BELONGING
Find your people. You don’t have to pretend here.
One of the loveliest things I’ve discovered about life is that it feels easier when you’re around people who understand you.
Not people who agree with everything you say, or people who are exactly like you. That would be terribly boring.
I mean the people you can sit with and simply be yourself. The ones you don’t have to impress, explain yourself to or carefully edit your story for.
The ones who can laugh with you, disagree with you, listen when things aren’t going well and still be there when they are.
As we get older, I think we become much more aware of the difference.
Some people make us feel we need to be a certain version of ourselves. Others who somehow make us feel more like ourselves.
Those are the people worth holding onto.
“When we belong, we no longer shrink. We shine.”
BELONGING IS …
ACCEPTANCE - feeling comfortable enough to be yourself, without worrying about being judged
CONNECTION - conversations that leave you feeling better than when they began.
SAFETY - knowing you don’t have to pretend, perform or have all the answers
UNDERSTANDING - being understood without having to explain everything
SUPPORT - people who stay beside you through the difficult bits, as well as the good ones
CELEBRATION - being genuinely happy for someone else’s happiness, and having people who are happy for yours
Belonging is where you can finally stop pretending.
And I think that might be one of the greatest freedoms we find as we get older.
We become a little less interested in being liked by everybody and much more interested in being known by the right people.
YOU’LL KNOW YOU’VE FOUND YOUR PEOPLE WHEN…
You don’t feel the need to impress anyone
You can laugh easily and be completely ridiculous together
You can disagree without worrying that the friendship will disappear
You can tell the truth, even when the truth isn’t particularly pretty
You celebrate each other’s successes without comparison
You can sit quietly together without feeling every silence
Most importantly, you can turn up exactly as you are
The right people won’t ask you to change. They’ll make room for you to grow.
I HOPE YOU’LL FEEL AT HOME HERE IF…
You enjoy learning something new simply because you’re curious
You love creating things, whatever that might mean to you
You appreciate a good conversation
You believe kindness still matters
You can laugh at yourself
You believe that life still has plenty to offer, whatever your age
AND PERHAPS THIS IS WHAT WE CAN BUILD TOGETHER…
A place where questions are welcome
A place where experience is valued
A place where women can share ideas without having to prove themselves
A place where we can laugh, learn and occasionally admit that we haven’t got a clue either
A place where nobody feels invisible
Because I don’t think belonging is about finding a room full of people who are just like us.
It’s about finding people with whom we can be fully ourselves.
And sometimes those people are old friends
Sometimes they’re women we’ve only just met
Sometimes they’re thousands of miles away and we’ve never actually sat in the same room
What matters is the feeling
That little sense of these are my people
LIFE IS RICHER WHEN WE SHARE IT WITH GOOD PEOPLE.
Welcome. I’ve saved you a seat.
