289 Holly Worton ~ Get Confident With Your Uniqueness & Stand Out in the Crowd

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I’m back again, with another solo episode! Embracing my uniqueness and my differences has always been a challenge for me, and it’s something I’ve worked on over and over with my mindset work. I’ve come a long way, and in this episode I share some stories from recent life experiences that have led me to realize I still have a lot of work to do in this area! I walk you through a process you can use to get comfortable with your uniqueness and use your differences to stand out in the crowd and be more visible as you express yourself.

As with some previous episodes, I’ve uploaded some journal prompts to the Patreon community.

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What You’ll Learn

Why it’s so important to feel comfortable with your uniqueness
The ways being uncomfortable with your differences can affect your life
How to get comfortable with being different
How to use your differences to stand out in the crowd

Things I Discussed

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Transcript

The transcript for this episode can also be downloaded here (no opt-in required).

Holly: Hello and welcome to the Into the Woods podcast, episode 289. This is your host Holly Worton and I am back with another solo episode.

Today, I am going to talk about really getting comfortable with your uniqueness and embracing it and taking advantage of the things that make you unique, and different, so that you can live your life fully and do the things that you want to do and express yourself, the way you want to express yourself, without fears and blocks and limiting beliefs that might come up if you are not fully embracing your uniqueness.

So, this episode I am recording on 2 January, so it has been a while since I have done this, and it is inspired by a couple of things that happened in the month of December.

So, first of all, early December, I think it was the first or second weekend of December, my Druid organisation, OBOD, had its winter gathering in Glastonbury; and one of the first things that we did on that day, because it was a one-day event, was a ceremony at the Chalice Well Garden. So, I had expressed that I wanted to participate in the ceremony, so I was asked to hold a banner for the ceremony, and since I was participating, I needed to dress for ceremony, so I had to wear a white robe and, because it was cold, I wore a white cloak. So I had the robe and cloak made after the summer gathering when I realised, I would need this kind of clothing for ceremony in the future. I had had to borrow a white robe for the summer gathering ceremony and I just wanted to have my own stuff.

So the ceremony started at 8 o’clock in the morning, so, I had to leave the place I was staying around 7.30, or 7.20ish to get there. So I had to leave my AirBnB, walk down the street in Glastonbury looking like I had just walked off the set of Lord of the Rings. All in white, wearing this white robe, with a white rope belt and a white cloak. You know it was Glastonbury people are always a bit weird and quirky there, but I really stood out. It was before 7.30am in the morning so there were that many people out, the people that were out were pretty normal looking people, and I was the weirdo walking down the street all dressed in white. So, this brought up some stuff for me, and interestingly it was something that was already starting to bother me the night before the event, and I actually did some balancing using PSYCH-K® on it, because I didn’t want to be uncomfortable with this, because I knew that this was just the symptom of the bigger issue of being afraid of standing out in the crowd and not fully embracing my unique self, including my unique spiritual path and hobbies and things.

So, I did some work on it and that made me feel a little bit better about it, but I still felt really uncomfortable the entire time I was walking down the street and it was a ten-minute, maybe a fifteen-minute walk. Once I got there, I got there early, and other people started to show up and of course lots of them were dressed for ceremony as well, so I started to feel: okay, I am not the only weirdo dressed like this. Then walking back it was this whole group of us walking back into the town centre and so I felt very different with that, it was very interesting, and I was talking to friends as I was walking back but at the same time observing how I felt, which was, I felt like I was part of a crowd, I felt like I was part of a group, I felt like I was part of an organisation made up of some other people wearing white and wearing cloaks and looking very different, as I looked. I noticed how much easier it was for me to be walking down the street with a whole group of oddly dressed people, as opposed to the morning, when I had gone there before the ceremony, when I was the only person walking down the street like that. So, that was one thing that really triggered my awareness of the fact that I still have a lot of work to do around standing out in the crowd and being different.

