkly and sometimes outside of the lines, but that’s great.”

And the more that we can do that for ourselves, the more we can show up more fully as ourselves, right? The more we get to be a model for others.

I was having a conversation with a colleague the other day who also has ADHD. She’s a really successful professional. She’s had the opportunity to teach some college courses and has talked to her students about having ADHD. And her students have reflected back to her how inspiring that is to know that it’s possible to have neurodivergence and to be successful. This idea of if you can do it, I can do it too.

That’s how recovery works. Sobriety and 12 -step recovery is formed around the principle of like, if you can get sober, you can show me how to get sober, and if you can get sober, I can get sober too, and then I can show somebody else how to get sober.

And similarly, like if we can model showing up in the world as we are, and finding joy and fulfillment and happiness as we are, and really embracing and welcoming those parts of ourselves that can sometimes seem like a liability, like our neurodivergence or our character traits or our illnesses that feel like they really might get in our way, if we can treat those as assets and highlight the ways that they help us think outside the box or find different and new ways of being in the world and show that in how we show up… Then all those people in our little ripple effect world who get to see who we are and get to see us succeed while being exactly who we are, like they get to draw on that hope and inspiration and we get to be the change we want to see in the world, y ‘all. Like, seriously.

And so big part of the invitation today or invitation part one is to take a moment and welcome in one of the parts of yourself that you feel tender around, that doesn’t feel normal or welcome or allowed. And instead of keeping it locked under the basement stairs, saying like, “hey buddy, I see you. What do you need? Like, how can we work together? What do you want to bring to the table that is beautiful?”

Because the more I stop trying to banish parts of myself, the less shame I feel.

And it starts with an invitation, right? It starts with saying like, okay, I’m not gonna get rid of you. What do you wanna bring forward? How do you wanna be a part of the awesomeness that I am?

And then the second part of the invitation is doing the same thing with external shit too. What are the like hobbies or interests that feel a little weird that you know, you want to lean into but part of you is like, “no, what will people think?”

For me, that was like woo woo shit. I talk about it in passing a fair bit here on the podcast, but you know, like I’m into astrology. I’m into tarot. I like crystals and have a lot of them around my house.

And for a long time, I didn’t give myself permission to really pursue those interests or to really lean in or to even tell people about them because I was worried about what other people would think. I was worried people wouldn’t take me seriously. And yet, part of me was really drawn to that kind of mystical, magical woo -woo shit.

But when I hide that away, when I keep it as this secret that I don’t share with everyone, then I’m internally reinforcing the idea that it is something to be hidden or ashamed about. That it’s not allowed. And so I’m at war with myself. There’s this tension between like, I’m really interested in this and it’s meaningful to me and I’m getting value out of it, but I have to hide it.

And man, I just want us all to not get covered in the gunk of shame and hiding. And I’m not saying that you have to like proclaim at work that you’re super into witchcraft or LARPing or building castles for ants. Right? Or that you’re into astrology. Like work might not be the right environment to be like, hey everybody, I’m super into astrology, can I read your chart?

But it might! You know, who knows? The point is that it’s super important to be able to acknowledge that stuff and feel good about it at home and in my own skin, right? And in my like friend group.

Because the stuff we like is part of who we are. And I just want you to hear this, because I’ll need to hear it from time to time, and I don’t think we can say it enough, but like every part of you, every single part, is lovable and worthy and valuable and welcome.

You have manifested on this earth, whether you believe in sort of spiritual divine appointments or just the random fucking chaos of the universe, like regardless of the motivating force behind it, like, a whole lot of shit came together to make this, like, magical little sparkly thing that is you, and that is unique from all of the other yous who are listening to this and who are out there in the world. And so, like, every little bit of you is worthy and valuable and lovable in this moment, in this world, at this time. And every part of you deserves joy. And there’s no room for shame in joy.

And so my hope for you at the end of this episode is to, yes, like, be the weirdo who dares to enjoy and to find the little bits and pieces of you that need to feel a little more welcome. Whether it’s the part of you that, like, absolutely loves getting dressed up for Ren Faire, but only lets you do it once a year.

Like, what about Ren Faire is delightful? Like, is it that you like hats? Is it that you like more makeup? Is it that you want to dress just a little bit fancier more often, right? Like what is that part yearning for?

And that part of you that you struggle with, that you get frustrated with, like what does it need from you? What are the gifts that it’s actually trying to bring you? And how can you create just a little bit more room and a little bit more space for that aspect of yourself so that you can really lean into enjoying yourself?

Because if you enjoy yourself, other people are gonna enjoy you too. I promise. Like this is a fact. Law of attraction or just sort of general being in the world. Confidence is attractive. Self -love is so attractive. My God. It’s so hot when people like themselves. And not just in the like arrogant way. Like that’s not what I’m talking about here.

I’m talking about the like radiance of people who are like, “I’m great. I know I’m great. And I can show up in the world knowing I’m great. And my knowing that doesn’t diminish you in any way. Like we can all just like be in this place of being great.” Like that, that energy, that vibe, that like aura that people give off, it’s so hot.

And it also takes work. I acknowledge that. This shit doesn’t come easy, especially if we started out with a like real rough start.

But I want to live in a world where like loving ourselves and being nice to ourselves and celebrating ourselves isn’t weird. Like that’s the normal that I want.

And so I hope that you will take a step down the road of that with me and that we can like find community and comfort and joy in surrounding ourselves with people who also want to love themselves.

Rather than like tearing ourselves down, let’s lift ourselves up and lift each other up in the doing.

Let’s all just get a little weird and have a great time in the process.