Latest / Living Deeply with Markieta Carter / How I Embraced Being the Black Sheep of My Family Part 1

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How I Embraced Being the Black Sheep of My Family Part 1 · Living Deeply with Markieta Carter

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  I'm the black sheep of the family, and I finally realized that's one of my greatest strengths.
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  Hey, it's Marquita, and welcome back to the Living Deeply podcast.
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  Today I want to talk about something that I used to see very differently than
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  I do now, and that's being the black sheep of my family.
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  For a long time, being different felt like something I needed to understand.
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  Why am I like this? Why don't I think like everybody else? Why am I so comfortable going my own way?
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  Why have I always been somewhat of a loner?
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  But the older I get, the more I realize that so many of the things that made
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  me feel different growing up are the exact things that have served me as an adult.
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  I don't resent being the black sheep anymore. I've embraced it.
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  I've always been different. When we hear the phrase black sheep of the family,
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  it usually isn't positive.
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  The black sheep is the different one.
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  The one who doesn't quite fit. the one who asks questions, the one who challenges traditions,
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  the one who makes decisions everybody else doesn't understand,
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  and the one who might love their family deeply but still doesn't necessarily
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  want to live, believe, think, or move through the world exactly like them. And that's me.
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  And I've realized that I don't need to make that a negative thing because different
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  doesn't automatically mean wrong.
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  Sometimes different simply means different.
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  I've always been a loner.
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  And I've been somewhat of a loner for as long as I can remember.
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  And I don't mean that in a sad way. I genuinely know how to be by myself.
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  I can enjoy my own company. I can entertain myself. I can think.
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  I can reflect. I can create.
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  I don't constantly need somebody around me to feel complete.
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  Growing up, I don't think I fully understood how valuable that would be.
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  Because we live in a world that puts a lot of emphasis on belonging.
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  Having a group, having a lot of friends, being invited, being included,
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  being surrounded by people.
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  And connection is important and I value connection deeply.
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  But I've also learned that being alone and being lonely are two completely different things.
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  I can experience loneliness just like anybody else. But solitude doesn't scare me.
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  And that distinction has served me incredibly well.
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  Being a loner taught me how to think for myself When you spend a lot of time
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  by yourself, you get to know your own mind You start noticing what you actually
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  think before everyone else tells you what you're supposed to think,
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  I've had space throughout my life to observe, to question, to research,
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  to change my mind To decide that something I was taught doesn't necessarily work for me anymore.
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  I've become increasingly comfortable saying, I understand that's what you believe,
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  but I just don't believe that are.
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  I understand that's how you've chosen to live, but I'm choosing something different.
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  That doesn't mean I think I'm better than anybody. It means I have given myself
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  permission to think for myself.
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  And that has been one of the greatest gifts to being different.
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  I stopped trying to make myself easier for others to understand.
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  And there was a time when I felt like I needed people to understand why I made
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  certain decisions, why I changed, why I questioned something,
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  why I believed something differently, why I needed space,
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  why I didn't want what everybody else seemed to want.
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  But eventually I realized people don't have to understand my life in order to
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  value my life and see it as valid.
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  That changed something in me. I can explain myself when I want to.
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  I can have conversations with people who generally want to understand me,
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  but I don't have to defend my every decision.
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  I don't have to convince somebody else that my boundaries make sense,
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  and I don't have to prove that my beliefs are legitimate.
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  I also don't need a committee to approve every direction of my life.
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  Being a loner made me less afraid of standing alone.
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  And that might be one of the biggest ways being a loner has served me.
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  I'm not terrified of standing alone and that doesn't mean it's always comfortable.
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  Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes you wish somebody understood.
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  Sometimes you wish somebody would stand beside you and say, I get it,
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  but I've learned that I can survive without validation and that's important
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  because the fear of being alone can make us tolerate some things that we just shouldn't tolerate.
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  It can make us stay in relationships that we've outgrown.
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  It can make us hold on to friendships that aren't healthy anymore.
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  It can make us silence ourselves to keep the peace.
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  It can make us pretend to believe things we don't actually believe.
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  It can make us abandon ourselves just so somebody else won't abandon us.
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  Being comfortable with my own company is giving me another option.
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  I can choose myself, even when choosing myself means standing alone for a while.
