Belonging to Myself

For most of my life, belonging was something I tried to earn.

It lived in the approval of mentors, the trust of colleagues, the rhythm of a show running well. I thought belonging meant being needed, being the calm one in the storm, the one who made everyone else’s chaos feel contained.

But lately, that definition has started to feel brittle. Because the belonging I built was always conditional. It depended on performance, on consistency, on keeping the plates spinning. It depended on being seen a certain way.

And when the noise stops…when the curtain falls, when the inbox is quiet, when I’m alone in the stillness of a day that doesn’t demand anything of me, I notice how quickly I reach for the next thing to prove my worth. It’s subtle. A need to respond immediately. To fix something before it’s broken. To plan, to organize, to be the dependable one even when no one’s asking.

That’s when I realize I’m not at peace with my own presence. I’m afraid of it. I’ve built a life around being dependable, but I never learned how to depend on myself. Belonging to myself has become less about identity and more about intimacy. It’s about learning to meet the person beneath all the competence and calm, without trying to edit them.

The Armor I Mistook for Worth

I built an identity around being dependable. It was how I earned trust, how I stayed safe. If I could stay composed, no one would see how uncertain I often felt inside.

That armor worked, until it didn’t. Beneath the calm was tension. Beneath the control was fear. Every compliment — “you’re so steady,” “you’re so good at holding it all together” — reinforced the mask I didn’t know how to take off.

The hardest part was realizing the armor was never protection; it was distance.

• The Story of Safety: I told myself that if I was competent enough, I’d never disappoint anyone. What I was really saying was, maybe then they won’t leave.
• The Performance of Calm: My steadiness wasn’t peace; it was containment. I was afraid that if I ever let go, I’d never find my footing again.
• The Quiet Loneliness of Leadership: People trust the mask. They lean on it. But no one can love you through it, and that’s the cost.

I’m learning that belonging doesn’t come from being needed. It comes from being known, especially by myself.

The Practice of Returning

There’s a Zen teaching called shikantaza — “just sitting.” No mantra, no goal, no enlightenment to chase. You sit and meet what’s there.

When I try that, I realize how much I resist stillness. My mind grabs for something to fix or plan. But in those rare moments when I stop reaching, something shifts. I see how much of my identity has been built around doing and how terrifying it feels to simply be.

This is what belonging to myself looks like right now: the practice of returning.

• Returning to the Body: I notice the jaw I keep clenched, the shoulders pulled tight. I breathe. The body keeps score of every moment I’ve tried to outthink.
• Returning to the Present: The mind spins stories you’re behind, you’re not enough, you’ll lose this if you rest. The return is a small rebellion: I’m here anyway.
• Returning to the Self Beneath the Role: When I drop the stage manager, the leader, the achiever, what’s left isn’t emptiness, it’s relief. I belong to the person who feels, doubts, and keeps showing up.

The practice isn’t about silence; it’s about listening. To the breath, to the moment, to the part of me that doesn’t need applause.

The Masks I Still Wear

I wish I could say I’ve laid them all down. I haven’t.
Some days I’m still the fixer, the knower, the one who smooths over tension before truth has a chance to breathe. But I’m starting to catch myself in the act.

There’s a small space between the instinct to perform and the choice to stay real. That’s where belonging begins.

• The Mask of Control: I reach for it when things feel uncertain. It says, If I can hold it together, maybe I can hold myself together too. But real control is gentler and it’s present.
• The Mask of Confidence: I wear it when I’m afraid of being seen as unsure. But the older I get, the more I realize people trust honesty more than certainty.
• The Mask of Purpose: Even purpose can become armor. When identity fuses with usefulness, rest starts to feel like failure.

Every time I take off a mask, I feel raw, and also, somehow, more human.

The Weight and Gift of Enough

There’s a story in Zen about a monk who carries an empty bowl. When asked why, he says, “To remember that nothing is missing.”

That story stays with me. I’ve spent so much of my life trying to fill the bowl with accomplishments, approval, and momentum. But the more I pour in, the more it leaks out.

Enoughness isn’t a state I reach; it’s a truth I return to.

• Enough in the Quiet: When I sit in stillness and the urge to achieve rises like static, I practice not moving. The world keeps spinning, and somehow, I’m still okay.
• Enough in the Imperfect Day: When I forget something small, when a cue is late, when I’m tired and short-tempered. I try not to make it mean I’ve failed at being me.
• Enough in the Mirror: There are days I look at my reflection and feel nothing. Then I remember: the one who doubts her worth is also the one worthy of love.

Belonging to myself means not needing constant proof that I’m allowed to exist.

The Leadership Beneath the Layers

The more I belong to myself, the less I need to lead from performance.
People don’t need my perfection, they need my presence.

I used to think leadership was about control. Now I think it’s about courage…the courage to be seen halfway through becoming.

• Modeling Wholeness, Not Exhaustion: When I rest, when I admit uncertainty, I give others permission to stop performing too.
• Holding Space for Contradiction: Leadership is learning to stand between what’s true for me and what’s needed from me without losing either.
• Leading Without Losing Myself: The room feels safer when I don’t disappear into the role. The work gets better when I show up as a person, not a title.

When I stop performing competence, I create space for the real kind of trust, the kind that doesn’t need proof, where it is built in the small moments.

Key Takeaways

• Belonging to myself is an act of intimacy, not identity.
• The armor that once protected me now keeps me from connection.
• Stillness reveals what motion hides — fear, tenderness, and truth.
• Enoughness isn’t achieved; it’s remembered.
• Leadership begins when I stop hiding behind it.

If you stripped away the title, the show, the applause — who’s left?
That person is where belonging begins.

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