I watched an incredible movie last week. It’s an oldie from 1989 but I’d never seen it before. It’s called Dead Poets Society.
I won’t give anything away because I highly recommend watching it.
There was this one scene where Robin Williams spoke about conforming. It got me thinking about the times in my life when I’d conformed.
For me there have been two key elements that contribute to my decisions in life:
INTUITION: Figuring out what my truth is. This includes my soul desires, opinions, and values.
EMOTIONAL REGULATION: Being able to support myself through difficult emotions so I have the courage to act in accordance with my intuition, no matter how polarising it may be.
So coming back to this topic of conforming to society, there was a good 10-year period where I didn’t realise I was conforming because I wasn’t aware of what my own views were.
One of the biggest examples of me conforming to social norms is drinking. I’ve known for a long time that I don’t like the version of myself that I become when I drink. It doesn’t make me feel good mentally, it enhances my anxiety, and it reduces my motivation to look after my body. I stopped drinking just over 100 days ago and I feel the most ‘me’ I’ve felt in years. This is such a perfect example of conforming because I believe many of us want to stop drinking, but it seems too ‘extreme’ to our friends and family, so we ignore this desire.
I’m not saying that everyone who drinks is conforming. I’m saying that everyone who drinks who wants to stop drinking is conforming.
The times I’d neglected my own desires and followed the crowd, were also the times I felt disconnected from my intuition.
Each day I try to check in with how I’m feeling and ask myself what I need to do for myself that day. I’ve found that it’s through these check-ins that my intuition speaks to me the most. I usually journal in an app on my phone called Moodnotes, but if I’m in a hurry I’ll check in with myself out loud while I’m having a shower or driving (haha crazy lady right here).
When I go through long periods of time without these check-ins, I feel disconnected from my intuition and ultimately unable to identify what I want or don’t want. These times always correlate with me following the pack and not thinking for myself.
The more connected I am to my intuition, and the more I’m able to regulate difficult emotions, the less likely I am to make decisions for fear of being ‘kicked out of the tribe’. Because I become so hyper-aware of what I want that it becomes too painful ignoring it.
I would love to hear your experience with how this topic shows up in your life.
xx
Hi Ash, great topic, thanks for putting it out there. I feel like the topic of conforming is almost a taboo subject. For example if you were to ask 100 people do they conform I think one would find most people say NO because they don't want to admit it. I believe society plays a big part in this.... Controlling how we value/show success - we conform to the societal pressures and how it measures success. Does that make sense?