Living Outside The Lines

Living Outside the Lines.

To live outside the lines is to first realise we live within them.

I was inspired to write Living Outside the Lines after experiencing a wave of difficult feelings that left me confused and frustrated.

These moments lingered in my mind until I felt compelled to reach for my pastels and create an image that captured my felt sense; the wordless, inner experience of what I was carrying. I framed the lines and drew my journey between them. I realised that whatever diversion, route, path I took, I would always feel constricted and limited in the lines created and curated by others. It did not matter how much I tried, I could never live within a perfect blueprint of expectations.

As I drew, I began reflecting on a thought:

We deny ourselves the gift of truly knowing ourselves because we can still receive ourselves and worth only through the eyes and judgments of others.

When I was a child, I was prompted and expected to stay within the lines.

Colouring neatly, lining up sums and words on the page. Neat, Tidy. Ordered. Correct.

This was true for emotions too. Don’t show anger, distress. I learned of the inconvenience and burden experienced by others of these emotions. With no way to express them outwardly, they remained inside, seeping and weaving into the DNA of who I felt I was supposed to be.

I inhaled and embodied the message that tidy and contained expression was good. Being outside the lines meant I was rebelling, being difficult, not paying attention or worse, being “stupid.” and “wrong”. I chose quiet.

To avoid shame, rejection, or being seen as “different,” I learned to carefully and precisely fill in every shape to the very edge. I curated and crafted, manoeuvred and masked myself into a place of correctness. My internal vibrant colours faded and I gradually forgot myself.

When I zoom out from this detail now, I see how that same analogy also applies to life: the “spaces” we lived in were drawn for us. The lines of societal norms, unspoken yet unexplained expectations, and rigid confusing rules about how to belong. This becomes harder when you learned not to belong to yourself.

As a undiagnosed neurodivergent child, I tried exceptionally hard to live between those lines. I hear the same from others: the constant effort, the frequent “failures,” the overwhelm, the exhaustion, the burnout, the shame. What is your experience?

Our impulses were never wrong they were simply never understood or accommodated.

They were never given a safe space to be fully heard with an empathic heart or heard with a compassionate ear.

They were rejected. So we learned to reject ourselves.

It was never about not conforming. It was about the deep need to liberate our voices and our nervous systems from the straitjacket of neuro-normative functioning.

As children, when we coloured neatly inside the lines, we were emphatically praised for our “good work.” We multiplied this "way of being “to every corner of our lives for fear of abandonment or rejection. We learned quickly to meet the needs of others, and put ourselves in harms way seeking external validation to feel safe. But we also knew the constriction and pain of quiet betrayal of self that came with it.

Alice Miller wrote: “We were compelled to gratify unconscious needs at the cost of our own development.” I know that truth. Many of us do.

Unlearning the internal map written by others means I had to become my own cartographer.

Writing, drawing, therapy, feeling, body work. Dancing over and over and beyond the lines. Feeling the discomfort but dancing anyway.

When I draw now or make marks expressing self I meet myself in a place beyond my defences. It is relieving. It is expansive. The world beyond the lines. Beyond the edges. I learn to gracefully, sometimes timidly and sometimes loudly yet belligerently live outside of the lines.

The page and my internal world become a space of flow, no longer bound by rigid form or the need to sacrifice self for approval. Sometimes I still can retreat to the hardwired space, until I find my edges and the space beyond once more.

“People who choose or are coerced or feel they should identify only with “positive” feelings often end up in an emotionally lifeless middle ground. The cost of fitting in is the loss of vibrancy, authenticity, and the wild, beautiful mess of being fully human.” Pete Walker.

Living between the lines may have kept us safe, but it also fenced us in.

Now, you and I can choose to step beyond those lines to meet ourselves in colour, movement, and truth.

Reflective Exercise: Stepping Beyond the Lines

You might like to try this with a journal, pastels, paints, or simply your imagination. (If this is a sensory struggle- how might you choose to express yourself? leaves, sticks, stones, paper collage?)

In addition you might like to add a musical anthem to capture and accompany your journey.

For me "Learn Me Right" by Birdy Mumford & Sons from Disney's "Brave" inspires me to meet the truth and the forgotten child within. This song is currently stuck on repeat and has been for a while now and probably will be for some time to come.

Music has a way of weaving through the seasons of our lives.

When learning to live outside the lines what would be playing?"

"Forget what sounds ‘right’. What’s the real soundtrack of your life right now? Not the one that would impress anyone, but the one that actually feels true?"

1. Remember and reflect

   
   

   Think back to a time when you felt you had to “stay within the lines”, whether in school, work, family, or relationships. What rules or expectations were you trying to follow?

   
   

2. Feel gently

   
   

   Gently scan , without judgment Notice what emotions arise when you recall this memory. Do you feel tension, frustration, shame, longing, or something else?

   
   

3. Express

   
   

   Without worrying about neatness or perfection, draw, paint, or scribble how that experience feels in your body. Let colours, shapes, or marks represent the emotions. GET MESSY!

   
   

4. Liberate

   
   

   Now, on a fresh page, allow yourself to go beyond the lines  literally and metaphorically. Draw, paint, or write without boundaries. Let your hand move freely.

   
   

5. Reflect

   
   

   Ask yourself:

   • What does it feel like to go beyond the lines?

   • What fears or doubts show up?

   • What possibilities open when you choose expression over conformity?

     
     

6. Anchor

   
   

   Write one sentence or phrase that captures your commitment to honouring your authentic expression. Keep it somewhere you’ll see it often.

If you wish to meet yourself beyond the lines drawn for you and rediscover your unique self, in a supportive creative therapeutic space please reach out.

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