You’re Not Here to Be Digestible

You’re Not Here to Be Digestible

I think a lot of us spend far too much time worrying about how we come across to other people. Are we talking too much? Are we too loud? Too emotional? Too excited? Too opinionated? Should we tone ourselves down a little bit so we don’t make somebody uncomfortable? Before you know it, you’re basically carrying around a little imaginary volume control for your own personality, turning yourself down depending on who happens to be in the room.

The funny thing is, we don’t always realise we’re doing it. Sometimes it becomes such a habit that we automatically make ourselves easier for other people to digest. We soften our opinions, hide the things we’re excited about, laugh a little quieter or pretend something doesn’t bother us when it absolutely does. We become experts at reading everybody else and adjusting ourselves accordingly, while barely stopping to ask whether we actually like the version of ourselves we’ve created for them.

But you’re not here to be digestible. You’re not supposed to be universally liked, understood or approved of. There are billions of people wandering around this planet with completely different personalities, experiences, beliefs and preferences. The idea that you could somehow become a version of yourself that everybody finds acceptable is ridiculous when you really think about it. Even chocolate has people who don’t like it, and frankly I don’t know what more evidence we need that pleasing everybody is a lost cause.

There’s also a difference between growing as a person and watering yourself down. Growth means recognising when you’ve got something wrong, apologising when you need to, learning, changing and becoming more aware of yourself. Watering yourself down is changing because you’re frightened that being fully yourself might make somebody leave, judge you or decide you’re “too much.” One makes you more yourself. The other slowly edits pieces of you out.

I spent years believing that being accepted meant being easy. Easy to understand, easy to be around, easy to love. I’m not interested in doing that anymore. I’m still learning, still changing and still discovering parts of myself I didn’t even know were there, but I’d rather do that as the full-strength version of me. If I’m excited about something, I want to be excited. If something matters to me, I want to say it matters. If I want to dress like I’ve wandered out of an enchanted forest carrying crystals and talking about energy, well, at this point nobody should really be surprised.

The people who genuinely belong in your life don’t need a watered-down version of you. That doesn’t mean they’ll agree with everything you say or adore everything you do. They shouldn’t. Real relationships have differences, disagreements and the occasional moment where somebody looks at you as though you’ve completely lost the plot. But you should still be able to exist as yourself without constantly calculating whether you need to become smaller to keep your place in someone’s life.

So perhaps today is worth noticing where you still dilute yourself. Who makes you second-guess your personality? Where do you make yourself quieter? What parts of yourself do you hide because you’ve decided they might be too strange, too passionate, too emotional or simply too much? And then ask yourself what would actually happen if you stopped doing that.

I refuse to water myself down.

I’m not everybody’s cup of tea, and I’m finally quite comfortable with that. Besides, if you keep adding water to tea eventually you’re just drinking vaguely disappointed hot water, and nobody wants that!

Daily Affirmation

Nova x