Anders zijn: een zegen of een opgave!?⚡Being different: a blessing or a struggle!?

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Dear Reader,

If only I had known sooner, that it’s nice to be different.
If only someone had told me that there is much beauty in being different in the world.
That I should not care so much about the reactions of the people around me.
If only I had had an example of how being different can make big dreams come true.
That would have saved me a lot of tears, pain and difficulties.

But as a child and as a teenager I saw mainly the negative effects of being different.
To me, being different was a sign that you didn’t belong. As a Dutch Saying goes: Just act normal, you’ll be crazy enough!
But what is normal when you are born different. When you are “Differently Wired”.

From an early age I felt it. I was not like the kids in my class. I loved reading and learning came very easily to me. I was always (one of) the best in my class. In elementary school, high school, law school.
It made me happy to read more, to be able to do more, to solve problems.
And there was something else, but I couldn’t put my finger on that at the time.
That something made me often excluded from the group.
I was different… Didn’t share their interests and they didn’t share mine.

And I really only had 1 wish, the wish to belong.
Because I saw how nice it was to share things with others, to go through life the same way, to be loved, to be together. And me, I often felt alone.
For me, ‘being different’ equaled ‘being alone’.
But I couldn’t quite explain what it was that made me so different. And so I didn’t really know what to do about it and how to adjust.

When I was about 25 years old, I read a book that touched me deeply. A life story of someone who had gone through many difficulties in life and used all that experience to help others in similar situations.
WOW, how wonderful that seemed to me to be able to help others in that way, but … I had nothing to share with others. Had not been through anything so terrible and did not have a unique experience.
Other than feeling different and often feeling alone, I otherwise had a good life.

Be careful what you wish for….

At age 27, with a job in the judiciary and a good career on the horizon, my life took a dramatic turn. I became ill. Very, very ill.
I thought I would spend a week in bed and then be fine, but 7 days turned into 7 years.

7 years in which I turned out to be different again….

I had no condition that the doctors knew what to do with. At first they had no diagnosis, just a sum of symptoms and a label with a name on it, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME).
With the disturbing announcement that there was no treatment. I just had to learn to live with it….
The only thing was that it’s a progressive nervous system disorder that got worse and worse and you can’t really live with it. Only exist. After 7 years in bed and following all well-meaning advice came the announcement from my doctor, that he didn’t know anymore and that in his eyes I wouldn’t live long.

That was it then? went through my head.
All my life wishing I could make something special out of my life, mean something to others, belong somewhere, and then after 34 years and the last 7 lonely years in bed it ends this way….?
My life, to my mind, had yet to begin, not end! NO, I couldn’t let that happen. It had to be different. I had to become the exception to the rule.

Maybe now my being different could work in my favor for once?

After all, I had nothing left to lose. If I did nothing, I was going to die….
I did what I had always been good at, studying, making connections, gathering evidence. Sometimes only able to read half a page a day, but I was doing something….
Now not as a lawyer, but as someone who needed to become her own doctor. Just like Dr. House or The Good Doctor solving the most complicated case supernaturally… except that it was my own case, my life….

Thus, in my search for answers, I ended up at a naturopathic doctor’s office. I expected an opening line like: What can I do for you?
But instead he asked me, “How spiritual are you?”
I looked at him in surprise and asked, “What do you mean by that?” It threw me off quite a bit.

He then asked me to share what I knew about my condition, and I shared what I knew. He kept writing. Until he said, What you are telling me now I could never know as a doctor…. No idea how you got this information but it is extraordinary. You tell me what you think you need and I will help you.

A new path began. A search on the spiritual plane for who I am, what I am, what gift I had received and how it could help me in my quest to improve my quality of life and have more time.
And the more I delved into it, the more I learned to understand why I had been so different all my life.
Being born with open spiritual channels and keeping them open turned out to be not so common and normal. So my life was literally different from those around me. Many pieces of the puzzle fell into place.
I was learning to use my spiritual channels better and better. No doctor could help me reverse my condition, but the information I was getting through my spiritual channels could.

