
Oh how good it is to be the black sheep. The person that kind of sticks out and doesn't always follow the rules - just because. What glorious freedom there is in being the black sheep - the person that rocks and rolls to their own unique beat.
When we move beyond judgment and accept our unique differences, we can appreciate the significance of our upbringing and the places our life choices have brought us. We can appreciate the times we have not followed the crowd. We can appreciate how our life circumstances made us stronger and how we wanted more for our self or something different. These things may have made you a black sheep - or feel like one.
Feeling like a black sheep can often be the feeling of being that person that didn't quite "fit in". This feeling could also be attributed to a feeling that you don't belong or you are inadequate. Often when we feel like we don't belong, it's because of an unsupportive family and/or friend circumstance that was not supportive. It could be related to something in our childhood when we were forming internal opinions about our self. For some of us, however, this sense of not belonging runs deeply and spans a period of many years. Many black sheep respond to the separateness they feel by pulling back from the very people to whom they might otherwise feel closest and embracing a different group with whom they enjoy a greater degree of commonality. It is a good time today to remember and reflect that you came here for a reason and the family and friends you have encountered were chose by you to help you grow. The experiences you have had formed the basis for who you are today. So how to move past the feelings of inadequacy and into the more auspicious realm. Try to move beyond comparisons and accept the differences you notice that seem to set you apart. You will come to appreciate the significant role your upbringing and socialization have played in your life's unique journey when you no longer need to compare and judge. In time, most black sheep learn to embrace their differences and be thankful for those aspects of their individuality that set them apart from others. We cannot expect that our peers and relatives will suddenly choose to embrace our values and offer us the precise form of support we need. But we can acknowledge the importance of these individuals by devoting a portion of our energy to keeping these relationships healthy while continuing to define our own identities apart from them.