Being cool is not my thing

After this little incident that happened last week, I felt decidedly uncool. And this is the last incident-related post, I swear. I’m pretty sure. (Obsess much?)

Anyway. I want to mention this pretty significant epiphany I had. Because it was huge for me and the way I got there might help you when your own stuff comes up. (Knocking on wood now, promise.) It relates to the fact that my first conscious thought after my heart had lurched into my stomach was ohmygod, I’m not cool. 

Some of my teachers and mentors say that emotional pain is caused by believing a thought that isn’t true, or identifying with a lie. (If you’re wondering how you can possibly have thoughts that aren’t true, I’m going to refer you to your inner lizard. He churns out nonsense pretty much around the clock.)

I’ve noticed that uncovering the exact lie can be a difficult trick to master. Experience helps. So does time. And talking it through with a good coach can work wonders because sometimes we’re so married to our own lie that we have trouble spotting it.

In this case, it’s pretty humbling to admit that I initially assumed my painful thought was everyone’s junior high favorite: Oh crap, I’m not cool. And yes, I know this is really a matter of opinion. Intellectually I get that plenty of people think I’m great. But in the heat of the moment, none of that helps much. And I think one reason that kind of soothing never seems to do it for me is … well … because that wasn’t the real lie.  You’ll know when you uncover the real lie because discovering the truth tastes like freedom.

The lie isn’t that I’m not cool. The lie is that I need to be cool. Whew! What an incredibly liberating relief. I don’t need to be cool. That’s not my thing! My thing is helping people like themselves and feel comfy in their own skin. Which means it’s pretty imperative that I keep liking myself, cool or not. And most especially not.

So this truthiness is all well and good (or rather, all terrifying and ack!-ifying). You might be really scared of facing some stark realization about yourself, because, like Martha Beck writes in The Joy Diet:

“Ironically, the things we refuse to know are by definition things we know already – that’s how we know we don’t want to know them, y’know?”

But the totally crazy and counterintuitive  golden nugget for me is that the truth always feels better than you anticipate. The truth is always more forgiving, more generous than whatever you’re afraid is lurking in the shadows. I was so grossed out by myself to think that not being cool could upset me so much. But actually the idea that I need to be cool makes me laugh. Because the truth is that I don’t. Again, not my thing.

I’m not trying to oversimplify. For some people, being cool is absolutely their thing. We need cool people. They’re the ones that can take an unpopular idea (like, I don’t know, say emancipation, or religious freedom, little stuff like that) and make it trendy, or at least palatable to the masses.

But it’s not my thing. And realizing that tidbit of truth worked wonders in soothing the sting. 

“Learn to … be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not.” ~ Henri Frederic Amiel

Thoughts? Truthiness? I would love to hear about it.