Season Two, Episode 5 · with Brooke Ackerman

Brené Brown draws a line between belonging and fitting in. Belonging means being accepted as you are. Fitting in means changing yourself so you'll be accepted. Brooke Ackerman spends her days coaching people in the gap between the two.

Brooke is a mental and emotional health coach and the founder of Blueprint Heart and Mind in Virginia. Before that, she taught English for fourteen years. That's where she first saw how this works. A student would find their own story inside a character in a book and realize they weren't the only one. Then they'd say it out loud, and another kid would say, "Me too."

Most of us never decide to fit in. Somewhere along the way we get rejected, and we over-correct. We study what the room wants and become that. It isn't a conscious choice. It's protection.

The protection costs us. We show up as a version of ourselves that isn't real. Other people sense something is off, even if they can't name it, and they pull back. We feel rejected again and decide we need to change more. The cycle repeats.

The cycle also feels safe. It isn't good, but it's familiar, and showing up as yourself feels riskier than the discomfort you already know.

Brooke lived this. For years she believed she didn't quite measure up to a friend from a women's group. Long after the group stopped meeting, that friend told her this was a friendship she intended to keep for life. Brooke had been working hard to earn a place she already had.

So how do you tell fitting in from belonging? Brooke says to start with your body: a knot in your stomach, sweaty palms, the sense that everything inside is running on fast-forward. Don't ignore those signals. Get curious about them.

She's also clear that you can't do this work alone. Nobody sees themselves as clearly as they think they do. On our own, we become our own echo chamber.

Her starting point is simple and hard: you have to truly learn to like you. If you don't, you won't believe anyone else does.

For anyone trying to make room for someone else, she has one warning: nobody wants to feel like the project. Don't try to fix people. Be curious about them. Ask questions, and want their story because it's worth hearing.

Dave shares his own moment as well. He once decided he didn't belong in a men's group because the other men's credentials outshone his. When he said so, they laughed, because some of them had been thinking the same thing about him.

Brooke put it this way: you might be sitting at a table that isn't yours. That's painful to discover. It's also what gets you out of the chair and looking for the table where you belong, as yourself.