What makes you weird?

Last week, I listened to a JP Sears podcast titled “You’re Weirder Than You Can Think,” which is all about discovering and expressing your weirdness. Now, maybe you think your weirdness is a bad/scary thing that you need to hide from others. Or maybe you think you’re normal and not weird at all. Why on earth would you want to discover and express your weirdness?

JP defines “weirdness” as the things that make you uniquely you. In other words, “weirdness” is the traits of your authentic self. It’s your personality, your quirks, your passions, your defining features, the things you love to talk about, and so much more. What makes you “weird” is what makes you “you,” and figuring out what that is can be a great step in your personal growth journey. With that framework, he challenged everyone to do a 4-step exercise:

1. Write down three things that make you weird.
2. Thank each of these things for making you uniquely you.
3. Find a way to express each of those weird traits in your life today.
4. Check-in at the end of the day to assess how you did on completing Step 3.

And then you do that each day for seven days in a row.

Journeying Into My Weirdness

I’m sharing this post on the last day of my weirdness journey. I thought for sure I’d have no problem coming up with 21 examples of my weirdness, but it was actually more challenging than I’d anticipated.

It’s not that I don’t have unique traits or perspectives. Rather, I was getting hung-up on Step 3 before I wrote anything down for Step 1. I didn’t want to write something in the first step that would end up being hard, uncomfortable, or impossible to express that day.

Of course, avoiding an aspect of my weirdness because I find it uncomfortable probably misses the point of this whole exercise.

One of the examples JP used of expressing his weirdness was when he met the woman who’d become his wife. Instead of trying to be “normal” so she wouldn’t reject him for being weird, he commented that he owned the same kind of leopard spotted yoga pants that she was wearing and suggested they do a photo shoot. She agreed, they got some friend together to take pictures, and they both had a lot of fun. As their relationship developed, he knew that she genuinely liked his authentic self because he was being “weird” with her from the very first time they met.

This got me thinking, “If I were to meet someone who I might be interested in having a relationship with, what sort of traits would I have to display so they were seeing my authentic self?” Thinking about the exercise that way helped me come up with more weird things to add to my daily 3-item lists.

What I’ve Learned From Being Weird

I realized pretty quickly that I’m already expressing quite a bit of my authentic weirdness. Things like “I’m a storyteller,” “I sing and dance around the kitchen when cooking,” and “I have a distinctive hippy/boho sense of fashion” come out on at least a weekly (and often daily) basis.

Other things offered more of a challenge. There isn’t as much of an outlet for “I like geeking out over nerdy/scholarly/literary subjects” since I graduated college. Sometimes you have to let the inner English major out to play, though, which is why I published a post last week titled “Lust, Murder, and Deception from Shakespeare to Today.”

Another struggle involved a question I didn’t answer until this morning: Do I include my anxiety and depression as one of my authentic traits? It is one of the biggest things that makes me uniquely me, which definitely qualifies it as part of my weirdness. But how do you say “thank you” to something like that for Step 2 or find a positive way to express it for Step 3?

This morning, I decided to write, “I live with anxiety and depression” as one of my last weirdness traits. I also wrote, “Thank you anxiety, and even depression, for making me empathetic to others’ struggles and helping me appreciate the moments when life is good.” And then I committed to writing about it on this blog, hoping that my sharing my perspective can encourage others.

Finding Your Weirdness

If this sounds like an adventure you’d like to go on as well, then come join me in thinking about and appreciating the things that make you uniquely, authentically you. It’s not a huge time commitment — just take 7 days where you set aside about 5 minutes each morning for Steps 1-3 and then a little check-in each evening for Step 4.

1. Write down three things that make you weird.
2. Thank each of these things for making you uniquely you.
3. Find a way to express each of those weird traits in your life today.
4. Check-in at the end of the day to assess how you did on completing Step 3.

Let me know what you think of the whole idea of finding our weirdness — and whether or not you decide to try it — in the comments. I’d love to hear from you!

 

Featured image credit: RyanMcGuire via Pixabay