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  Solitude gave me space to discover who I actually am.
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  There's something very powerful about being alone long enough to hear yourself.
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  Not your family, not your partner, not your friends, not society,
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  not social media, but you.
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  What do I actually believe? What do I actually want? What feels right for my life?
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  What am I doing simply because somebody told me this is what I'm supposed to
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  do? What have I outgrown?
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  Who am I becoming? And who am I when nobody is watching?
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  Those questions have become incredibly important to me because I don't want
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  to wake up one day and realize that I've spent my entire life performing a version
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  of myself that made everybody else comfortable.
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  I want my life to actually feel like mine.
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  Sometimes the black sheep is just the person who asks the why.
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  I've always realized that being the black sheep doesn't necessarily mean you're
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  rebellious. Sometimes you're simply the person willing to ask why. Why do I believe this?
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  Why do we do things this way? Why can't I choose something different?
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  Who decided that this was the only acceptable path?
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  Does this actually align with the person I am today?
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  Families have cultures. There are spoken rules and there's unspoken rules.
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  There can be expectations around relationships, marriage, parenting,
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  careers, religion, money, success,
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  emotions, gender roles, and what you're supposed to do with your life.
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  And sometimes everybody follows
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  those expectations because that's simply what has always been done.
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  Then someone comes along and asks, but why?
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  Sometimes that person becomes the black sheep and I'm okay with being that person.
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  Loving my family doesn't require me to be like my family.
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  And this has probably been one of the most freeing realizations for me.
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  I can love where I come from without recreating everything I came from.
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  I can appreciate what previous generations survived without believing that survival
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  has to be the highest aspiration for my life.
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  I can honor traditions that still feel meaningful to me and release the ones that don't.
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  I can love people and disagree with them. I can love people and establish boundaries.
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  I can love people and live differently I can love people and believe differently,
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  I can love people and still choose myself All of those things can exist together,
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  I don't need the fit anymore Today I realized that being the black sheep.
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  Is not an insult for me I see freedom in it Freedom to think,
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  question, change, evolve Freedom to love differently To believe differently to build differently.
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  Freedom to leave behind identities that I've outgrown.
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  Freedom to become somebody my younger self couldn't have even imagined.
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  And being alone has prepared me for more than I realized.
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  Because I already knew how to stand alone. What I had to learn was how to stand
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  alone without interpreting that as evidence that something was wrong with me.
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  Now I understand. I can stand alone without feeling abandoned.
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  I can be different without believing I'm defective.
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  I can enjoy solitude without being disconnected. I can love my family without
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  becoming exactly like my family. and I can belong to myself even when I don't
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  fit neatly into someone else's expectations.
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  So if you think you're the black sheep, if you've always been the loner,
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  if you've always been the one who thinks a little differently,
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  I want you to consider something.
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  What if the thing you've spent years believing made you different is actually one of your strengths?
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  What if your ability to stand alone has been preparing you to stand firmly in who you are?
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  What if you don't need to become easier for everybody else to understand?
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  And what would your life look like if you stopped trying to earn permission to be yourself?
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  For me, embracing being the black sheep wasn't about rejecting my family.
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  It was about finally refusing to reject myself.
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  And being a loner didn't teach me that I don't need people. It taught me something much more important.
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  I don't have to lose myself to keep people.
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  And there's a difference. In part two, I'm going to talk about the moment when
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  I realized just how much being the black sheep
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  and being somewhat removed from certain family dynamics had actually prepared
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  me for one of the hardest moments in my life.
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  Because sometimes you don't understand why certain parts of your personality
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  developed the way it did until life puts you in a situation where you need every
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  bit of that strength. Thank you for listening.
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  And if you've spent your life feeling different, questioning the path you've
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  given or trying to figure out where you belong, I've created Thriving Humans.
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  This is a space for meaningful connection, personal growth, and authenticity.
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  You can join the community at ThrivingHumans.org and you can learn more about
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  me and my work at itsmarkita.com.
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  You can also listen to more episodes of the Living Deeply podcast at livingdeeplypodcast.com.
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  And until next time, keep choosing
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  yourself, keep honoring who you're becoming, and keep living deeply.
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  I'm Markita. Talk to you again soon.