01/02/2025 - Am I self-sabotaging to remain relatable?

Hello readers,

This morning has been intense. First things first, it’s officially been a month since I last drank, smoked, or taken any substance. I’m feeling so sharp mentally, emotionally, and physically. Almost high. And yesterday, I was talking with my dad about the exhilarating feeling of reaching new levels within myself, but also about the past doubts and insecurities resurfacing alongside it.

By choosing to experience the full spectrum of reality as it is, I’m challenging myself almost every day. I confront internal struggles, move through personal patterns, and explore more and more of myself. All of it, without falling back into the escapism of altered states and indulgences.

And I use the word challenging because it truly is. There is nothing harder than experiencing reality fully, every thought and every feeling, without an easy way out. The one distraction I’m still struggling with is my phone. When I feel the need to disconnect, I just scroll. I dissociate. But I also want to remain gentle with myself. I’m already putting in a lot of effort, and it doesn’t have to be radical or extreme to show tangible results.

Coming back to the doubts and insecurities I mentioned earlier, while tapping into my greatness is exhilarating, it is also unsettling. The more I focus on myself, the more I expand, reaching a level of clarity that excites me just as much as it unnerves me. Will people be able to follow me on this journey? Can anyone truly understand? Will I be considered weird? Excluded?

I tamed my ability to decrypt the world and my place within it for a long time. I filtered my thoughts into chewable concepts made for the masses, keeping my deeper feelings private. I feared isolation. The kind of isolation that comes from childhood experiences, the rejection that carved into me a craving to belong.

But should I let the judgments I once received, built on the ignorance of some, bury my own self for their personal comfort? Simply because I reflect something they are afraid of not having? When I look at my journey, I realize that no one I admire has ever made me feel insecure for exploring what makes me unique. The people who did were usually the ones who never even tried to understand it.

Not everyone experiences life the way I do, and I have no reason to be ashamed of that. I don’t need to reshape my reality just to be relatable. Maybe I’m not that weird. Maybe I have the ability to articulate something that hasn’t yet been fully explored. Instead of following the existing rails, I carve my own path.

So my real question is, am I self-sabotaging to remain relatable? And to an extent, aren’t we all? Because whether consciously or not, we belong in groups. We thrive in clans. We build together, create systems, rules, and assign meaning to things. We seek the people we want to be associated with, as an extension of our own identity. After all, the people I surround myself with do, to an extent, define who I am.

People are drawn to others through shared interests, values, and visions. And I haven’t found many who share mine. Or maybe I just kept believing that. For so long, I believed that being relatable was the only way to fit in. Then, my Swedish friends introduced me to a word for this concept: Lagom.

“Lagom means ‘just the right amount,’ not too much, not too little, finding balance and moderation in all things. It reflects the idea of keeping things mellow, relatable, and not overdoing it while still being enough. It is deeply ingrained in Swedish culture, emphasizing harmony, humility, and avoiding excess.”

I am not judging this way of being, because there is a lot of greatness that emanates from it. It fosters a deep sense of community over individuality, creates stability, and ensures things don’t spiral into extremes. But being immersed in this culture also made me feel its restrictions. The subtle pressure of not being too much. The quiet fear of standing too far outside the lines.

It is as if I needed to confront my longing to belong to a group that represented everything I thought I was missing, only to realize that some parts of myself weren’t meant to be sacrificed for acceptance. And among them, my uniqueness stands unwavering. Why would I let go of something that brings me joy, something I admire and love about myself?

In my case, it is my open, raw, and honest way of communicating. My ability to decrypt my inner world and translate it outward. My capacity to observe, and transcribe the world and the people in it through sensation. To create, to transmute, to inspire. Why on Earth would I bury something that feels so natural?

By trying to go against who I am, I learned to step outside my comfort zone. But what if, instead of resisting, I leaned in? What if I fully explored and allowed my innate gifts and abilities to unfold? Where would I land?

I have always been drawn to being perceived as fun, playful, and adventurous. And don’t get me wrong, I am those things. But they are aspects I developed. At my core, I am deep, introspective, and sensorial. That has always been my natural state. Instead of choosing between the two, I can embrace both. I don’t have to dilute one to make space for the other. By allowing my full self to shine through, I create something even greater.

I may never take a three-meter wave, or go down the Bec des Rosses, or sing on television, or write an epic fantasy series, or have my art exhibited at the Louvre, or discover a revolutionary scientific concept. But who knows what I could do? Maybe something just as extraordinary. And it starts by refusing to be ordinary.

With love, Loune.