Are you belonging or just fitting in?
How did you seek love and respect when you were a child?
How did you make friends back then?
I remember a time when I was deeply afraid of being left alone.
I had skipped a grade and suddenly found myself surrounded by strangers.
It was overwhelming for 10-year-old me.
At the time, it wasn’t clear to me, but looking back, I now realize how I coped with the fear of being sidelined or left alone.
I was determined to excel academically. I also became very polite, often agreeable.
I tried to be one of the top in studies – it felt safe to be the good, performing student in class.
I formed friendships by mainly agreeing with what others said.
To the 10-year-old, these were survival skills.
Did you know that the need to belong is one of our most basic human needs?
In our ancestors’ days back in the caveman days, we had to belong to a group.
Our survival depends on our group’s acceptance.
If you were banished from your tribe, you were unlikely to survive.
The conditions were too harsh to make it alone without a community.
Fast forward to today, although our conditions are vastly different from those days, we are still wired for connection, belonging, and community.
It can feel really, really threatening when you feel that you don’t fit in, especially when you were young and did not have much resources on your own.
You would have developed coping mechanisms—ways to blend in, to be accepted.
But are you aware that some of those old coping mechanisms might still be with you today?
Most of the time, we’re not conscious of it.
Even though we’re no longer as helpless as a 10-year-old, those old patterns—those strategies to feel safe and accepted—can stick with us if we don't pay attention.
I used to wonder, Why do I feel this insatiable need to keep achieving more and more?
My parents didn’t say I need to be the best at work.
My then-boyfriend didn’t say he loved me because I was achieving.
Yet, there was this internal drive—almost like a thirst—that pushed me to keep achieving.
Yes, there’s a part of me that is naturally driven.
But beneath that drive was a belief I had carried with me since childhood: Achieving will keep you safe. It will make you belong.
But here’s the thing—at one point, I found myself feeling lonely, even in a crowd.
I wasn’t deeply connecting with those around me.
How did I end up here?
I believe it’s because in trying to be so agreeable, I wasn’t allowing myself to truly be seen.
And when you don’t let yourself be seen, how can you find those who resonate with who you really are?
In school, our communities felt fixed and limited in many ways. We’re placed in a group, and that’s where we stay.
But as adults, the world opens up. It’s a whole different ball game.
We have the freedom to create our own communities. The challenge, however, is that you must allow yourself to be seen and heard for who you are.
Otherwise, you’ll always feel like an outsider, even in the middle of a crowd.
Nothing feels lonelier when you’re trying to fit in, knowing deep down that you don’t belong and fearing that others would find out too.
The path to belonging is to embrace your uniqueness. To remind yourself that you are not alone in this.
There are people out there who will value you for who you are.
Maybe you haven’t met them yet, but they’re out there.
But if you keep wearing the armor of “fake belonging,” if you keep hiding your true self, you’ll never give them the chance to find you.
Start by recognizing that you have so much more freedom now than you did as a child.
Those who love and appreciate you, they will appreciate your thoughts and your quirks —not just for what you achieve, or how agreeable you are.
You have the opportunity now to build a community where you can truly belong—by being honest with yourself, and with others.
If you want to be more comfortable in your skin, explore coaching with me here. I will be holding a safe space for you to discover what are the coping mechanisms that no longer serve you and create new habits that support you instead.
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