Slightly off Kilter
The Myth of being Normal!
I’ve been thinking a lot about this idea of “normal”.
How it quietly shapes the world around us.
Not always through what’s said directly, but through what gets designed, rewarded, or excluded. Schools, workplaces, healthcare systems. Even the way we talk about wellness, intelligence, and success.
There’s often this sense that there’s a correct way to be and everything else is a deviation.
But who set that standard?
And what happens when you’re not wired that way?
What I’ve observed in myself and in the people I work with is this constant pressure to conform. To shrink or stretch just enough to appear functional. To adapt in ways that look impressive from the outside, but cost a lot internally.
These aren’t people on the extreme ends of any spectrum.
They’re the ones who can blend in, but it takes effort. It takes masking and it rarely leads to fulfilment.
I call us slightly off kilter.
Not broken.
Not too much.
Just different enough to feel the friction.
We’re often perceptive in ways that don’t get acknowledged.
Some of us are neurodivergent. Some are intuitive beyond what can be explained.
Some sense patterns before they’re visible.
Some carry a quiet knowing that’s never been validated.
And still, we try to perform this thing called normal. Because that’s what the world seems to ask for.
I’ve noticed that many of the systems we live within have grown around an imagined centre.
A norm. And whether it’s education, medicine, religion, or ideas around health and productivity, the way they’re installed into society often reinforces this centre.
Not necessarily with bad intentions. But with very real consequences.
The further you are from that centre, the more you’re encouraged to adjust. To cope, to correct, to become more like what the system understands.
This shows up in subtle ways and over time, it can shape how someone sees themselves.
They start to believe they need fixing or that they’re just not trying hard enough.
But that’s not what I see.
What I see are gifted individuals.
Gifted in their ability to feel, sense, perceive, and create.
People who carry insights others can’t reach because they’re not looking in the same direction.
And when these people stop trying to be normal, something changes.
They begin to come home to themselves.
They begin to move differently.
With more peace.
With more power.
With more clarity.
This isn’t about rejecting society.
It’s about questioning the shape you’ve been asked to become.
If you’ve been surviving but not thriving, if you’ve been ticking all the boxes and still feel like something doesn’t fit, maybe it’s not you.
Maybe it’s the shape.
This is what I support my clients with.
Not to help them perform better.
But to help them live truer.
To stop bending towards a system that was never designed for them.
And to start building from who they actually are.
My name’s Earl – The Resilience Guy
Resilience isn’t a grind. It’s a system.
I work with Soulpreneurs and leaders who are done bending themselves to fit and are ready to start building something that fits them.
@Earl Talbot This post really struck a chord with me, having spent a lot of my life trying to fit in, in one way or another. Thankfully I was able to pivot away from that quite a few years ago after realising that I was never going to ‘fit in’ in the wrong places or with the wrong people. I understood that I had my Tribe and my own somewhat unique way of looking at and sensing the world around me that did not resonate or even make sense to lots of people. That was when I stopped expending energy trying to change things that were out of my control and started doing what I felt was right, regardless of the consequences. I decided that life was not a popularity contest and that if it was, I was not entering. We are not the minority any more. There are so many of us who are realising that we have been programmed and manipulated for most of our lives and that we want more. More authenticity, more honesty, more sharing and vulnerability and more safe spaces to grow and explore.