When we think about belonging, we often think about finding our people, being part of a community, having somewhere we feel welcome, accepted and connected.
And those things are wonderful and an important part of daily life. Having people around us who care, places where we feel at home and opportunities to connect can make such a difference to our lives.
But there’s another side to belonging that we don’t always think about – a sense of belonging to ourselves. Because we can be surrounded by people, part of a family, a workplace or a community, and still feel like we don’t quite belong.
Sometimes that’s because, somewhere along the way, we’ve started to lose touch with who we really are.
Belonging or fitting in?
Brené Brown talks about the difference between belonging and fitting in.
Fitting in can mean changing parts of ourselves to be accepted. Perhaps we hold back our opinions, agree with things we don’t really agree with, play down our personalities or put other people’s needs and expectations ahead of our own. We may not always realise we are doing it. We may have spent years being the person we thought we needed to be. The responsible one. The helpful one. The strong one. The one who keeps everyone happy.
And there’s nothing necessarily wrong with any of those qualities. But when we are more focused on what others expect of us, we can gradually become disconnected from our true selves.
And when we’re disconnected from ourselves, it can become much harder to experience that genuine sense of belonging and acceptance we’re looking for.
Because how can we feel truly accepted for who we are if we’re not allowing ourselves to be who we are?
Coming back to what matters to you
One of the most valuable ways I’ve found to reconnect with our true selves is through exploring our values.
Our values are the things that really matter to us. The qualities, experiences and ways of living that feel important, meaningful and true. They might include connection, kindness, adventure, freedom, family, creativity, faith, honesty, compassion, courage to name just a few…
What matters deeply to one person might not carry the same importance for someone else. Sometimes we’ve lived by other people’s values for so long that we’ve started to believe they’re our own.
Perhaps achievement has always been encouraged in your family, but what you really long for is simplicity.
Perhaps you’ve spent years putting responsibility first, when adventure and freedom are calling for more space in your life.
Or perhaps you’ve been so busy caring for everyone else that you’ve forgotten how important creativity, play or friendship are to you. This isn’t about those other values being wrong, it’s about getting curious for what really matters to YOU!
Building a sense of belonging within
When we begin to understand and honour our values, something starts to shift. We get to know ourselves more deeply. We can begin making choices that feel right for us, rather than automatically following what we think we should do or what others are doing. We can become more comfortable with our differences, our preferences, our hopes and the things that light us up.
And we can start building trust in ourselves.
We’re made for connection. Having people to share life with, to laugh with, to lean on and to celebrate with is incredibly important and when we have a stronger sense of who we are, we can begin showing up in those relationships more authentically.
We’re not having to work quite so hard to fit in. We can start looking for places and people where there’s room for us to be ourselves, rather than continually changing ourselves to belong.
And perhaps that’s where a deeper sense of belonging begins. Not just finding somewhere we belong, but remembering that we belong to ourselves, too.
An invitation to reconnect with yourself
I’ve created a values exercise to help you explore what really matters to you.
It’s not about choosing the values that make you a ‘good human’, or the ones you think you should have.
It’s about noticing which ones resonate with you, which ones light you up and which ones feel like something your heart is asking for.
As you work through the exercise, I’d encourage you to be open and curious.
You might like to ask yourself:
- Which values feel like they would be gold to reclaim?
- Which values, when neglected, leave me feeling flat, resentful or disconnected?
- What would I love my life to hold more of?
- Which values feel like something my heart is actually asking for?
And once you’ve identified the values that matter most, take a moment to imagine what life might look and feel like if you were living more closely aligned with them.
What would you do more of? What might you do less of? What small choice could you make today that would help you reconnect with something that matters to you?
Because this isn’t simply about identifying a lovely list of words. It’s about allowing those words to become part of how you live. And you don’t need to turn your whole life upside down to begin. Sometimes it’s one small decision. One conversation. One opportunity to say yes to something that matters, or no to something that doesn’t feel right.
Each of those moments can help strengthen the relationship you have with yourself and as that relationship grows, so too can your confidence to show up in the world as you really are.
Belonging isn’t only about finding your place in the world. It’s also about finding your way back to yourself.
Be open, be curious, and start to feel the difference of living an authentic, values-driven life.
If you are keen to explore this you can download a core values exercise here created by our Senior Coach Liz,