Then something slightly awkward happened at my kickboxing winter course, which I think was the following weekend, and that was something that happened {laughing} as a result of my Asperger’s. So, sometimes people say things to me, and I don’t always understand them, and I don’t always get clarification. So, I think there were probably just under 60 people at the winter course, this was where my grading happened. It was the first day, the first morning, we were doing some fitness warmup stuff and my instructor was leading the warm up. So we were doing this thing called The 12 days of Christmas, it goes along with the song ‘On the 12 days of Christmas my true love gave to me’, one single burpee; two squat thrusts; one single burpee… So, anyway, you do this exercise thing that is very unique to our school apparently none of the people from the other schools know this. So, my instructor walks up to me, and he asks me to do something to demonstrate the last exercise, which is these wheelbarrow press ups, where you get into press-up position and then the other person holds your legs up in the air. I forgot that that was what came next. So he walks up to me and he said: grabs my legs. I said: what? And he said: grab my legs for the next exercise. And I said: okay. I was kind of thinking about it and thinking: what the hell does he mean, grab his legs? I had totally forgotten about this wheelbarrow press-up thing and I kind of bend down and hugged his legs, everyone in the room burst out laughing, because it was hilarious, and ridiculous, and then I realised what it was I was supposed to be doing. So I kind of made a joke about it and I was like: I didn’t know whether you wanted to me to tackle you or throw you to the ground, it was just so awkward, and I was so embarrassed, even though I think I pulled it off okay by laughing at myself but, inside, I felt super-awkward the entire rest of the weekend. It was one of those things where you do something silly and you are like: damn it I just can’t get it out of my mind! I kept replaying that in my mind. Now, time has gone on, I can obviously laugh at it, and I have evaluated what I should have done, I should have asked for clarification, like: what do you mean grab your legs? I didn’t remember the exercise and in the scheme of things it is not that big a deal, people laughed, that was a good thing they laughed…laughter is always good. I just felt so awkward and uncomfortable, I know exactly what happened, I know what to do in the future, but I do often do socially awkward stuff like that {laughing}. Even though I can laugh about it now, in the moment, and the entire weekend, I was kind of horrified with myself.

The third example that I am going to share with you is to do with my tree book. I have been talking about this book pretty much all year and I talk about it mostly with people within my community, within my friendship group, within my circle of people that know me and know the woo-woo stuff about me, the fact that I am channeling trees for this book. This book is a collection of tree stories that the trees have given me, because I talk to trees and they talk back, and they have given me not only the idea for this book but their stories for each chapter in the book. I can say that to you, because you know who I am, unless you never heard of me before and randomly arrived at this podcast episode and have no clue, but probably you know who I am and know that I do this weird channeling thing. I had dinner with a friend, it was early December, maybe even end of November, I hadn’t seen since University, so it had been 20+ years since I had seen him, we had been in touch on and off over the years, we had to catch up on everything that had happened to us in the last couple of decades, and my tree book came up in conversation. I felt really uncomfortable because I had never talked about my channeling with him before, because he hasn’t talked to me in 20+ years. So, I was telling him about this, and he was really curious, and he said: how does this work, so you talk to trees, how do they respond? And I said: well, I hear voices in my head and the second the words came out of my mouth, I was like: shit, now I sound like a crazy person! And, this friend and I had had a mutual friend who had paranoid schizophrenia, and so she was someone who legitimately heard voices in her head as well, but as part of a mental illness. So I was thinking: shit, I sound like I am mentally ill, what is he going to think of me? And, he responded really well, he was open to it and curious, he was totally fine with it, I was the one that was weird about it, I was the one who was weird about saying: I talk to trees, I hear their voices in my head and I am writing a book about it.

I am aware of how this is the third thing that has come up for me in the last couple of months or so about me being uncomfortable with my uniqueness, me being uncomfortable with standing out in the crowd, me being uncomfortable with me being different. However, this is the one thing that is holding me back in my life, this is the one thing that is holding me back in my career. My next book that I am releasing is my tree book, I need to be 100,000% super-comfortable and confident with the concept of this book, and with the concept of my channelling, and with my channeling skills, so I can get this book out there and really get it out there in a big way, like the trees have asked me to do. So, if I don’t get comfortable with this, and if I don’t get confident with this, this is going to be a book that people don’t read because they won’t have heard about it. I have hired a book launch coach to help me get this to number one on Amazon, I am also going to hire a book PR person to help me get this out. I really want to get this out there in a big way because I have been tasked with this job by the trees, and they want their stories to get out there, and I need to do the project justice and I need to get it out there in a big way, so, I need to get over myself in order to do that. So, I am telling you this story because this story is not just about me, this is about everyone who has ever had a dream, who has ever had a project, who has ever had a thing that they want to do, a thing that they want to get out in the world, a thing that they want to express about themselves and they have held back because they are afraid.

