Natural or normal – how are you living?
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Natural or normal – how are you living?
From the moment a child is conceived, the idea of being normal becomes a silent benchmark. Expectant parents find comfort in hearing that their baby is tracking along the normal bell curve, developing within the average range, with no signs of abnormality. ‘Normal’ is equated with safety, reassurance, and predictability.
At birth, the first words we often hear are, “She’s healthy,” or “Everything’s normal.” If something falls outside the expected range, anxiety quickly sets in, for parents and medical professionals alike. Of course, we all want children to be healthy and well. But as a child grows, any deviation from the norm is met with unease, curiosity, or social exclusion.
Pop culture is filled with songs and stories about the deep longing to fit in and be normal. Parents often feel helpless when their child doesn't align with the textbook definition of typical. The whispered plea “Why can’t you just be normal?” echoes in many homes and hearts. People try to suppress their sensitivities and reshape themselves to appease a world that values conformity. The cost? An aching disconnection from the truth of who they are.
We are told there is safety in numbers, so we try to mould ourselves into the shapes others adopt. But it never quite fits. That shape was never truly ours. We bend and contort to fit in, but the sense of not belonging lingers. Worse still, we carry the weight of having betrayed ourselves, hiding who we really are for fear of judgment or rejection. We feel different — like impostors, and wonder if we’re the problem. We look at others who seem to ‘have it together’ and think, Why can’t I be like them? Why can’t I just be normal?
But have you ever paused to ask: What is normal, really?
Is it simply what most people do? A statistical average?
Is it what society accepts because it’s common — or just familiar?
Consider what was once ‘normal’:
- Prescribing cigarettes for stress
- Public executions
- Child experimentation in the name of science
- Sending young men to war as a rite of passage
Looking back, we’re appalled now, but at the time, these norms were widely accepted. This is the power of the collective group force: to silence deviation and demand compliance, often at the cost of truth and well-being.
And right now, this is what’s considered normal:
- Spending 6+ hours a day on screens
- Children with high levels of social anxiety
- Adults and children alike experiencing chronic anxiety, depression, or suicidal thoughts
- Taking mental health days because the workplace is overwhelming
- Regular alcohol consumption, vaping, or using recreational drugs
- Relying on caffeine to wake up and alcohol to wind down
- Yelling at our children and each other
- Bullying in the workplace and high levels of office politics
- High rates of co-morbidity and chronic illness
- Dementia being expected with ageing
One study even found that ‘normal’ children today report more anxiety than child psychiatric patients in the 1950s.[1]
So, is it truly wise to follow the crowd? To base our choices on what’s ‘normal’ in a society that often contradicts our body’s innate wisdom?
The irony is that even when we manage to conform, to do everything right via what is demanded from us by the group force, many of us still don’t feel like we belong. Why? Because deep down, we’ve abandoned what’s true for us.
If you asked your lungs whether they wanted to inhale cigarette smoke, they’d say no.
If you asked your nervous system whether anxiety feels normal, it would likely say you are crazy to think that this is normal. Just because it’s like this all the time doesn’t make it normal.
If you asked your heart whether fast food and soft drinks support it, it might just laugh.
When we use external measures to define what’s normal, we often engage in behaviours that are harmful, not only to our bodies, but also to everyone around us. You then swim with the fish and become a part of the whirlpool that defines what is normal in the first place, rather than standing out to inspire others to do so as well.
“If you live a lie long enough, it becomes your reality. However, no matter how much you choose to believe it, no matter how many live the lie with you, or how forcefully the lie may be disseminated, it does not change the fact that it is a lie. And, know this – Your body cannot be lied to. It is Universally responsive to discard what is not true to that which it belongs to, the Universe.”
Serge Benhayon Esoteric Teachings & Revelations Volume II, ed 1, p 535
When we begin to truly listen to the body – to its messages, its sensitivities, its intelligence – we start to define what is truly normal. Not the norm created by culture, convenience, or conditioning, but the normal that comes from within. One that honours the body’s rhythm, respects its limits, and supports its divine natural harmony.
It is time we stopped accommodating to create norms … and started defining what is truly normal based on the wisdom and intelligence of the body.
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