The Integrated Outsider
Quite a few of the people I coach could be described as outsiders in some way. Often this manifests in their work - they may be self-employed, consultants, business owners, or work in a role with a lot of autonomy.
If this doesn’t appear in their work, they may feel split off from the herd somehow when it comes to social conditioning - they may be a cycle-breaker in family trauma patterns, societal norms, gender conditioning, religious affiliation, and so on.
Now, of course, everyone feels isolated at times, but in this instance, I’m discussing a more pervasive, inherent sense of otherness.
I consider myself a member of this raggedy little bunch. As a child, I often felt like I didn’t fit in anywhere, and honestly, looking back, I often didn’t. I was an arty, intellectual nerd, so I might as well have had a target painted on me in school. I was (and still am) sensitive, intense and introspective, leading to a level of teenage moodiness & angst that was impressive even for the 90s.
The upshot of all this was a lack of belonging, and eventually bullying. Thankfully, I’ve always had deep, soul-level connections with a few, some of which continue to this day. So while I wasn’t really welcomed by the collectives I was in, I still had the kind of meaningful conversation that was pretty much mandatory for me. It’s no wonder that that’s my work today.
Unsurprisingly, my life project for a long time was influenced by this experience. I wanted to not need anyone, and for a while I kept that show on the road.
However the isolated outsider is not that much use to anyone, including themselves. Despite the romantic vision of the artist in the garret, eventually even the artist will tell you that that’s no way to live. While we need quiet, introspection and concentration to recover, to learn, and to create, the completion of the circle requires more. It requires work. It requires application. It requires resources. And ultimately, it requires others.
Eventually, everyone will be forced to face the limits of how far they can go alone.
What then?
When I look at the arc I’ve been on, with a little perspective and a lot of personal development work, I see a logic to it. If I had to describe the steps it takes to complete this circuit, they’d be as follows:
We arrive
We are damaged
We realise that we are
We recover
We go back for the others
We don’t have to complete all these steps - we can stop at any point. We’ve all met individuals who have pretty much stalled at damage, and (sadly, but understandably) don’t or can’t move on from there.
We can try to skip some steps, and this leads me to a key point:
That doesn’t work.
When we try to help others without having done adequate work on ourselves, it’s often just another manifestation of harm, even when the intention is honest. It’s tempting to focus all of our attention on another who is struggling, in order to appear more together in contrast.
It can also be tempting to embrace the language of healing, without actually doing the emotional labour required. We might talk a good game, using all the right terminology, but this can be a very effective way to bypass the real work we need to do.
We can even use our damage as a source of significance, wearing it as a badge of honour, or using it to differentiate ourselves.
These are all probably stops along the way to actual healing, which is dirtier work.
So what’s an outsider to do?
Recovering from rejection involves feeling the feelings that might have been too painful at the time. Accepting the harsher parts of our experience takes courage and maturity. It also takes connection. Harm caused by others requires others to repair. Maybe not the same others, but others nonetheless.
As I learned, the solution to isolation, however tempting it may seem, is not more isolation.
It’s pretty much the exact opposite. What I’m advocating is building meaningful, authentic relationships with people who like you, which might be a little easier outside of the crucible of school. It also means leaning back into relating - learning to discern who to trust, and then bloody well trusting them. Opening your mouth and saying what you feel, to the people who deserve to hear it.
When we do this, we begin to integrate the experiences we have had, particularly the tough ones. This doesn’t mean they never happened. It means we have accepted them, we have felt the feelings they evoke, we have shared them, been listened to, and been believed. Then, our system can file them in long-term memory, where they belong, and they can begin to fade into the past as we move on.
The integrated outsider
Within any individual's experience, in order to fully complete the cycle of healing, we have to heal ourselves first, before we can be of genuine service to others. It doesn’t mean we have to heal perfectly (as if that exists), but just enough.
Once we do the heavy lifting of integrating our experiences, the resources that can be released are powerful.
Over and over, I see the value of the outsider’s perspective in my clients, and in so many walks of life. A consultant can say things to a CEO that an employee cannot. A therapist can elicit self-awareness in a way that a friend can’t. A coach can pose the questions that others are too polite to ask.
We go to these people for exactly that - an objective opinion. What are we actually looking for?
The truth.
Dealing with rejection by others can allow us to be unflinching in our examination of ourselves.
Seeking the source of our exclusion will first sharpen our perception, as we unflinchingly examine ourselves. The search for what was so wrong with us will at its conclusion lead us to the inevitable answer: nothing.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of us.
I often feel like true personal growth requires going all the way back - right back to the original traits we turned up with, and dropping the adaptations we made to fit in. This is what I call “the second self”. It’s rediscovering what we already are, and forgot, or lost along the way. Ironically, the less we fit in, the less adaptation we make, because it never worked anyway.
That’s where the magic happens.
There comes a cosmic “fuck it” moment when we realise there’s no point trying to fit in - it’s not available to us anyway - and we’d better just get on with being the little weirdo we always were.
Bottom line: We are all damaged goods. Repairing that damage can make us compassionate, resilient, and ultimately, a guide to others.
When we realise that, take responsibility for it now as an adult, and do what we need to do to recover, we can offer something truly meaningful to the collective.
