Belonging Takes Practice

I’ve been thinking a lot about what belonging really means.

For much of my life, I thought it was something you earned by taking up less space. Not because anyone told me directly, but because of all the quiet cues I picked up moving between worlds. I learned to watch closely. To speak carefully. To be pleasant, capable, put-together. Not too loud. Not too proud. Just enough.

I wanted to blend in. But I always had the sense that something set me apart, perhaps my voice, my body, the way I carried myself.

I didn’t think of it as shrinking. It felt more like managing visibility. Like trying to stay present but not too much.

I saw that as a strength, a keen ability to read a room, adapt, and smooth the edges of how I was perceived. But lately, I’ve been wondering what that effort has cost me.

Even now, after years of working in spaces I once hoped to reach, I catch myself shifting. Anticipating. Editing. It’s not that anyone tells me to hold back. I just know how to manage how much of myself I show. I’ve been practicing that for a long time.

As a first-generation college student and now a first-generation professional, I learned early on how to move through environments where I felt the pressure to prove I deserved to be there. I got good at adjusting tone, posture, timing, and sounding sure, even when I wasn’t.

Code-switching can be a survival skill. It’s second nature now, and I wonder what parts of me I’ve muted along the way. What I’ve forgotten to hear in myself. Where the line is between translating and disappearing.

Through coaching, community-building, and reflection, I’ve started to notice something: maybe belonging isn’t about being accepted or fitting in. Maybe it’s about learning how to stay with myself, especially when I feel the urge to fold.

I’m still figuring out what that looks like…
how to listen for the parts of me that go quiet,
what it means to lead without borrowing someone else’s voice,
how to stop adjusting before I even arrive.

These days, I still feel the pull to perform. To get it right.
What’s different now? I’m paying more attention now to what I leave behind when I do.

When I notice the tightness (especially when I feel uncertain), I’m learning to treat it as a signal, not a flaw. A reminder to come back to myself. Not the version that performs or pleases, but the one that’s still learning how to stay.

Maybe that’s what practice is.

Updated on April 20, 2025, with new reflections.