How to get comfortable with being different

So, this episode is about why it is so important to feel comfortable with your uniqueness; the ways that being uncomfortable with your differences can affect your life; and how to get comfortable with being different. So, to me, this is about expressing yourself, really expressing yourself and expressing your differences in the world.

So, a couple of episodes ago, the last episode of last year, episode 284, the one I did with Esther Lemmens, we talked about how to express yourself, and how to express your life purpose in the world, so this is very much a part of that. Now I did an episode with a guest, Sandra Pilarczyk a while ago, it was episode 131, I think that was a couple of years ago, if not more – ooh, that was in January of 2016, so almost two years ago, and that is episode 131, about how to stand out in the crowd and be visible, so that is another reference you can listen to if you want to learn more about this. There are so many ways in which our fears and our discomfort with our uniqueness can lead to us playing small, being afraid to stand out in the crowd, being afraid to be visible, and this is such a massive topic for me. You have heard me talk about this before, you have heard me say that I have done a ton of work about this before, and clearly this is something that I am here to teach, this is clearly something that I am here to help other people with. I wrote a book called Business Visibility, because this is such an important part of the work that I do with myself, and with other people. And it is something that I have come a long way with, I am so much more comfortable now than I used to be, and I still have a long way to go. This is clearly something that I am going to be working on as a core part of my life, I don’t know if I am ever going to reach the end of the road with this, this might be something that I always struggle with and I always work on, I don’t know, but I am talking about it because I think it is really, really, important to work on.

So, I just came up with some journal prompts for the Patreon community that I will be posting in there, once I get this set up, and once this episode goes live, and I worked on these prompts myself before I set them up for the Patreon group. So, I have some questions that I think can help you get clear on how to work through this. So I think it starts by getting clear on: what are your uniqueness? What are your differences? How are you different from other people? What are the ways that you might stand out in a crowd whether it is walking down the street dressed in a white cloak, or other stuff like channelling, or having a neurological difference in your brain that makes you do weird, awkward, stuff in social environments? Make a list of everything that you can think of that makes you unique, both things that you are proud of and things that you may not be proud of, things that may be a challenge for you.

Then, really get clear on how you feel about your uniquenesses, so for me, it is all the stuff that triggers a feeling of really self-conscious. It triggers my fear of people laughing at me, of feeling silly, feeling like a weirdo, feeling like that there is something wrong with me. Triggers feelings of rejection, fears of ridicule, fears of being laughed at, fears of being seen as strange, or weird, outside of my safe little circle of people who are aware of my woo-ness. So get clear on what fears are dredged up when you think about your uniqueness. I think it is really important to dig this crap up and get clear on it and then get clear on what these feelings and these fears might prevent you from doing. So, I am aware that this might mess up my book launch. This books has been the hardest book that I have ever worked on. First, because the channeling was really challenging, I had a lot of fears and issues with self-confidence around my ability to channel this book. I have done all the channeling and now I am writing the book around the stories and being aware of the fact that I need to get over my shit before I launch this thing out into the world. So, get clear on what these feelings, or fears about your uniqueness, or differences, prevent you from doing or prevent you from doing well. I have launched 8 books so far, but I haven’t really gotten them out there in a big way or did I just kind of put them out there and not say much about them? What things are you half-assed doing, or not even doing at all, because your fears of standing out in the crowd and being visible?

Then you need to flip this on its head: how would you rather feel about your uniqueness? How would you rather feel about your differences?

I would rather feel super-comfortable and confident in talking about my tree book in a big way and getting it out there in a big way and talking more about my Druid stuff. So, again, I feel super-comfortable and confident talking to you about my Druid stuff and my woo stuff but not so much outside, to other people who might be new to this stuff. The people in my world are super-respectful and curious and I would love to be able to talk more about this stuff. So I would like to feel more comfortable and more confident. I would like to have more of a sense of humour and more easily be able to laugh at myself. So, with the kickboxing example I laughed at myself, but then I felt like shit the entire weekend. I would like to be able to laugh at myself and then keep on laughing. Just let go of it and move on and forget about it and not have these little memories of awkward stuff that I have done over the years that I have actually had to use PSYCH-K® to do a stress-trauma release on. There are so many little things going back to Junior High that were socially awkward, that I had to do a stress-trauma release on because I was holding them, I was holding onto those memories for so long. So, I would love to let go of the stuff.

