I am called the crazy one

I am called the crazy one.

Do you ever feel like… the "crazy one"? The one that sticks out. The one that's too loud. Too emotional. Too much. You think: "What the f** am I doing?!!!"

(Yes, I said crazy. I know it's a loaded word — especially for women, especially in mental health spaces. And I think we need to reclaim it. Because history's most brilliant, world-changing minds were called crazy first. So let's reframe it: crazy just means the world hasn't caught up to you yet.)

Thirteen years ago, I was the crazy one.

I stood in Denmark — mid-twenties, heart full of something I couldn't name yet — and I made a decision that had everyone looking at me like I'd lost my mind.

I was going to move to the US. Alone. With no money. To become a therapist.

At a graduate school nobody had heard of, somewhere on the other side of the ocean.

I remember the faces. The tilted heads. The "but… why?" The quiet version of "you're crazy." And the loud version too. People who loved me genuinely worried. "You don't know anyone there, Nora." "How are you going to pay for this?" "What if it doesn't work out?"

They were right. No money. No safety net. Just this deep feeling in my heart that kept knocking. So I went with a one-way ticket. I want you to sit with that for a second.

Because I know you have a version of this story.

Maybe it was a move. Maybe it was a choice that made your family go quiet at the dinner table. Maybe it was saying yes to something you had no business saying yes to — no money, no connections, no roadmap. And everyone thought you were crazy.

But you listen to yourself anyway. Not fitting in doesn't mean you're broken. It means you were built for something the world hasn't caught up to yet. But here's what I need you to hear: Belonging is the opposite of fitting in.

You don't make a difference fitting in. You do — standing out.

You are a misfit.  An n’betweener.

And that is your magic.

We are not people who fit neatly into boxes. 

We are the ones who cross oceans — literal and metaphorical — toward something we can feel but can't always explain.

And yes. It gets lonely.

Living between worlds always does.  Always translating yourself. Always arriving somewhere and doing the quiet math of how much of me is safe to bring in here.

I see you in that.

Which is exactly why, thirteen years after that "crazy" decision, I made another crazy one.

I created RISE.

I am building something that has never existed before, for people the world has never built anything for — with no blueprint, no template, no roadmap. Just a YES heart feeling.

A space where all of you are finally welcome.

May 2nd, New York City.

One day. One room. 

RISE: The n'betweener® Homecoming is yours. Keynotes, intimate conversations, somatic workshops — and for one whole day, a room where your n'betweeness is not something to explain.

It's time to celebrate us.

→ Get your ticket before it's too late. 

Doors close soon.

Come home, misfit. We've been waiting for you.

XO 

Nora