While watching the movie Finding Normal, its overlying, underlying and interwoven messages touched me.  At its simplest form, it reminds us all that we have to understand what is “normal” for us, and find it.  And once we find it, we should stay there.

Throughout life we are given clues, be they from tests, people’s comments or our gut instincts.  It serves us well to pay attention to them.  “Normal” means to be comfortable in our own skin, being who we are as best we can.

I posted on Facebook a few weeks ago that I have not felt as comfortable in my skin as I do now for decades.  That is “finding normal.”  At a recent meeting of the Houston chapter of the National Speakers Association, an attendee said to me, “You sound like a preacher.”  I smiled and replied, “I am an INFP!” in reference to the Myers-Briggs profile system (the woman who made the comment is a Myers-Briggs expert).  That is “finding normal.”  And I often remember the results of a test taken sophomore year in high school—a LONG time ago—that Fr. Tynan presented:  I need to have five things—power/authority to implement my ideas, enough money to do the things I want, an aesthetic environment, opportunities for creativity, and a situation where people seek my counsel and assistance.  It was true in 1972, and it is true now.  It has been decades, but I have those conditions again.  I have re-found normal.

Have you listened to the signals and clues that you have received over the years?  Have you listened to your instincts?  Do you take actions, think thoughts, dress, eat, laugh, play, dance, create, cook, woodwork, write….what is normal for you?

Finding normal means only that you listen to yourself and your Self, and then choose to live your life there.  Listen.  Find normal. Stay.