Belonging Without Disappearing

Transcript

Naming Societal Narcissism

Emotional Colonization In Healing Spaces

Belonging Versus Fitting In

Conditional Belonging And Self-Erasure

Social Media, Approval, And “Be True”

The Biology Of Belonging

Group Chats And The Disappearing Self

From Performance To Real Belonging

Body Check And Reflection Questions

SPEAKER_00 1:07

One more episode, and mindfully Uchumiche would have hundred. A hundred episodes. This is beyond a milestone for me. The journey to this hundredth has been one of unlearning, learning, and relearning in that order. I had to unlearn a lot of what and who I thought I was. Then reintroduce myself to myself. And that has been the hardest part. You know why? Whenever I felt like a chapter had closed, like I had taken a learning from a phase, another opened. But it didn't just open, it opened with fresh challenges, begging for new lenses by which they wanted and must be viewed. My favorite quote, you know, by now is Life is lived in the transitions, and during that transition, life takes a new meaning and shape. Every experience is new. And I am so grateful for Mindfully Witchy Michael episode 99, season 7. Alright, okay, I ran ahead of myself there. Hello, mindful partners. So glad that you're here. And I, I mean we will continue to explore the concept of societal narcissism. This exploration, if you followed up to this part, started with what healing the month I was away from the mic gave me? It gave me language. The language that helps me or helped me and still helping me to navigate the reality of my mental, social, and physical health. This led to the explanation of my observatory diagnosis, which I borrowed from my friend Societal Narcissism, a concept that speaks to how we have become a people who legislate over other people's emotions and experiences like we understand or appreciate their stories of origin. Of course, during this expose, we looked at emotional power grab that seems to be taking over healing spaces. I called it emotional colonization. This emotional power grab is both subtle and in your face. This leads me to talking about, or this is going to lead me to talking about belonging today. And if you are a fan of Mindfully Witsumishi, you know that talking about belonging is no strange. We have about three or four episodes that talk about belonging. There's one with Uche, um, and there's one with um with Ola. Right? But it seems the more we talk about belonging and fitting in, the more humanity digs a heels in. And we're talking about belonging without disappearing into a culture that seems to legislate over your feelings or emotional agency with the no not so subtle statements and attitudes that say, if you're healed, you'd respond this way. If you're evolved, you shouldn't feel or wouldn't feel that way. If you've done the work, you'd agree with me. The first thing I will concede to before I continue with this thought is that we as humans cannot ever not want to feed in somewhere or with some people. It is the way we are wired. For connection, the need to be heard and seen. There will never be a time on this planet. Maybe in Mars, but on Earth, that a person, no matter how bizarrely the thing, will not want to fit into a group of people or an ideology. Yet, belonging and fitting in are very different. Of course, you know the background of this for me is with Bernie Brown's work on shame, vulnerability, and imperfection. So today, let's talk about this deeply human concept. Something we all want, whether we admit it or not. You want to belong. Um, let's talk belonging. Belonging, not fitting in, not being approved of, not being tolerated. Belonging, the kind that lets you exhale, the kind that doesn't require rehearsals. Somewhere along the way, many of us learned that belonging came with conditions. Be quieter, be stronger, be agreeable, be grateful, wear your hair a certain way, do not wear trousers, wear skirts. And slowly, sometimes lovingly, sometimes painfully, we learned that disappearing was safer than being different. This episode 99 is about that moment. The moment you realize you've been present everywhere except with yourself. Let me circle back to 2021 when a friend asked a question that I documented, yes, 2021. He was wondering why social media had become so pervasive in the amount of negative energy that seemed to vibrate through it. Only it is worse now in 2026. I answered. The imposter syndrome, I think, is what makes social media alluring with all low-key things. We don't deserve a place at the table. All is acceptable and accepted. We all like to think that we are okay and we don't care what anybody thinks. And of course, the narrative pervading our cyberspaces, religion and faith all points to what Polonia said in Shakespeare's classic Hamlet to Thine Own Self be True. Okay, so while I'm still 100% in tune with what I wrote and the ethos of what um Shakespeare said in Hamlet, or what Polonia said in Hamlet, I have always heard all my life to Michael. You live like you don't care what people say or think, you live your life. Again, this might be true. However, what I think might be truer is that we all have some form of need to please, even if it's just one, just some person, that person that can press your mummy button, you know, there's that one person whose opinion of you will make or rock your core for the good, yeah, for the bad. In being true to yourself, it might be more realistic if we embrace the truth that even in wanting to fulfill purpose, destiny, passion, mission, and all, there is a covered, deeper need to please so that we can be accepted, so that whatever it is we want to sell, we catch on fire and change the world. Indeed, this is very, very noble. One thing that seemed to bother me though, this is extremely subjective, very subjective, meaning it is it might not resonate with you. That's what's bothering me might not resonate with you, is that some have thoroughly become so selfish with this amazing phrase, and I've interpreted it to mean I care for no one, I believe, and the consequences of my reactions doesn't concern others. Consequences here are good and bad, and I think that's where I cringe. How is it even