Stop Auditioning for Belonging

I need to pop into Jenkins Cocktail Bar this week, as a punter, to celebrate the Funky Divas hanging on the wall as part of Sherwood Art Week. I find the fact that I’m exhibiting artwork slightly surreal if I'm honest!

It’s just over a year ago that they started coming out of my head. I'd started painting so that I wasn’t filling my time being busy with work.

Trying to slow down and step back from the business I’d built up over the past decade or more and reconnect with my creativity...

Now my paintings are hanging in their second public exhibition! It's funny how these things happen.

I love the Funky Divas, not because I think they're masterpieces, but because every single one of them represents something much bigger than paint on paper or canvas.

They represent a way of being. A permission slip. A reminder or a little nudge that says, "You don't have to keep squeezing yourself into places that don't fit."

As I stood looking at them when Paul was helping me put them up, I realised something - every single Funky Diva belongs exactly as she is.

None of them are trying to look like each other, are asking permission or checking whether they're too much.

·Too colourful

·Too loud

·Too weird

·Too visible

They just are. And I wonder if that's why people seem to connect with them when I show them the card deck?

Because deep down, I don't think most of us are looking for more ways to fit in. I think we're looking for places where we can exhale and don't have to edit ourselves.

Places where we don't have to constantly read the room before deciding which version of ourselves is acceptable today. The older I get, the more important that feels.

Back in the day, I think I spent a lot of time trying to fit in. Not consciously (apart from when I was 14 and desperately wanted a full length leather coat like all the cool girls who danced to Northern Soul music).

I don't think many of us wake up and decide we're going to mould ourselves into something we're not.

It happens gradually with a little compromise here. A bit of people-pleasing there. A bit of shrinking to make somebody else feel more comfortable, keeping quiet because it's easier and trying to not rock the boat.

Before you know it, you've become very good at reading the room.

Very good at anticipating what people need from you, being what everybody else wants and not nearly as good at being yourself.

As I’ve had a situation arise this week where it’s become very obvious I wasn’t playing to someone else’s tune, the phrase "stop auditioning for belonging" has been rattling around in my head.

Because that's exactly what so many of us do.

We are “auditioning” because:

·We tone ourselves down

·We adjust

·We shape-shift

·We present the version of ourselves we think will be accepted

The one that's less likely to be judged, is easier to understand and doesn't make anybody else uncomfortable. And then we wonder why we feel exhausted.

As you know (if you’re a keen reader of my weekly musings) I've also been thinking about community a lot recently.

A few weeks ago I was in Spain with a group of women in business. Some I'd barely met before.

Yet within a very short space of time there was a sense of ease and that wasn’t necessarily because we agreed on everything or we were all the same.

It was because nobody wastrying to prove anything.

There was space for real conversations.

The kind where you can admit you're tired, confused, uncertain or even quietly excited about something.

I've realised those are my favourite kinds of spaces these days, because I don't have to leave parts of myself at the door or explain myself and I can turn up exactly as I am - messy bits included.

Because belonging and fitting in are not the same thing.

·Fitting in requires you to change

·Belonging allows you to stay yourself

And if you've followed my work for the past year, you'll know this is what unsausaging is all about.

The Sausage Machine of Conformity starts working on us from a very young age.

·Be good.

·Be sensible.

·Don't show off.

·Don't be difficult.

·Don't make a fuss.

·Don't be too emotional.

·Don't be too ambitious.

·Don't be too different.

It's not usually malicious because the people passing these messages on genuinely believe they're helping.

They're teaching us how to fit in, how to be accepted and belong. Except they're not actually teaching belonging at all, they're teaching conformity, and there's a difference.

One requires you to become more of yourself.

The other requires you to become less.

Which brings me back to Funky Diva energy…

Because it’s an act of rebellion against that idea. It’s a quiet refusal to shrink, to become beige and refuse to apologise for taking up space.

And perhaps that's why they make me smile every time I see them lined up together.

They're all completely different but they all belong, because they've embraced their differences. That's the bit that matters.

And it's the bit I'm hoping to create more of through things like the Sassy Shoes Experience 27th of this month.

People might assume it's about style, shoes or clothes. And yes, there will be creativity and colour and a little bit of sparkle. But underneath all of that, it's really about creating a space where people can reconnect with themselves. Despite the name, it isn’t really about shoes…

It’s about spending a day with a group of like-minded individuals who are ready to stop shrinking and who know there’s more of them waiting to come out.

People who are tired of second-guessing themselves and worrying about what everyone else thinks.

We’ll be tapping into Funky Diva energy using my Sausage Machine of Conformity concept. Exploring

stories and expectations that keep us playing small.

Reconnecting with the bits of ourselves we’ve accidentally abandoned along the way.

As with everything I do it will be more in a “laugh, reflect, create, connect and leave feeling lighter” kind of way than a "kumbaya sit-in-a-circle" sort of way.

It's going to be the kind of day where you walk in as one version of yourself and leave with a clearer sense of who you actually are.

A reminder that confidence isn't something you earn.

It's something you uncover.

Because when you stop auditioning for belonging, something shifts.

You stop asking:

"Will they like me?"

And start asking:

"Do I like who I am when I'm around them?"

That's a very different question.

And a very different way to live. It's giving Funky Diva Vibes...