Belonging Used To Be My Religion Pt. 2

Read the Foot Note!

Welcome to DPP, a weekly newsletter about the real-life trials and tribulations of pleasing, and how I leverage emotional intelligence for proper recovery. Letters land on Tuesdays and sometimes surprise days, please consider me a first-class seat with your inbox?

---

Before you begin: This letter is part 2 of my core value story. It can be read as a stand-alone piece, or if you missed last week and want it to make the MOST sense, start here.

For most of my life, I thought my new Core Value of self-acceptance meant continuous self-improvement in every. single. area. Always be improving, to always be accepting!

Areas such as:

Looks.
Education.
Credibility.
Social charm.
Connections… AKA: Making others feel as though they BELONG.
Motherhood.
Marriage.
Health & Lifestyle…
(Insert never-ending checklist here.)

And no—I can’t opt out of these mental “text messages.” I get spammed by each subject area daily. Sometimes hourly.

Thoughts like:

“Hi! Just checking to see if you’ve gotten into shape yet?” Or,

“How about dinner? Is that planned or prepped yet?” (answer: it NEVER is)

“Did you check in with BFF/Family/Other Friends/Scandinavian pen-pal today?” (answer: again, no)

“No?! Okay, well, at least you’re on track with your work projects…Right?”

At best? It's manageable.
At worst? Actual Rock Bottom. Depression. Anxiety. Functional freeze.

I held Belonging on such a pedestal not because I wanted to Belong (which, I do), but because it is important to me that I make others feel like they always do.

Prioritizing other people over my needs- selfless, right? Making others feel safe and seen and cared for at any cost- DIE ON THAT HILL, right?

Why would I ever be so selfish as to hold a core value such as SELF-ACCEPTANCE, when others need to be accepted too? I know what it feels like to be shut out. To be UN-accepted. So my “hero’s story” is to protect everyone else from ever feeling that way.

While on the surface, being everyone’s protector may SEEM so noble- there’s a deeper layer here that I have not wanted to face. She’s called: MYSELF.

I don’t need to think about ME if I prioritize others. I don’t need to hit Rock Bottom of Self-Improvement if I focus on improving the well-being of OTHERS.

And god forbid I DO have to work on myself, to avoid Rock Bottom, I’d hyperfixate. I’d go all-in on just one area—Education, for example. I’d become a machine: reading, highlighting, taking ALL the notes. Color-coded. Tabbed. With a key. (Yes, I made a key. No, I am was, not well.) Apply to grad school. Interview. Gain acceptance, and begin the GRIND.

It made me feel productive. Safe. Like I had control. And it helped... until it didn’t. Until I realized the student-mommy-wife-supervisor-at-work life was not healing me.

Eventually, I realized I was trying to become better instead of becoming me. Becoming better was something I was doing for you. To make you feel more comfortable around me. Shrinking my needs, my voice, so quiet- she’s barely a whisper now.

I dropped out of school. I took a good look at myself, at what I need, where I feel I belong. What was I giving everyone else that I could start to give back to myself?

Maybe it starts with acceptance. It’s critical for me to give it away so freely, why don’t I apply it internally, EVER?? A huge part of my internal understanding of belonging is to accept, include, and celebrate eVeRyBoDy. Sometimes that has meant doing so to avoid having to accept parts of myself. Drown out my needs in yours, telling myself “I am SUCH a good egg!”, while feeling like a rotten tomato (and if you know me, you know I loathe a raw tomato) inside.

I don’t want to put your needs ahead of mine anymore, dear reader. I don’t want to feel disgusted with myself to the point I invest everything into uplifting everyone else just to side-step the spotlight of truth.

I went back to reading for pleasure. Reading things I actually ENJOY, not because I have to for an assignment, but because I want to *just like you are doing here, reading this, right now! for joy.

The new goal?

Wholeness. Integration. Becoming more of who I already am, exactly as Pearly Gates describes it. Not someone shinier, or more acceptable to others.

I still love taking notes and indexing my books. I consider myself a student of knowledge and ENJOY learning! But now, I’m not studying myself so I can fix me. I’m studying so I can remember me.

And that’s how Belonging¹ got bumped to Core Value #2.
Because I’ve finally started to belong... to myself.

kindly,

k. alexandra

1. Brené Brown has created a beautiful definition of Belonging that actually aligns with my new core value of self-acceptance: “True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness". The reason why I no longer hold Belonging in first place for my own Core Values, is becuase I have always known the word to mean something DIFFERENT than Brown’s definition. Belonging to me has meant that I, do my best to make YOU, feel safe, heard, seen, loved, etc. This has been an unconscious belief of mine up until recently. Please know that I will still strive to care deeply for you, but no longer at my own expense. Thank you for reading the fine print!

---

📬 P.S. Want a Custom Card?

I send physical snail-mail style cards to all paid subscribers as a tangible THANK YOU from the most vulnerable and validated part of me, to you! If you upgrade- I will get your mailing address and send you a card! 💌 My deepest gratitude goes out to my newest paid subscriber: Nancy ✨