When we visited Beatrix Potter’s hilltop house in the lake district, England, I discovered that she wrote her surroundings. There was a sign in the garden that showed an illustration from ‘Jemima Puddleduck’ and right behind it was the garden in the picture.
Inside there was a sign saying that the house was rat infested when she bought it. What did she do? She wrote rats into her stories.
When we look at our own lives, we see the mundane and the ordinary. When others look in, they see something quite different.
When we travelled it was exciting to be so far from home exploring new things, but, to the people who lived there it was just boring everyday kind of stuff. When we walked across France, one of our hostesses commented that she couldn’t understand why people would come to France to walk. We tried to explain to her the difference in history, in architecture, in landscape; she tried to understand, but although she heard us, I don’t know how deeply she understood.
One of the things that I talk about regularly here is the importance of valuing others. Today, I want to talk about your value. What makes you, you.
When I was doing the Arche Year writing programme last year, I learnt that when we’re creating content for our blogs, we need to be consistent. You might go to someone else for your cat videos, but you come here to learn something about relationship. If I gave you a gardening blog one week and a cooking one the next, a relationship blog when it suited me, and a puzzle another week, you wouldn’t know what you were in for. When I consistently talk about becoming unoffendable and associated thoughts, you have an idea of what you’re getting at my page.
To those around you, you offer something unique. Perhaps you’re the tidy freak, the organiser, the joker, the compassionate one, the one who picks up after others, the one who stirs or the one who makes the mess. To you, you’re just you, but to others you are a particular part of their lives.
You might feel ordinary and even a bit boring, especially when compared to someone else, but to those around you, they love and appreciate you for what you offer; for who you are.
When we put on a mask and pretend to be someone else, we rob the world of what we were created to offer. We can certainly learn and grow, but understand that as you change, others might change the way that they relate to you and that’s okay. You fulfilled a particular role in their life and as you grow, it might be that they turn elsewhere to find what you used to provide. If they are the one who cleans up after people and you stop making the mess, they might find someone else to clean up after. That is okay.
Some friendships exist because of a mutual season. It might be in a workplace or because of where you live. When you change jobs, at first you might think that you’ll keep in touch, but you find over time that without the work connection, the friendship dwindles. That is normal, that is okay. Other friendships will persist beyond the workplace. Treasure those people, those are deeper connections.
Some people play a bigger part of our lives than others, but that’s how it is. We only have capacity for so many close relationships. If there is a change in your relationships this year, see if you can process it and be okay with the change without devaluing yourself or putting yourself down.
I remember telling dad that I am usually introduced as the wife of my husband, as the mother of my kids or as mum or dad’s child, very rarely am I introduced as me. He said, “that may be true, but when we’re introduced, we’re often introduced as your parents. You just don’t see that happen.”
I was feeling undervalued. I felt like I had no value independent of others. But then I had an experience:
I was parent help at a youth camp and there was a young guy there that I didn’t know. I got to know him a little over the weekend and on the last day he was talking about his family. Some of the story sounded familiar and I asked him who his parents were: I had known them years ago and although we had lost touch, realising that he was a part of that specific family suddenly filled out the picture of his life and I instantly understood more of where he was coming from.
Knowing his family didn’t put him into a box – I had got to know this guy as himself over the weekend, but the family layers were so helpful to be aware of. He had significant challenges in his household. He had a very specific set of experiences and outlook. To him it would have been normal, to me, it was very unique.
Suddenly, I understood. The way that people introduce us and frame us gives them a structure to get a better understanding of who we are. Not to put us in a box, but to have a foundation on which to build.
You’re introduced as someone’s friend, well, that friendship is the first piece of information the new person has about you on which to build their picture of who you are.
I grew up in a farming household: when dad got in his work clothes, he was wearing olive green trousers and a checked shirt with gumboots and a bucket hat.
My husband works in an office. He tends to wear a polo shirt or a shirt without a tie. I often smile when someone sees my husband in his casual clothes when they’re used to seeing him at work.
Each of us experience the world in a different way and the world is richer for it.
So if you’re looking at yourself at the beginning of this year and wondering what your worth is, or what value you bring, can I assure you that there is no one else like you. No one else has your story.
You are a valued part of somebody’s life. Even your mundane is interesting to someone.
Even if you’ve had multiple challenges, you don’t need to be ashamed of your story. It might not be ready to be shared with the world yet and that’s okay. It’s not necessarily wise to over share what’s going on or to talk about our stuff too widely before we have worked it through. But if you are currently living in a rat-infested story, there may come a time when that story can be told to bring comfort or to give someone hope.
You might not understand why someone might come and walk life with you, but for some, that is exactly what they want to do. They see something in you that you can’t see because you’re so familiar with your own surroundings.
Embrace the place that you find yourself. You may well change and develop from that place over time, but who you are now and where you have been offers something that no one else can. You are valuable as you are.
