One of the things I love most about writing On Knowing Yourself is hearing how you relate the stories and insights to your own lives. We're all on this journey of figuring ourselves out, and there's something powerful about learning how other people navigate their way through people pleasing, boundary issues, family dynamics and those moments where they realise they've lost touch with themselves.
How I Know Myself is a new interview series where I sit down with different people to explore their journey of self-discovery. Sometimes funny, often moving, and always honest, these conversations remind us that knowing yourself isn't a destination but a practice of learning to tune in, show up and gradually become more of who you really are.
In this first interview, I talk to my brother Richard about his journey from playing it small and hiding himself to living authentically. From painful female friendships and adversity, to finally coming out at forty-three, his story is a powerful reminder that it's never too late to come home to yourself.
This is a condensed version of our conversation. To watch the video or listen to the full audio interview, become a paid subscriber.
Was there a moment in your life that jolted you into realising that you did not know yourself enough or that you weren't embodying what you knew?
It's been lots of moments that added up to me getting to that point and realising that I don’t know myself well enough and I keep allowing certain things to happen in my life. At the beginning of the year, I had very similar female relationships where I had these very strong, very aggressive sometimes, and definitely not balanced relationships. And I think they were duplications of the female parental relationship I've always had. It’s what I thought love was supposed to be. It's only recently I've been able to look at those behaviours and realise they’re not doing me any good.
What was your role within your family and childhood environment, and how do you think it's affected you in adulthood?
That's a big one. In the family dynamic, I think I was maybe the scapegoat, the one that wasn't achieving as high as, say, my older sister, and the one that wasn't showing up doing the things perfectly. A little of the one that was letting [everyone] down. So maybe the black sheep of the family and had social problems growing up. I think I was maybe like the punching bag for [the negative] feelings in the family. "Oh, Richard's not doing it right”. Or "He's not going to do this”. Or "He's not going to get that done”. That was something, even from a really young age, from our dad's side of the family. They really value intellect and people doing well at school. And I wasn't. I was more creative as a very small child. And it's only when I got to my teens when I went down that finance, economics, accounting route, which I think is very ‘certain’.
I didn't really feel comfortable being creative because you couldn't really add one and one [and make] two to value what that creativity meant. There wasn't really space for that easiness of expression in that kind of environment.
Do you think that there was a specific moment or experience that made you oh so aware of where you were being inauthentic, including holding back or ignoring your needs and busting your boundaries?
Definitely those corporate experiences of being bullied in work or overlooked, even though I'm clearly producing and achieving all the KPIs and they can't deny my bonuses. I think all those times when I should have maybe checked out of those situations earlier, but I didn't.
I think that's where I realised I was being inauthentic to myself. And of course, obviously coming out so late in my life (Richard came out two years ago, aged forty-three1). That's another one. I really think that getting to know yourself, it's about being able to say no to yourself from doing those bad habits you're putting out into the world.
I think that's one of the lessons I learned, is just tell myself, “No, we're not doing this anymore”. It's trying to have that boundary with myself that I'm not going to continue to not give myself the 100% or disrespect myself in that way and to show up as myself.
How have you approached saying no, and do you have a memorable experience of where you learned to say no effectively?
I think saying no is an ongoing exercising of the muscle that you need to practise on as well. It comes from a place of usage. I think of my 8th or 9th birthday party in Ireland. I invited every single kid on the street apart from one who was clearly my enemy to come to my birthday party, and it caused such an uproar with our parents saying, “You have to invite him, Richard. You have to do this. This guy's parents are coming over complaining that he was the only one not invited.” And I stuck to my guns and said no, and that caused a massive problem. But I think I was okay with that.
The two parents I have, not my choice, but you know, this is what we have. But I'm not having another abuser coming into the house or another person who I don't need. I think that was probably an early example of me being able to put my boundaries down with confidence, and that confidence really came from pretty much the worst things you can imagine happening at home. I'm going What else is there? That's why I was okay with getting in trouble at school, because I've already seen all the consequences.
