Feeling Like You Don't Belong.

I know that it sometimes feels like you don’t belong. That in order to be accepted you need to change how you show up to life. 

That conversation you had the other night at dinner where you felt like you came off a little too strong? Don’t worry. It was supposed to happen that way. 

The question you weren’t able to answer on the spot in front of your boss? Guess what--you weren’t supposed to know the answer. 

The assignment you botched that made the whole team work overtime? Somehow it was also planned.

Feeling Like You Don’t Belong

I know that it sometimes feels like there isn’t enough room on the freeway for you, there aren’t enough seats for you on the train, you didn’t show up to the station at the right time, the road isn’t big enough for your bike. 

You turn on the news and are reminded that other people are the ones who have the power, who are qualified to decide how much money you should make, how much taxes you should owe, how many public services you’re allowed, what rules you need to follow, how helpless you are in the face of worldwide catastrophe. 

You look in the mirror and find yourself wanting of more beauty, more sexiness, more noteworthiness. 

You watch others inhabit their bodies and wish for more agility, more mobility, less pain, more skill. 

You take to social media hoping to connect to something bigger than the feelings of your own inadequacy, but instead see only new babies, engagements, job announcements, fun outings that you were not invited to. 

You go to work and are reminded that you are not the smartest person in the room (not even close), you don’t have the experience necessary to immediately know how to tackle this next assignment, that you were left off the lunch invite with your friends.

There are a million reasons why you might wake up in the morning and feel like you don’t belong here.

But can I tell you a secret? You’re wrong. 

You belong in all your messy, disheveled failure. You belong with the dirt under your nails and the creases in your forehead. You belong with all your social awkwardness, your inability to speak in front of crowds, your inexperience in trying something you want to do that you’ve never done before.

You belong as you are simply because you are here as you are. 

The only evidence you have of not belonging is the feeling deep down in the pit of your stomach that makes you feel separate from the world. But guess what? No one is asking you to feel this way. This feeling is not standing on a heap of facts. 

Look deeper. Look at those reasons closely--the reasons that justify why you should sulk and sag your head in shame when you leave the house. What are those reasons? 

Oh, because your boss sounded disappointed yesterday when she found out you lost a client? Who says that you weren’t supposed to lose a client? Who promised to anyone that client relationships last forever or that you should be the one to save the day?

Or maybe you feel bad for a conversation gone awry with a friend the other evening? So what? You never promised to conduct yourself perfectly in every situation. You are still learning how to communicate and share your point of view with others. 

Or maybe you feel ashamed of how you reacted and now a rush of childhood memories is flooding your mind, dragging feelings of guilt and shame and the sinking thought of: If only they knew what I was up against! I get it: Trauma is difficult. You don’t need to share the details, you don’t need to feel misunderstood, you don’t need to feel like punishing yourself is mandatory. 

If you only knew how perfectly you fit in here, if you could only see the design in how we are all bumping into each other, if you could only appreciate the inevitability of friction. Your bruises, your bumps, your spats, your brawls--this is part of what it means to be alive. You are doing fine. You are doing great. 

The Bigger Picture

Here’s the truth: You can’t not belong. 

This may sound like an empty platitude, but really it’s a practice--if we’re prepared to take on the challenge. 

Notice when you’re going down the psychological rabbit hole of your supposed unworthiness. 

Just because someone else says that you don’t belong doesn’t mean that you don’t belong. Who made them the arbiter of who belongs and who doesn’t? Even if you’re in prison, even if you’re being marched to our death, even if you’ve just been fired or have turned in an F assignment, you still belong exactly as we are. Why? Because you are here exactly as you are. If you were supposed to be here differently, the universe would have positioned different cards in your hand. It’s really that simple. 

The world has made up barometers for success, the world exists in binaries, the world will have us believing in right and wrong, good and bad--all in order to get us to step in line and conform to what other people want. This is not to say that we shouldn’t sometimes get in line--often it’s for our own best interest to do so--but it is to say that even when we aren’t in line, there is still nothing wrong with us. 

Call yourself out. Notice when you are: 

• Comparing yourself to others

• Believing that life should be different than it is 

• Feeling guilty or ashamed of your behavior

You are not the worst thing you’ve ever done. You are not what someone else thinks of you. You are not what you think of you. 

Those bumps and bruises on the path? Those are bound to happen and they’re bound to happen frequently. They aren’t designed to tear us down (although they can distract us). They are designed to make us more resilient. To educate us. To help us take on new challenges. To tune up our processes. To test our strategies. To instill values in us. To sharpen our abilities to apologize where appropriate and stand our ground where not. 

Make your mistakes. Fall on your face. Accept the inevitability of failure. Let yourself be triggered. 

Because one day you’ll wake up and realize that what used to bother you doesn’t really bother you that much anymore. What used to scare you is now just run of the mill. What used to seem impossible has been achieved not once, or twice, or thrice, but fifty times over. Goals that used to seem so elusive are now just sweet surprises at the end of following a tried and true process. 

No one knows what they’re doing at first. We are all just putting one foot in front of the other, seeing where it lands and choosing the best next step from there. 

So go sulk if you need to. Go cry and scream into a canyon and feel sorry for yourself for a while. Sometimes we need to do that. 

But when the storm passes, look in the mirror, call yourself out for believing the crazy bullshit that runs through your mind and try again. 

Our feelings of not belonging are self-generated by the ideas we tell ourselves about how we should fit into the world. We already fit in.  

When you feel like you don’t belong, ask yourself: Is this true? And if the answer is no--which I bet it will be--then stop acting like it. Because you are here to get the damn thing done. 

So go do it. 

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