EP162 Do You Belong… Or Have You Just Got Really Good at Fitting In?

But there's one thing I haven't been able to stop thinking about before, during, and after Ibiza, and that's belonging.

And Specifically, the difference between belonging and fitting in.

Because I really don't think they're the same thing.

It feels like they're bundled together in some way, but I don't think they're actually the same at all, actually.

In fact, I'm starting to think that some of us have spent huge parts of our lives believing that we're looking for some kind of belonging when what we've actually become incredibly fucking good at is fitting in like reading the room understanding the rules working out of who we need to be and adjusting ourselves accordingly and then calling that connection So that's what I want to talk about today.

Because I do think that there is a question underneath all of this that goes actually right to the heart of your identity, if I'm honest.

Because I think a lot of who we've learned to be was probably actually designed solely to secure belonging.

And then...

Actually, if you have to edit yourself in order to belong somewhere, do you actually belong there at all? Do you know what I mean? So that's what I wanted to talk about today because it's playing on my mind.

So Avitha actually started with a conversation about belonging before I'd even arrived at the retreat itself.

So The gorgeous and next level woman, Kim Andrews, had managed to get me on her to her airport transfer.

And somehow the two of us managed to end up with an entire coach to ourselves.

I don't know how she did it, but she's a singer.

So we obviously decided it was a tour bus.

And we arrived in Ibiza Old Town and I went off to find my hotel, which according to Google Maps was about a five minute walk away from Kim's.

What it failed to mention was the shit ton of fucking steps and enormous bloody hills involved in said five-minute walk.

And because I had maximized my packing to such an extent that my cases were overweight both ways – and I'm talking about my cases, not my body, although, frankly, that too – But because my arm is still broken, I couldn't carry the fucking things up the steps.

So I had to wheel myself in these enormous cases all the way around the roads, like these windy, hilly roads in the Ibiza heat and arriving at my gorgeous hotel looking like I'd completed some kind of fucking endurance event.

I must not.

Anyway, the belonging part.

That evening, Kim and I... plan to meet another gorgeous human from the Detroit Kelly and her husband for dinner.

And Kelly had been really open and honest about the fact that she was nervous because she didn't really know anybody.

She'd kind of seen people a bit online, but she hadn't probably met anyone in the group, including Kim and me, right? And look, I totally understood that, probably way more than she realised, because I think there was actually something quite fucking terrifying about walking to a room where you think everyone knows everyone, right? And that shit can really activate somebody else.

Even as adults, even as successful adults, even adults who have businesses and lead teams and families and stand on stages and do all kinds of audacious things, you can still find yourself outside a room going, who am I going to talk to? Where am I going to sit? Do they all know each other? Am I going to look like Billy No-Makes? You know, and underneath those, I think, very normal social thoughts, there's often another kind of question running in our heads, I believe.

And that's around, who do I need to be in there? And Recently, I don't know, I've realized just how much I've done this myself.