Getting Good with Going Against the Grain

Over the last few years I’ve focused on taking control of my life, so that I could rediscover and anchor in a more authentic standpoint. But I still find that there is a part of me that wants to please others.

While it can be hard going against the grain in society, my natural disposition had been forced to go against itself much of my life in order to fit in. All that had resulted in was my misery and illness.

So in the end, what is harder, to make a stand for who I am? Or to submit, fitting into someone else’s ideas of who I should be?

Often I espouse many contrary views, particularly in favour of evolving our systems in society (education, healthcare, government and so on). But I don’t go against the grain for the fun of it, if anything it’s uncomfortable. What is more uncomfortable though, suffocating in fact, is constantly putting others’ needs ahead of my own – and those of my children – just so I’m not rocking the boat.

For example, when my eldest daughter was transitioning to school, we were encouraged to take time out and do early pickups, especially if there was an out-of-school activity like swimming lessons to attend. Tired kids were not welcome in class. I felt this was quite an enlightened approach and applauded the focus on our children’s wellbeing, albeit because it made life easier in the classroom.

Two years on, the school has completely changed its tact on attendance, with focus on meeting the Ministry of Education’s more rigid stance around justified and unjustified absences. As my youngest child is now transitioning to school, I have decided to stick with the plan that worked, picking the kids up early for swimming lessons.

I must admit, I look forward to the point in time when I can pick up my kids at the end of a school day and find they occasionally still have energy for more activity. Right now they don’t, they want – and need - to go home and unwind.

It’s just not comfortable being the one to buck the trend. Some people seem to manage it with ease, but not me. I’m a people pleaser by nature, so going against the grain takes practice. Like anything new, it feels awkward and my biggest challenge is letting go of defense. These kinds of scenarios are just ripe for me to turn into a crusade.

But making a drama out of a difference of opinion isn’t the best way forward either. One of my friends reckons I’m not a pain-in-the-ass parent (as I dubbed myself during a recent conversation about this; I have a rather self depreciating form of humour), just someone who has healthy boundaries and is not afraid to let them show. This was kind of her, but I know I can be like a dog with a bone at times.

Getting good with anything new takes time and application. And because I’m not comfortable with it, things can be a bit clunky at first. Like when I went to pick up the kids early this week and my youngest daughter was covered from head to foot in wet sand and we had to get her changed. This meant my eldest child was then late getting picked up and, as a result, had become aware of something fun she was missing at the end of her school lesson. So she burst into tears and fixated on it, crying and crying all the way to the swimming pool, screaming that she didn’t want to go.

You can imagine, these are the points at which I wonder why I bother. But I also know how ugly the scene gets if I acquiesce, so I keep true to the decisions I’ve made and look for ways to make things easier.

There is this thought in my head though, and I hear it from others in different guises, that if everything is going wrong at times like this then I must be doing something wrong. But my mind can play tricks, working against me, like society’s little advocate in my head.

So I often sense check the decisions I’ve made, were they result of an overactive mind playing into society’s expectations, or were they the result of something more intuitive, orientated to my wellbeing?

I know I’m in my mind when I’m feeling bad, and I know I’ll never get clarity from that position. So I set it all to one side like I did the other day, and I got my daughter to focus on eating her sandwich instead and I focused on how good it was going to feel diving into the pool in the lane next to the kids and having a swim while they were learning.

Of course the kids had a great time and really enjoyed their swimming lessons in the end, they have made strides in their confidence and technique this term. It’s a skill that can’t be underrated when we essentially just live on a huge island surrounded by water with many lakes, rivers and streams within it.

And I had a great time too, unwinding after the drama of the early pickup. From that perspective I was able to get clarity, and was able to trust that – for now – we are on track.

Yes, it may be a bit uncomfortable organizing early pickups with the teachers at school, but so long as I don’t start demonizing their intentions so I can feel better – or berating them because I feel a lack of support - it’s all good. Instead I focus on the things I’m grateful for, like the appreciation I feel for the depth of care they show towards my children’s education and development.

I have discovered there is no need to make someone else wrong in order for me to be right, that is just another hang-up of society’s conditioning. It’s the very hang-up that is the root of every conflict that ever existed. Instead I now recognise there is only ever differing opinions, and thank goodness for that. If we all thought and felt the same way life would be very dull and predictable.

So what situation keeps calling to you? What’s your inner voice got to say that wants to be heard? Is it time to go against the grain outwardly to go with the flow inwardly?

​I try to imagine a world full of people going with their own flow, listening to their own inner voice. I think it would be a world filled with more energetic, positively charged, passionate people and that is definitely the kind of world I want to live in.
 
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