possible in a world of 8 million billion, not million people, and counting as I'm speaking, another child who's just been born? That even in being true to yourself, one wouldn't impact another. The very fact that this phrase is still being used centuries after it was written and said for those who have acted it, tells us every single thing we do impacts someone. Our list. When we choose that person whom we can allow to push our buttons, there's that one person you are loath to disappoint. I use this word choose and allow because this can be deliberate and subconscious. To a person who never experienced positive reinforcement as they grew up, they probably will subconsciously want to prove themselves worthy of being in and may subconsciously to overcompensate or live a life that explores and exploits others to notice them and align to their truth. On the flip, someone who exudes so much confidence and seems to have everything together might low-key be fighting the approval or acceptance addiction with the Bravado and achievement. Of course, I do not intend to generalize. Um, the need to belong is not weakness, it is biology. Never systems are wired for connection. This connection registers not just as sadness, but it registers as threat. Many of us didn't grow up learning how to belong and remain intact. We learned how to adapt, we learn how to read the room. The eye, yeah, from uh I don't like the African mother thing, but you know you would say when they say African Nigerian mother, you're about mother for that matter, you know, the eye, you learn to read the room, how to become what was needed. We all grew up to be some sort of uh available fitting in into the any kind of uh container here, environment, event we find ourselves, and those skills kept us safe, but skills that saved you in one season can cost you dearly in another. I have seen this play out severally in everyday things and ordinary ways, and now use the most um I don't want to say mundane, but one that is most relatable to all of us, and that's a group chat in on WhatsApp, okay? You know how noisy your WhatsApp groups are. How many do you belong to? Everyone is talking, everyone is laughing, debating, there's some silent people, people are sending voice notes, people are doing forward messages, broadcasting all the things happening. WhatsApp is actually a world on its own. Um relatable conversation about the stories of origin, and um, I'm typing this message, I read it, I'll delete it, I'll type again, I read it and delete it. Then by the third time, I asked myself, very quietly, of course, why am I doing this? Why am I editing my truth like a press release? And the honest answer was simple. I didn't want to be misunderstood, I didn't want to disrupt the vibe, I didn't want to be that person, and I realized in that small moment I wasn't choosing peace, I was choosing disappearance. Not because the people were bad or they wouldn't understand, but because my body had learned that belonging meant staying easy. Uh, it is understood that not because the stories went mine or the stories I wanted to share went true or would disrupt the vibe, but because I can actually feel when my truth makes someone uncomfortable. And that's the moment many of us meet the real tension between fitting in and belonging. Somewhere between our childhood and adulthood, belonging became performance. We learned to shrink to keep the peace, to silence ourselves to avoid conflict, delay the truth so we wouldn't be rejected. And there's the part many of us don't say out loud. We don't just fear abandonment, we fear being fully seen and then rejected. So, what do we do? We curate ourselves, we soften the edges, we manage reactions, and over time we begin to feel lonely in rooms full of people, then empathy becomes supervision, belonging becomes compliance. Let's take a pause for a moment. Notice your body as you listen. Where do you feel ease when you think of belonging? And where do you feel a quiet tightening like you're breathing for a fight? That place in your body remembers when you learn to disappear. True belonging does not ask you to disappear, it asks you to arrive honestly with your questions, with your limits, with your unfinishedness. Belonging that costs you your voice is not belonging, it is survival, and survival may keep you alive, but it rarely lets you live. Real belonging has boundaries, it allows difference, it makes room for discomfort without withdrawal, it doesn't rush your healing, it doesn't demand your performance, it lets you stay whole, it gives room for unity, not uniformity, and this is the line that holds everything for me. Belonging that requires self erasure is not connection, it is compliance. Uh, when I said to notice the tension in your body and think of where belonging means ease for you, alright? I know I did that, but I want to leave you with those questions, not to answer now, just sit with them, sit with a question and allow the answer to come to you. Are you ready? If you're driving, you can't write, of course, you can release sing, but if you're sitting at your desk and listening to this, pick a pen, or if you're running or taking a walk, let's take our phones note app and write this questions for later. And if you have time to listen to it, to answer them now, fine. But the most important thing is for you to allow the answers to come to you. Are you ready? Where in my life do I feel free to be fully myself? Where am I accepted only when I am quieter, smaller, or easier to manage? What parts of me have learned to disappear? And why? What would it look like to belong without betraying myself? No, you're not fixing this question today. Awareness is just enough. It is enough for now. Again, remember, allow the answers to come to you because you allowed to belong without losing yourself. And if a space only loves the version of you that disappears, that place may not be home. Thank you very much for sticking with me. And of course, I'm so excited. Next week is episode hundred. I hope that this conversation, um, us trying to unpack my friend's term social narcissism is helping us find ourselves to be true to ourselves and to know how to give of ourselves and to receive to.