For most of my life, I haven’t felt like I belonged with people my age.
The conversations I wanted to have, the things I was drawn to weren’t shared by my peers.
It became clear that my fun and play came alive with those my age.
But my soul and being felt most true with people many years older.
I remember coming home at 20, after a year of traveling, and spending each day with my Oma. Not for any other reason than I absolutely loved talking with her.
Throughout my life, my closest friends have often been older than me. That’s where I could share the conversations that felt most true to me.
But…I also didn’t quite belong with people older than me either.
“They’re not my age,” I’d think. “They have kids, marriages, houses, responsibilities I don’t.”
I found myself in a strange in-between.
With people my age, I could share my youth and energy but felt disconnected from the part of me that longed for deeper conversation.
With those older, I could share the depth and reflection I loved, but not my age, not my youthful energy.
Too different for one group. Too young for the other.
It was isolating. I thought I just needed to try harder to belong. So I tried to blend in. Tried to be more like each group depending on where I was.
But half of me was always left out. I stopped being me.
If you’ve been reading my newsletters, you know my love for developing a relationship with myself runs deep.
Last week, I was at a shadow retreat in Miami. Nine of us. All coaches. All powerful humans.
A friend later asked, “Wait, what even is a shadow retreat?”
To me, shadow work is kind of like that thing you’ve built up in your mind to be terrifying. The move you’ve been avoiding, the career change, the conversation, the workout you keep putting off. You imagine how awful it will be... but once you finally do it, it’s not so bad. Maybe even liberating.
That’s what I did for a week.
We asked questions about our lives, what we want to create, who we want to become, and then found the parts of our mind resisting that becoming.
The scary, dark, uncomfortable parts.
And then we went straight into them.
Has your idea of fear ever been scarier than the feeling itself? When we allow ourselves to actually feel, we come into relationship with those emotions. We understand them instead of resisting them. I digress.
The retreat was about facing what we’d been avoiding.
For three and a half days, I met my own shadow: the loneliness and deep ache of not belonging.
On the last night at dinner, after a long day, someone came up to me and said,
“Ben, I really appreciated what you shared today in the circle. You being 23, it’s incredible. When I was 23, I wasn’t near where you are.”
Those were his words. But what I heard was: “You’re younger. You’re different. You don’t belong.”
Crazy. You ever get told something but then translate it into what you think it actually means?
That number, 23, became a wall between us.
So I brushed it off. Thanked him. Changed the subject to dinner.
Anther participant nearby saw this exchange and kindly interrupted:
“Hold on, Ben. How do you go from being complimented on your vulnerability to immediately asking about fish and chips?”
He saw it. The incongruence. I couldn’t receive what was being said.
He was right. I didn’t want to be reminded of how I don’t belong. But I couldn’t articulate that yet. I just knew it felt uncomfortable and I didn’t want to feel it.
But avoiding my age, avoiding that feeling, was keeping me even farther from others.
And even farther from myself.
The next morning, I brought it up in the circle.
“Why can’t I hear people when they talk about my age?”
We began a process.
Recognize: I started talking it through with my coach. I realized that the compliment triggered my fear of not belonging. Because I was afraid of it, I resisted it.
Try It On: My coach invited me to feel not belonging. My mind resisted “Why would I ever want to feel that?” but I trusted the process.
Yes, not belonging hurts. But the point wasn’t to make it go away. The point was to show myself that I can be with it.
What if you could actually feel not belonging? Rather than getting as far away from it as possible. To be with it.
As I felt into not belonging I came into touch with that part of myself that didn’t feel like he belonged.
The clouds parted. Light came through.
Not belonging is…okay.
Maybe I even like not belonging.
Wait, could I actually love not belonging?
And then it clicked.
I love not belonging!
When I don’t belong there, I belong here.
When I stop needing to belong, and can ‘not belong’ for a second, I stop putting pressure on others and myself to make me fit.
I love not belonging because I can be who I am.
And when I’m being who I am, I do belong because I belong with myself.
Because not belonging there allowed me to belong here.
A 23 year old freedom coach helping others create lives that feel like a holiday (if that idea excites you).
Creating the freedom to be more of themselves and to build what they love.
I opened my eyes and looked around the room.
A wave of release washed through me.
Everyone had a small grin on their face.
After a moment, one of them said softly,
“I felt like that too when I was your age.”
I heard it. No translation this time. I was exactly where I needed to be.
I belonged to myself.
To the man who loves to travel and explore.
To the one who finds peace alone in nature.
To the one who laughs deeply with others and is filled with joy to share a powerful conversation with another.
To the man who runs with his heart wide open, and fills pages of a journal every morning.
I trust that when I go into my cave, there’s treasure in there, and I’ll find it.
This experience was the beginning of something new.
The power to be with my shadow was beyond anything I’ve ever known. It’s why this next chapter of my life is focused on exploring shadow. Oh, baby.
For those who want to uncover their own shadows and become free with them instead of ruled by them, I only have five free one-hour conversations left.
All My Love,
Double
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✍️ I’m leaning into my storytelling edge by sharing daily writing here.
PS — Back in Austin! Picking up where we left off!
