This week, I share my thoughts about the inextricable link between validation and belonging. It's no secret that so many women struggle with chasing external validation in everything they can reach for - in the jobs we covet, in the partners we seek out to the friendship circles we gravitate towards. But what I have found is that it has very little to do with craving acceptance and approval and more to do with the fact that for years, we as women have not been encouraged to find acceptance in the place that it actually matters - within ourselves.

One of the most important pieces of advice I've been reminded by is that you have to, first and foremost, remember that you belong to yourself. As Brene Brown shares in her book, Atlas of the Heart, (which I geek out over in this episode by the way) she tells us that our yearning for belonging is so hardwired that we often try to acquire it by any means necessary - including trying to fit in and hustling for approval and acceptance. I find myself saying this over and over to women I coach and am in conversation with - those efforts are in fact hollow substitutes for belonging and they are also the greatest barriers. When we work to fit in and be accepted, our "belonging" is tenuous. 

Belonging is scary AF. We want it badly. At times, it can feel damn near close to life or death. Feeling a sense of belonging, of acceptance and of approval is beyond normal; but the risk of not receiving it can feel like a nasty blow to our ego. It makes us question the very essence of our worth.

Our saving grace will come from the very advice the queen herself (Brene Brown) gives in her book. Brene admittedlly is one of my many BFFs in my head and she shares that true belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are. Because we can feel belonging only if we have the courage to share our most authentic selves with people, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.

Let us keep being brave to remember that we don't have to change who we are, we just have to have the courage to be who we are.

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