You're not normal.

On growing up, letting go, and being human.

For most of my twenties, some part of me was wishing that I could do what ‘normal’ people do — go out, party, drink, basically enjoy being young.

This part of me was frustrated, and underneath, scared, that I was different than other people. I began earnestly walking a spiritual path when I was 17 years old, and try as I might, I couldn’t turn off who I really was. I pretended to be interested in the same things as my peers but underneath it would make me feel empty, lost, and deeply sad. Hooked on the feeling of belonging, I would drink and take drugs because it felt so good to have something in common with the people around me.

I by no means thought I was better than my peers who weren’t on a spiritual path, in fact I desperately wanted to be liked by them. To simply feel like I could “fit in.” Ironically, I had many friends who very much appreciated me for who I was, yet somehow they weren’t enough for me. Part of me was restless, lonely, yearning for acceptance by that mythical thing I called “normal.”

I remember expressing to one of my friends “I feel like people don’t like me,” and he replied “But Hakim, you have tons of friends!” His words rolled off my back like rain off a windshield.

Now, at thirty, I’m finally realizing how tightly I have clung to this part of myself. As if it were the only lifeline keeping me from floating away. In truth, it is the only thing keeping me from fully stepping into myself, as who I am meant to be.

Being your true self can seem like the most terrifying thing in the world. To do so involves letting go of everything you thought you were, and stepping into a reality of one — a reality where no one who has ever been or ever will be, is like you.

From the vantage point of the separated self (in my case, that part of me that wants to be like everyone else), this is literally death. And he will avoid it at all costs.

But the truth is, I’m not normal. None of us is. “Normal” doesn’t exist. Each of us came here to be utterly, wildly, loudly unique. It’s the greatest mystery of all — we are part of this vast oneness, this eternal song beyond time and space…yet out of this substrate of divine love, we emerged completely singular, as who we are.

For now, I’m just learning to accept that, step forward into it, and express it each day with just a little more joy.