Enrique irby
@wandering_RiQ · 2:07
People often see Beauty in the Butterfly, but will ignore it within the Moth!! Do you belong …. Let’s TAP in with Love Sincerely, RiQ
And it took a lot of years of my life to notice that I didn't have to fit in. I just needed to keep being me. And that's when I found my freedom. So a little backstory. I'm into active duty military and I'm a very compassionate person. I'm a 200 hours yoga teacher. I'm really into meditation. I love nature. So that's a little bit about me
Mtwadamela Ijogo
@Mtwadamela · 2:58
Hey, great topic. Thanks for the invite. Very timely words, no doubt. Right now I've been going through some health issues of my own, but I've also felt like that myself. It's funny because my late mother got rested, so she was the first person to ever tell me that I was different, because she used to tell me that all the time as a kid, especially because she was raising five of us
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 1:41
It builds greater personal identity when you're forced to say and identify and clarify and pronounce your beauty and your uniqueness in the face of a lot of things that just seem completely different and maybe you identify them as nothing that's interesting to you anyway. I always call myself the rainbow sheep of the family, and I find it to be an honorable role, and I've leveraged it my whole of life to be me and to be okay with that
Rocío (Ro) Christensen
@rocio · 2:28
And I'm going through therapy right now, going for almost a year now, and there are some parts that are scary to look at, but I think about this piece of writing that I studied a little bit ago called The Actor's Vow, and there's a part of it that reads, the most beautiful and valuable parts of myself are the ones I've inhabited and kept from the world
mandy nagle
@ImperfectBarbie · 0:17
Thanks so much for sharing your story. I appreciated the vulnerability that you had and it was really encouraging, especially as a new Swell user. As of today, I'm excited to learn more from each other and really grow from this experience
I'm autistic. But I didn't learn this until I was at the age of 46. So everything about me was deemed wrong. If I couldn't fake it enough, I thought too much. I was too emotional, too imaginative, too like instead of being a kid or too kidlike when I'm an adult and to this and do that. And the list was long and varied and weighed so much
Lance Watson
@lwatsonjr · 3:12
But I love how these things can be interpreted and applied across a vast spectrum of understanding and the butterfly in them off such a fascinating simile that you used and metaphor that you used for self in contrast to other. The butterfly is mostly diurnal, meaning it mostly dwells in the daytime and it's active in the sunlight. Right? And the moth is mostly nocturnal and they are comfortable in dwelling in darkness. Right
What parts of me I felt fit in, what parts did not just well, on this, you can look it up because they have so many parts of me I never felt fit in because the pardes to me never seem to kind of fit like a piece and a puzzle when it was around different groups of people. It just wasn't like the right part that showed up of me, if that makes sense. It's like I am not I'm a spontaneous being. And I tried to conform
Enrique irby
@wandering_RiQ · 1:26
Hey, thanks for responding, man. Like, I totally understand what you're saying. When I was growing up back in South Carolina, my family would tell me the same thing. They would always say, you're the first person, Enrique. And some people outside of my family, they would always kind of call me weird or always point me and say, oh, that one. I totally understand what you're coming from
Enrique irby
@wandering_RiQ · 1:02
So I bashed myself for so long because I didn't know how to fit in. But the positive thing that came from that is the bashing that I did help to create the pattern of love for those pieces of me that I have today
This might you know, it might come as a shock but I have never really fit in myself. Oh goodness. As if it weren't obvious. I used to think I was Patsy Klein. All other kids were listening to Spice Girls and playing with their gigapits and whatnot I was wearing like old fashioned country dresses and singing Sweet Dreams. I have no clue. It's funny thing about now. It's funny because high school I have found it never ends. It's still the same
Grecia Sanchez
@Grecia1 · 1:54
So, yeah, what you're saying I feel that. And I appreciate you saying that. Mandy. Yeah. Just like you said, just be yourself. Don't ever change. And sometimes that's hard just because we go through things in life and some people treat us they want to dim your light. They take away your light. Or they treat us not with love and respect
Enrique irby
@wandering_RiQ · 1:47
I think it's absolutely amazing that you knew that was a deaf heads moth. I actually love the death head moth, and I was in love with it even before the Silence of the Lance. I have two tattoos of it already, and I'm getting my third this year. I just love what it represents beauty in the darkness. It just kind of reminds me of accepting all my dark sides, knowing that there's beauty there underneath
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
Enrique irby
@wandering_RiQ · 0:49
You know, I really don't think it comes as a shock that you don't want to be, like in a group. You don't want to have that sheet mentality. Think there's anything wrong with the sheep mentality myself either, because I love the aspect of being in communal environments and being with my community. But I also think that there's a certain type of beauty in being able to be with yourself sometimes and just to embrace your uniqueness and sit with that
Enrique irby
@wandering_RiQ · 1:49
So I think both are needed and both are beautiful. Thank you again for your response. I love how thoughtful you are in your response months and I really appreciate it. Thank you. Bye
Nick montecalvo
@jmontecalvo · 4:13
Half people I didn't get along with, they all hated me. Well, most of them. Some of them liked me. Some of them like me and didn't say anything. But I never liked the idea of the cheerleaders and the jocks didn't like that kind of thing. Then you have the people that just didn't fit in. Kind of nerdy people. Then you had the Stoners, who were like mandy. I never understood those clicks either