There was a Time in my Life When I Felt Like I Didn’t Belong Anywhere.

There was a time in my life when I felt like I didn’t belong anywhere.

Not to my family.

Not to community.

Not even to the earth beneath my feet.

I remember walking into places and feeling like I was on the outside, looking in—constantly questioning if I was too much, not enough, unworthy, or just… wrong. That quiet, aching question: Do I even matter here?

It’s a horrible place to live from.

And the more I see it—both in my own story and in the work I do with others—the more I believe this: so much of our suffering comes from a disconnection from belonging.

Because when we don’t feel like we belong, everything gets harder:

• We doubt ourselves and shrink back from expressing who we really are.

• We struggle to set boundaries (or we swing between rigid walls and total collapse).

• We feel small, powerless, like we’re walking through life alone.

And yet, when we do feel we belong, something fundamental shifts. Our nervous system softens. We root into the knowing:

I am here. I matter. I am allowed to take up space.

From that place, we access a healthy power—not the kind that dominates, but the kind that creates change, that expresses fully, that lives in alignment with our values.

This isn’t about twisting ourselves into someone we’re not to “fit in.” True belonging is reciprocal: we belong to each other, to the earth, and to the communities that hold us as we are.

It’s been my own longing for belonging that has led me here—to this work of re-weaving connection with self, others, and the world around us. After years of living in flight, moving from place to place, unable to settle—my own roots of belonging have deepened so much by living in the same town and its community for the past 10 years. It hasn’t always been easy, but staying put, letting people really know me, and allowing myself to be held here has changed me in ways I couldn’t have imagined.

And this is the heart of the work I do: guiding people back to that deep, unshakeable sense of belonging so they can root into who they truly are.

And I know I’m not the only one who’s felt this ache.