Maybe You Were Never Supposed to Fit In

I’m going to be very honest with you here.

I have spent most of my life feeling like I don’t quite fit in places.

Too much for some people. Not enough for others.

Too spiritual for the corporate world. Too straight talking for the spiritual community.

Too masculine for the witchy circles. Too feminine for bro culture.

Too therapeutic for the coaching world. Too action orientated for therapeutic spaces.

See the pattern? 

I remember having a crisis of confidence many many years ago, and I sighed saying to a family member, “I just want to be normal.”

She looked at me slightly horrified, paused, and said, “Clare, when have you EVER been normal?”

We both burst out laughing. Because the idea of me fitting in like everyone else was frankly ridiculous. And we both knew it.

And that’s exactly why I work in the way that I do. Because I refuse to put myself, or the people I work with, in a box.

I remember being on a coaching training course years ago. I kept bringing in spiritual concepts, asking questions that connected the psychological with the metaphysical. The trainer kept looking at me with this bemused expression and actually said out loud,  “no-one has ever asked that before.”

He didn’t mean it unkindly. But I knew exactly what it meant, and I found it amusing.

Maybe I was in the wrong room… again.

And yet, I also follow the rules. More than I’d like to admit.

But not blindly. I follow the rules that make sense to me. Others I question. I used to be more openly rebellious perhaps, ready to challenge everything. These days I’m more mindful of where I pour my attention and energy. That in itself feels like growth, or maybe I’m just middle-aged and more tired.

But I do think about what people think of me. I adjust myself depending on who’s in the room, and one of my strengths is bringing people together and creating community.

But I’ve spent years showing just enough of myself without going too far.

Sound familiar?

Here’s what I’ve come to understand after years of this work, both on myself and with the people I work with.

That rebel part of you? And that people pleasing part?

Both learned what they know in order to survive. People please to connect, rebel to maintain independence. And both can be exhausting to maintain.

Astrology gave me a framework to understand this in myself. My Pisces stellium, Gemini rising, and Neptune in 7th house (amongst other placements) mean I can feel into any room, any person, any energy. I can adapt, shape shift, become whoever the moment seems to require. These are genuine gifts. But without discernment, they can dissolve parts of you. You can wake up one day and genuinely not know where others end and you begin.

Understanding that through my chart didn’t change things overnight. But it named it. And naming something is always the first step. Awareness.

I got very ill a long time ago. Psoriatic arthritis. My body eventually stopped cooperating with the performance. But recent health issues have asked me to look deeper into similar patterns that may be resurfacing, and I want to share this awareness to help you too. 

Healing meant getting radically honest about how I was living.
Who I was being.
And who I wasn’t allowing myself to be.

It wasn’t comfortable. It still isn’t.

But it was the most important work I’ve ever done. And it still is. 

This is the work I now do with my clients and the Temple Divine community, helping people who’ve never quite fit anywhere learn how to trust the way they’re built, and possibly find somewhere they can experience belonging. If you’re reading this and recognising yourself, you’re exactly the kind of person I created this work for.

And so this is for the outliers. The mavericks. The oddballs, and I say that with massive love and affection, because I am absolutely one of you. The square pegs. The ones who’ve always felt slightly out of place whether that’s in their family, their profession, or their spiritual community. The ones who are too much in some rooms and somehow not enough in others.

You’re my people.