Everyone Else Seems Fine

 Q:

 “I was at a simcha last night with all the girls from my class. On the outside, I was smiling, but inside, I felt completely invisible. I kept watching the other girls and thinking, ‘Why does it look so easy for them?’ I feel like there’s this secret manual on how to be ‘social’ that everyone else got, and I’m just pretending. By the time I got home, I was so exhausted that I just snapped at my mother and went straight to my room. Am I just not meant to fit in?”

— Missing the Manual

Dear Missing the Manual,

  What you're describing is real, and it makes complete sense.Feeling invisible in a room full of people you know, while somehow keeping a smile on your face the whole time, is one of the most draining things you can do. You held it together all night. Of course you fell apart when you got home. 

From the way you describe it, smiling on the outside while something inside you is quietly collapsing, it sounds like you’ve been doing something really exhausting without even realizing it. You’ve been performing. Not because you’re fake. Because somewhere along the way, you got the idea that who you actually are isn’t quite enough for the room, and so you’ve been working overtime to cover the gap.

 Here’s what’s usually happening in a moment like that. You walk into the room and your brain does a quick scan. Everyone looks comfortable. Everyone looks like they belong. And your brain takes that information and turns it into a story: they know something you don’t. There’s a rhythm here that everyone else learned and you missed. And from that point on, you’re not really at the simcha anymore. You’re in your head, watching yourself from the outside, grading your every move.

That is exhausting in a way that has nothing to do with how late you stayed out. Which is probably why you came home and snapped at your mother before you even got your coat off. You weren’t tired from the night. You were tired from the performance.

 So what do you actually do with this?

Not fake it harder. Not push yourself to talk more or laugh louder or stand differently. Start with one small shift in what you’re telling yourself when you walk into the room.

The girls around you do not have a secret manual. They are not more socially gifted than you are. What you’re seeing on the outside, the easy laughs, the comfortable posture, the effortless conversation, is exactly what you were doing too. Smiling on the outside. Managing something on the inside. Every single one of them.

In coaching we call this leveling the playing field. When you walk into a room convinced that everyone else has something figured out that you don’t, you put yourself at an automatic disadvantage before you’ve said a single word. But when you remind yourself that they are figuring it out too, the pressure drops. You stop performing and start actually being there.

Try this the next time. Before you walk in, say something to yourself quietly and mean it: “They are not better than I am. They are pretending just like me.” Not as a trick. As something true. Because it is.

You don’t need the manual. You just need to stop waiting for it.

With warmth,

Estie

Ready to start feeling like yourself again?

 Reach out today for a free consultation.

Estie Ashlag, AAPC 

Certified Life Coach, Refuah Institute