“No one is laughing,” he said to me with an undertone of judgment and a side dish of shame. I smiled back at him and laughed. 

We were sitting at a dining room table and I was playing, which is authentic for me. He didn’t know how to engage with my form of play. He seemed confused by it. The majority of the adults in his life were serious and “professional” and I was far from that. The rest of the children at the table were playing along and being silly as well. 

Older versions of me would have gotten upset, perceiving the comment as rude. While another older version of me would have shifted the way that I was showing up based on my perception of his rejection. This version of me did neither. The unique way that I move through this world isn’t right for everyone, I am not even trying to be right for everyone. I learned long ago that what other people think of me will only ever pull me out of center, ground and alignment. He could misunderstand me. He could be confused by me. He could reject me. He could judge me. He could shame me. But, if I didn’t do those things. If I wasn’t confused by myself. If I didn’t reject me. If I didn’t judge me. If I didn’t shame myself, then I would be happy. If I accepted myself exactly as I am then that was all that mattered. But, if I shifted, adjusted, changed, molded, modified or minimized who I was to make ANYONE else happy then I was going to be miserable.

I only knew this was true because I had done it. I had done it for years and years of my life in various different ways and there was nothing that would make me go back to it. I wasn’t willing to compromise my inner peace for someone else, I simply wasn’t. 

So, I smiled back at him and laughed. “I am laughing.”

Eventually, he joined in with the play and found a place of belonging. That wasn’t my goal. I was open to that as an outcome, but I wasn’t attached to it. I didn’t need him to find my form of play fun but I did enjoy that he found a place of acceptance and belonging within it.