“I’m learning to be ordinary, Rosie.” Sarah declares this—not with sadness or anger, nor with despair or bitterness—but with a clarity rooted in truth. In the two years we’ve been working together, I’ve never heard her speak with such grounded knowing. Her dis-ease isn’t rooted in alcohol or drugs, per se, but in a fundamental belief formed in childhood: that being unique would save her from insanity and certain death. Sarah has been in recovery for almost four decades. She’s been sober and clean all these years, managing her habits and feeling pretty dang good about it! But there’s a difference between managing habits and truly recovering the self—reclaiming what was once relinquished to the netherworld for the sake of survival. In the moment Sarah says, “I’m learning to be ordinary,” I know she is doing just that. She is recovering her true, authentic, exquisite self. This is a moment I celebrate with her. She hasn’t yet been able to fully claim the magnitude of that truth—but I feel it. “I’m learning to be ordinary!” It’s a huge WAHOOO! Recovering from Terminal Uniqueness A term used in recovery communities, terminal uniqueness speaks to that part of ourselves—yes, all of us—that has been trained to believe that simply being ourselves—without bling, without sexy, wealth, or power—is dangerous. As if to be ordinary is to vanish. Without some kind of distinction to make us stand out, we believe we risk experiencing what feels like a deeper “truth”: that we are inconsequential, invisible,