After some time, I joined a spiritual community of people who were learning from the same teacher, and in that community I thought I finally found like-minded people. People who were just like me. Finally belonging, … I thought….
But soon I was again called the “special one” because my condition made me different from the rest.

How hard it has been all my life to have to experience, feel and hear that over and over again: Barbara you are different….
Being different felt to me like not being good enough to belong and that led to an incredibly lonely existence. Even though I loved people a lot, connect easily, had many contacts, deep inside I felt very lonely. That profound connection that I so desperately wanted was still missing.

What I did learn was that when I adapted to others, I lost myself little by little.

And so Life gave me another hard lesson. After 7 years of living in the outside world again, enjoying all that life had to offer, I was again faced with unusual symptoms that no doctor knew what to do with.
My spiritual guides had already warned me that I would be home again, but at first I thought I had misunderstood. After all, I was doing fine.
Until I started having problems with my feet and walking became increasingly difficult and my physical world was already shrinking as a result.

A time when the community I thought I was part of was almost non-existent.
I was faced with a life that once again became quieter and quieter, with no sense of belonging anywhere. But this time I was many times more prepared. I knew now that I had my spiritual channels and that I could communicate with my spiritual guides.
That kept me going when the walls came at me.
Another 7-year journey awaited me. (Interesting how these are always periods of 7 years… ) A period of going deeper and deeper into myself.
Years in which I cried an ocean of tears from the pain of being different, of being alone again, of having to solve everything myself. What had I done that I “deserved” this. It felt like punishment.
Until slowly it became more and more clear to me, that this was actually exactly what I was reading about in that book when I was 25. This was my experience, my life story, my development, which I could start helping others with.

This was my journey through the dark night of the soul, to return to the light and with all that experience I could start doing something positive.

And with that realization came more and more moments where I felt a deep gratitude and richness for being different.

I started writing down all the information I received daily from the spiritual world, started sharing messages, and the more I did that, the more I learned to embrace myself and being different.
I realized that there were people who needed my different vision, my different experience and the messages I received and that it was enriching for them.
And the more I helped in this way, the more I became that channel and built that bridge between the spiritual world and earthly existence for others, the more I got in return myself in the form I needed. My health came back again and my channels opened further.
Once again, with the help of the spiritual world, I had done what many thought impossible.

I finally realized, that I was born with a gift and that I didn’t have to hide that gift away to be like everyone else.

I had to learn to use and develop that gift so that I could use it to help others.

All this time I hoped to belong somewhere, because I didn’t want to be alone.
But only in the silence and isolation, did I find what I had been searching for all this time.
The deep feeling of coming home to myself and of belonging.

In that seclusion there was no one to look up to or “copy.” I was challenged to descend deeper and deeper into myself. To be authentic and true to myself.
And as I developed a more powerful connection to my own soul, my channels were further opened allowing me to become part of something much bigger than myself and bigger than society.
I became connected to the grand unification field to bring the messages and the healing that comes through to those who need it.
It was that sense of connection I had always longed for. But I found it in a totally different place and in a different way than where I had been looking for it. It was my own desire to be someone else that had gotten in my way all along.
And so the circle was complete.

I went through a long road of not wanting to be different, back to ME, Myself and I.
I got ME and lost life as I knew it.
But found a more powerful version of myself in the lonely depths of darkness where I was invited to create my own light.
Now I help others strengthen their own light by using the unlimited power of heart and soul.

Life has a nice way of making something clear, don’t you think?
I finally understood the meaning and benefits of being different.
The struggle has been given up and replaced by a great sense of gratitude.

To end with the words of David Viscott:

The purpose of life is to discover your gift.
The work of life is to develop it.
The meaning of life is to give your gift away.

If you would like to read more about how I use that gift to help others, please check out my website or sign up for my newsletter.

I’m curious to know how you use your gift in life. Or what holds you back if you are not using it yet but would like to use it. Feel welcome to share that in the comments.

Love, Barbara

~ True beauty is revealed only if there is light from within ~

Certified Soul Healer, Soul Teacher, Soul Communicator (Readings Akashic Records) en Guan Yin Lineageholder

Linktree:https://linktr.ee/barbarakuipers
Website: www.puur-licht.nl/en

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