As the Paradigm Shifts | I’m nothing like them. So how am I like them?

A midnight reckoning, a sacred stinging and the grace of seeing me as I am

||| AS THE PARADIGM SHIFTS by ROSIE KUHN |||

So often—through my training, through my struggles with people—the question turns in my direction: How am I like them?
My first, reactive response?
“I’m nothing like them!”

And I dive headfirst into the rant, steeped in a familiar brew of childhood angst and adult-child righteousness—my favorite hangout, truth be told.
But recently, in the early hours of the morning, lying awake and plotting out the weekend (maybe a few new plants to pot?), something unexpected flared up.
Rage.
A full-bodied, unfiltered fury.
“I hate! I hate! I hate!”
I turned inward and said, “Okay. I’m listening. What do you hate?”

This part of me answered without hesitation:
“I already have too much to do. I can’t keep up. And YOU!!! You keep adding more to the to-do list. You pile on projects, commitments, plans, expecting it will all get done—and you don’t follow through. You’re not paying attention.”
And just like that, I saw it. How I’m just like them. YUCK!!!!
Them—the ones who pile on pressure, who never ask how I’m doing before asking for more.
Them—the ones who don’t listen when I say I’m already at capacity, who just assume I’ll handle it. That I always do.
Them—the ones who make me feel invisible, dispensable, used up.
And more still—Them—the ones who disappear. Not in some dramatic exit, but quietly—unconsciously—slipping away, unaware of what (or who) they’re neglecting, abandoning.

They appear to be unaware of the consequence of their absence. Of the silence that echoes in their wake. Of the way presence, once offered and then withdrawn, can feel like emptiness, betrayal and, dare I say it: Abandonment. JEESH!
And here again, I see it.

The part of me that checks out. That ghosts my own needs. That drifts away when things get overwhelming, hard, tender, or too damn real. That part of me that avoids the mess I’ve made, hoping it’ll resolve without me participating.

But here’s the deeper twist I’ve come to see:

When I was younger—when I was still really trying to be someone special—I wanted to be like them. I watched them closely. I studied what they wore, how they laughed, what they liked. I mirrored their words, their values, their rhythms. Not to mock them. But to matter. To belong. I’d be special if I was like them!!!

And the paradox?

Now, as I declare, “I’m nothing like them!” I’m often railing against the very image I once tried to emulate.
It’s a wild loop—This push-pull of identity. Wanting to be like them in order to be loved.
Then, I reject them to reclaim myself. Bewildering, right?
Both ends of that rope are held by the same hands. I see they are mine. And I’m not liking what I see!

And maybe that’s where the real reckoning begins: Not in choosing sides, but in letting the tension itself teach me where I’ve been trying to earn love, instead of simply being love. YEOWEE!!!
That is how I’m like them too.

Realizing I’m like them isn’t a moment of grace.

Not at first. It’s a sting. It’s an OW!!! It is a rupture of my reality. That realization splinters my soul. It whispers with agony: “Oh no. I am them! I’ve done what they did.
I’ve become what I swore I’d never be.”
That truth pierces. It doesn’t soothe.

This moment startles me. It makes me retract and cover my eyes. I’d rather pretend and to re-enter the illusion of distance and difference. “I wouldn’t do that!”—the mantra I want to return to over and over again.

Because, to stay present here, to how I am like them, means something big: It means I may be meeting something unrectifiable. A rupture of reality. A knowing that cannot be undone.

That’s the EEK! That’s the moment of no return. Feeling I’ve become one of the worst of the worst of the worst!!!
But this realization, that I’m like them, is also the moment of returning. Because only when I know I’m like them, can I begin to meet me—the real me, again—honestly, nakedly. Not as who I was trying to be, not as a project to fix, but as the true essence of who I am—a presence to welcome home.

The Great Denial
It’s humbling—sometimes heartbreaking—to realize how unconscious I’ve been. How unaware I am, at times, of how my way of being is shaping my reality. It’s not that I’m bad.
It’s not that I’m wrong. It’s that I’ve been trying to manage life, keep things moving.
I’m trying to protect myself and the people l love, in the only way I know how to
do—it’s the best I can do!

And that’s where denial lives: in the noble attempts to cope, to avoid harm, to be good.
It’s only when I pause long enough to say, “Wait a minute… I’m doing that too,” that something begins to soften. Not a collapse into guilt, but a breath into what’s really true.

Because now I see—I’ve been like them, for all the right reasons: To stay safe. To stay needed. To stay visible. To stay invulnerable. To stay in control.
And that is the hinge point, isn’t it? The place where compassion begins. Where forgiveness becomes possible. Where acceptance is a quiet truth.
This is where something tender opens. It’s an opportunity for me to be with them and with myself differently. Because I am beginning to be with me differently. Not from a place of superiority or strategy, but from the soil of shared humanity.

We are all trying.
We are all afraid.
We are all carrying too much.
And sometimes, in our trying, we hurt ourselves and each other, no matter what!
Jeesh!
I see now that being “like them” isn’t a condemnation. It’s a bridge.

It’s a chance to remember that the only way out of this mess of being human might just be by crossing the threshold—not between them and me, but between the performance and the presence—between who I’ve tried to be, and who I already am.

Because in the end, there’s no “them.”
Just me—echoing through thoughts, comparisons, old efforts to belong, trying to be like them, and trying even harder not to be.
And when all that falls away…
there’s just this moment—bare, honest, quiet.
And maybe that’s where freedom lives.

And so, here is what I know, from the marrow of my own becoming:
The moment I saw I was like them was the moment I could begin to love myself back into wholeness. Not in spite of the ways I’ve failed and been imperfect, but precisely because of them.

There’s no purity in perfection. There’s no freedom in denial. But there is grace—quiet, undramatic grace—in the honest turning toward myself.
And that has made all the difference. Well, it’s a work in progress!