“You’re a weird dancer. You dance weird.”
A little blonde girl about nine years old brazenly walked up to me during Sunday morning Dance Church (yes, it’s a thing here in Minneapolis) and called me out on my weirdness.
When she first said it, it shocked me. She wasn’t being mean, she was just commenting on what she saw. And on that morning, she saw a woman dressed all in white dancing as if she were summoning spirits from the great beyond. My hips and I put the ecstatic in ecstatic dance.
I’ve been called weird many, many times. Many of those times I would dampen my light because I wanted to fit in. Be normal. Stay under the radar. But I’m now at the age where I simply don’t give a hoot. I took the moment not to be mad at the little girl, instead opting to replace that word with something more appropriate. After all, when a child sees a beautiful woman dancing with such joy and abandon, they don’t know what to say. Yes, it IS weird. But it is also magnificent. Amazing. Delightful. Powerful. And inspiring. Maybe that's what she meant to say.
We can’t control how the outside world sees us, but we do get to decide how we feel about it. We get to control the narrative in our own heads. We control the programs that run. So, dear one, own your weird. It’s what makes you wonderful.
Theresa Rose is a business motivational speaker, award-winning author and expert on mindful productivity who helps organizations and their teams make more time, get more done, earn more money and have more fun. Her mission is to inspire and energize as many people as humanly possible to make more mindful choices so that they may improve their lives, their businesses, and their world. For more information, visit TheresaRose.com.