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Melissa Camara Wilkins

Be who you were made to be. Let go of the rest.

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Oh Hey, Remember YOU?

The underneath-it-all, true you? Let’s find THAT you again. Sign up for the email list, and get instant access to the Find Yourself mini-course.




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When You Need to Believe in Your Own Belonging

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You guys, I turned in the manuscript for my book last month. (!!!) For weeks, I spent all day, every day with the words, and then one afternoon I attached them to an email, hit SEND, and it was out of my hands.

“It’s like your own personal week-after-finals now,” my friend Janelle said, and—yes. It did feel a little like the week after exams, except with more sleep and fewer Scantron forms and no arm cramps from writing six essays in a row by hand. Also just like in college, there’s plenty more work coming, but I get a little break in between.
 


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But all throughout those last weeks, I kept thinking: Are we sure I can do this? Really? Really for sure?

I would think of the names on the spines of the books lined up on my shelves. Do my words really belong next to theirs? REALLY?

Do I really belong here, doing this? Is this really mine to do?

Do I really belong?

It’s one of those questions that sounds like angst, but the answer really matters. If I think I don’t belong, I get scared and small and I don’t show up and I don’t do the hard work that needs to be done.

But if I believe in my own belonging, I can show up. I can be myself. If I believe in my own belonging, I’m safe.

(“Safe” does not mean you get to avoid pain, or loneliness, or hurt feelings. It means that you know you will be okay INSIDE of the pain or the loneliness or the hurt feelings. It means you know that you can walk through those things and still be okay.)

The truth about belonging.

And sure, we all know the truth about belonging, at least in our heads.

You know the truth: That belonging is not the same as fitting in. That you are enough (and what that really means). That you don’t have to measure up. That the cranky voice in your head is not telling you the whole story. The question is never, How dare I? The question is, How could I NOT?

I know all that, you know all that, but what do we do with the suspicion that we’re still not good enough, smart enough, trendy enough, witty enough, well-dressed enough, just plain ENOUGH enough?

What do you do with the fear that you won’t do it perfectly? (Because you won’t. No one does it perfectly.)

How do you remind yourself of the truth? How do you answer the fear that says you don’t belong, won’t belong, can’t find belonging?

3 ways to Practice Believing in Your Own Belonging

Look for other people showing up as their real, true selves.

When I need to remember that you can be your real self and not die, I turn to books where I can FEEL the author on the page, books that could not have been written by anyone other than that writer.

The books can be about anything. The point is that the author showed up and they survived. If they survived, I probably will, too—and I’ll still belong to myself when I do.

For me, that’s books like Glennon Doyle’s Love Warrior, and Cheryl Strayed’s Tiny Beautiful Things, and anything Anne Lamott ever wrote.

It’s books like Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, and Kelly Corrigan’s Tell Me More. I just picked up Amena Brown’s How to Fix a Broken Record for the same reason.

It doesn’t have to be books. (But, I mean, why WOULDN’T it be?) Maybe for you it’s music, or movies, or art.

Wherever you see people being their whole selves? Look there and be reminded that showing up actually helps us belong to ourselves and to each other.

Remember that there are actual instructions for showing up.

Yes, sometimes I need someone to tell me how to show up and how to practice belonging. And by “sometimes” I mean always. I need regular reminders.

You know what Brené Brown says about true belonging in Braving the Wilderness? She says that true belonging is when you believe in yourself and belong to yourself so deeply that you can share yourself with the world.

She says that true belonging is when you can find beauty in being part of something bigger, and also find beauty in standing alone. You can see the good in either one. This is what I need to hear.

Find other people asking WHY.

Why does it matter? Why listen for who you really are? Why do the hard work of showing up as yourself? What happens when you do?

(And if you need help listening for who you really are, check out the free Find Yourself mini-course. It was MADE for you.)

The Robcast Ep 189:
You Listening to You

This is where I actually get excited about showing up. I could explore these ideas all day.

That’s where I start. I start by remembering that we’re all the same, really, underneath it all. We all want to belong, we all want to be known, and we all need to practice.

We’re all connected, so we can’t ever NOT belong.

That’s what I really believe.

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  • This is the great @annelamott, signing a copy of her new book. Let us pretend she is signing MY copy, okay? She is not signing my copy, because I forgot mine at home, BUT LET US PRETEND. . (I could not believe I did this, except that I forget things all the time. It’s not actually that surprising.) . I could have asked her to sign one of the index cards I always keep in my purse, to tape it into the book later—but I did not think of that. I could have run to buy another copy from the table outside—but I did not think of that either. I think of all the right things, I just think of them LATER. . But then Anne told a story about spacing out because she was thinking about the meaning of life, or what she’d just read, and I thought: oh, me too. (That was why I’d forgotten my copy of Almost Everything—I was thinking about the meaning of life, among other things, while I packed my bag. Obviously.) . So that is not my signed copy of Almost Everything. My copy of Almost Everything remains unsigned. But I did get to see Anne Lamott and her gorgeous shawl, and I did get to be reminded of true things: that I’m not the only one, and that we’re all in this together. I walked away with notes on hope anyway, is what I’m saying, and I’m calling it good.
  • One year when my daughter Abigail was just a little person, we took her (and Owen and Audrey) (sorry, Sadie and Eli and evelyn, you weren’t born yet) to vote in a primary election IN THE RAIN. . When we left our polling place, with wet hair and “I VOTED” stickers plastered to our jackets, Abigail—who had been righteously annoyed at not being allowed to vote—told us: I VOTED IN MY HEART. 😍 Because that is what you can do when you are seven. . One more reminder if you’re in the U.S.: vote with your heart, and also VOTE WITH YOUR VOTE. Heart + action today, friends. Because that is what you can do now. . P.S. this year Abigail voted FOR REAL with a BALLOT. I can’t even. . P.P.S. that is totally a photo of Ev because I do not have photos of tiny Abigail on my phone. 😂
  • VOTED! So. This election, I planned to vote by mail. I didn’t think I could make it to the polls in person, so I requested a mail-in ballot—and it never arrived. . But you know what, that is okay. We made a new plan, we made it work. I voted in person, with all my kiddos. (Except for Abigail, who is away at college. She voted this morning!) . If your day didn’t go as planned, if getting to the polls is turning out to be harder than you expected: I GET YOU. 😂 I feel ya. And I KNOW YOU CAN DO THIS. You can do hard things. Make it happen, loves. Get out there and vote! xo. . And if you’ve already voted: WELL DONE. High five for you! 🙌🏼😉
  • Voting for decency today. Voting for civility, for inclusion, for the common good. I’m refusing to listen to fear-mongering, refusing to give up on a vision of the more perfect union that we have never yet been, but can still become. That’s the plan today, friends. Today, we vote.
  • Yes I DO fully intend to keep the pumpkins around until we put up the Christmas tree. One day pumpkins, the next day pine needles: that is my actual plan. I see zero flaws with this.
  • Three brave things you can do today: . 1. Ask a question you do not know the answer to, and really listen to what you hear. . (Don’t be afraid to ask. Yes, you might look like you don’t know stuff. But I’d rather admit I don’t know and LEARN than keep not knowing forever.) . 2. Tell someone how you really feel. This means you have to NOTICE how you really feel. You can do this. And you can say it out loud, whether you feel confused or scared or happy or embarrassed or excited or anything. . 3. Put down your phone the next time you have the urge to pick it up. Stay present instead, right where you are. Refuse to be distracted from your boredom or your tiredness or your unease or your self. See it all. See the truth of it. . Three tiny brave things. Listening, noticing, connecting. Start where you are, do what you can. xo.

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Melissa Camara Wilkins