Have you ever had an active time while you were somewhere, but after you left, you felt a meaningless emptiness? The number of people in our lives can be many, and you may rarely be alone. Many people think that the more time they spend alone during the day, the lonelier they are. However, one can be lonely even in the community of one’s choice. Sometimes, this community may even consist of a single person.
Belonging vs. Fitting In: A Crucial Distinction
Did you know that the opposite of belonging is fitting in? Actually, they may seem close, but just because you fit in doesn’t mean you belong there. Just like a tangerine fits in with a garlic cob but doesn’t belong there. This is quite difficult to recognize. In this process, the responsibilities and roles you take on while adapting, and the effort to be in harmony, are exhausting. Your effort to fit in makes it difficult to understand why you feel tired. Because in order to realize that you don’t belong, you first need to know and accept yourself.
If you feel inadequate, differentiated, excluded, not understood, or artificial in a workplace or in a circle of friends, this does not mean that there is something wrong with you. Or, when you are in roles such as filial, spousal, and parental, feeling like a person who fulfills certain tasks, fake smiles, doing what is expected of you, or being constantly squeezed between being yourself and being the desired person may be due to a lack of a sense of belonging.
Understanding the Lack of Belonging
Belonging does not always mean being whole. If you constantly find yourself in such situations, you can start by recognizing that you are a tangerine, the other person is garlic, and the person next to you is an apple. I’m not talking about everyone around you noticing; I’m talking about you noticing, and that alone is enough.
If you don’t have the possibility to distance yourself from the people around you, it can be good to know that you shouldn’t expect the person to be a tangerine from garlic and to approach them with a look. You can increase your time in places where you feel more like yourself. The biggest proof that you don’t belong is your effort; belonging is like water, it finds its own way. “The striving for a place where one does not belong is the greatest loneliness.” – Aslı Solak
What Can You Do to Foster Belonging?
- Focus on the future: Concentrate on what comes after today, not on the choices you have made so far.
- Embrace solitude: Don’t be afraid to spend time alone; listen to your own voice. Hear and listen to the scream of loneliness inside you.
- Set goals: Create goals for yourself and a list of things you need to do in line with these goals.
- Start small: In this list you make for yourself, begin with small goals and the easiest ones. Take your time.
- Set boundaries: You don’t always have to make time for everyone. Maybe you can’t hear your own voice at all because of the noise of the people around you. It can be good to set some boundaries with the people around you.
- Evaluate your motives: When you decide to do something, think about whether you want to do it because you want to or whether it is a decision based on external factors. Try to find a middle ground as much as possible.
- Reflect internally: Don’t present your judgments about yourself to other people without discussing them internally.
- Seek self-approval: Remember that what you want does not have to be approved by the people around you.
- Distinguish solitude from loneliness: Being alone and feeling alone are different. Being alone is when there are no other people around you. Feeling alone is a feeling and affects many emotions, especially a sense of belonging.
- Avoid over-proving: Don’t try to prove yourself. Sometimes the effort to show people around us what we are doing can actually be born out of the need to prove it to yourself. First of all, know yourself, and then anyone who wants to see you will be able to see you.
- Express your feelings: Don’t be afraid to say “I don’t feel good”; you don’t have to be good every day.
- Emphasize strengths: You can use the energy you spend trying to change the negative aspects of yourself to bring out more of your positive aspects.
Loneliness in Different Languages
(Note: You can listen with the lyrics)
- 5 Seconds of Summer – Invisible
- Lorde – Liability
- Three Days Grace – Someone Who Cares
- Model – Yalnızlığın Senfonisi
- Soner Avcu – Yalnızlıklar