How would your life be different if you fully embraced this uniqueness, what would you be doing differently?

I would be getting my book out there in a big way, I would be talking about my stuff more, I would be standing out more because of my uniqueness. I would be less neutral, I would less beige, I would be more unique and different, and people would see that. I am unique and different on the inside, but not necessarily on the outside.

What do you want to believe about yourself in order to make this happen?

So, this is where you do the mindset work and create the belief statements if you use a process like PSYCH-K®, to help you establish the subconscious beliefs that you need in order to stand out from the crowd, be different, and really fully embrace your uniqueness and your differences. So, do your mindset work that you need to do, to believe what you need to do believe to make this happen and then take the actions that you need to take. So, identify: what is one little thing that you could do in order to fully embrace your uniqueness and stand out in the crowd and be different and then do it. Maybe identity 1, 3, 5 or more action plans, concrete things that you can do, and I am not talking mindset work because I have assumed by this point that you have already done that, but concrete actions. So, for me, it would be, I have got plans to hire a book PR person for this book, hiring a person, asking for the referral and hiring the person because that is going to force me to get out there in a big way. That’s one thing I could do. Then the next step is doing this over and over and over. I always talk about the spiral staircase, you do the mindset work, you do the practical action, you do the mindset work, you do the practical action. You go up that spiral staircase of personal growth and development and you grow, you stand out more, and you embrace your uniqueness and your differences, and you can be more visible until you hit another ceiling or thing where you realise: oh shit, I have got more work to do on this and then you do more work. It is a constant process until you feel like you don’t need it anymore. So, whenever you hit that ceiling, or you hit that: er I feel super uncomfortable with this, do the work again. That’s how I am doing it and that is what has helped me little by little step out there and embrace my uniqueness and be different and I am not 100% there, but I am a hell of a lot further down the path than I was five years ago, that’s for sure.

Using your uniqueness to your advantage

So, to me, the next step is that now you have embraced your uniqueness and your differences a little bit more than you did before, use those to your advantage, use those to stand out in the crowd, use those to express yourself, use those to express your unique self. This is when it is going to start triggering your shit again, it is going to start making you aware of the fact that you need to do more work on this and that is why it is so important to take these actions and really use your differences to be unique.

So, start blogging about your differences, start podcasting about them, start talking about them more with friends, communicate your differences to the world. So whether you have a business or not these are things that you and do in your life with your friends, or in your professional life, or with clients, or with whoever. Just be more vocal, or more communicative about your differences, and how they make you unique because people are going to be drawn to that or not. Either way it is going to help you become magnetic for the people who are fight for you and repel the people who are not right for you. Again, whether that is in your personal life, your professional life, your business life, whatever, but I think the more we can be colourful and bright and vivid, rather than boring and neutral and beige, the more success we are going to have in our lives once we let our colours out there.

So, that’s all for now, I really, really hope that you take this and do something with it. Like I said, if you are on Patreon I will put the journal prompts up there, they should be there by the time you listen to this and that should help you through this process of becoming aware of what makes you different and becoming aware of how you feel about that. Then improving how you feel about that so you can really stand out in the crowd and become magnetic for the people that you are here to serve, the people that you are here to help, whether it is with your business, whether it is with your job, whether it is with your creativity, your music, your books, your whatever. This is a really massive part of unleashing our purpose, our message, out into the world and doing the things that we are here to do and helping the people that we are here to help.

So I am going to wrap this up. I hope you found this interesting and useful and as always please drop me a line and let me know what you thought about this week’s episode.

You can email me: [email protected] or find me online and get in touch.

As always, I would love for you to join me on Patreon. As I said earlier, I have got journal prompts related to this episode and previous episodes in there, and I have got a ton of other stuff in there for you, all kinds of content and stuff I don’t share anywhere else.

Next week’s episode will be another episode with the fabulous Jo Casey and that’s all for now.

Thank you so much for listening. Remember to visit: http://HollyWorton.com/289 for the show notes on this episode, thank you so much.