When I was at university, I lived with a family while studying. Another girl lived there too - someone I’d known since secondary school.

On the surface, it was a logical arrangement. We had history. Familiarity. A shared past.

But we couldn’t have been more different.

I was outgoing, social, ambitious - expressive in the way I moved through the world. I wanted more from life and wasn’t particularly subtle about it. She was quieter, more inward, and to me, carried a kind of begrudging, heavy energy. Not openly unkind, just subtly deflating. As if joy needed to be tempered. As if ambition was something to be corrected.

I never felt fully comfortable with her.
Never fully at ease.
Never fully like she was on my side.

There was a quiet sense of comparison in the air. A feeling that she was watching me, measuring me, trying - gently, covertly - to get one up. Nothing I could point to. Nothing I could challenge. Just enough to keep my nervous system slightly alert.

And because nothing was technically wrong, I stayed.

For years.

In the house lived a family with three boys. We all knew their names well. One of them was Brendan.

And then, inexplicably, I started calling him by the wrong name.

Not by accident.
Not because I didn’t know better.
But consistently and only in front of her.

She corrected me every time.
And every time, I acknowledged it… and did it again.

It drove her mad.

At the time, I couldn’t explain why I did this. I didn’t think of myself as passive-aggressive. I wasn’t trying to be cruel. I didn’t even feel angry. Mostly, I felt slightly amused - and slightly confused by myself.

Why this?
Why now?
Why persist?

For years, I couldn’t make sense of it.

Looking back, I don’t see immaturity or malice.

I see a nervous system protecting autonomy.

I see a young woman who didn’t yet have the language, or permission, to say:
I don’t feel comfortable here.
I don’t trust this dynamic.
I don’t feel fully safe being myself.

So my system found another way.

That misnaming was a tiny act of resistance. A quiet refusal to be corrected, managed, or subtly diminished. A way of saying - without words - you don’t get to control me.

Every time she corrected me, the underlying dynamic was reinforced: right and wrong, authority and compliance, dominance and adjustment.

And every time I persisted, my system answered:
I still belong to myself.

It wasn’t elegant.
It wasn’t conscious.
But it was protective.

This is how many women learn about belonging - early and quietly.

Not through exclusion, but through editing.

We sense that to stay included we must:

So we do.

And because it’s subtle, we don’t recognise it as self-abandonment. We just feel a low-grade restlessness. A dull ache. A desire to escape without knowing why.

This is the difference between fitting in and belonging.

Fitting in asks: Who do I need to be to stay connected?
Belonging asks: Can I stay connected while being who I am?

True belonging isn’t psychological. It’s somatic.

Your nervous system knows when authenticity isn’t safe - and it will choose survival over expression every time.

Later, this pattern doesn’t disappear. It just matures.

Conditional belonging can look like:

It’s not a confidence issue.
It’s not a motivation problem.

It’s an old safety calculation still running quietly in the background.

And eventually, many women feel an urge to “break free”, not because something is wrong, but because something essential has been missing.

The self.

Belonging to yourself doesn’t mean rejecting others. It means no longer abandoning yourself to stay connected.

It’s the slow, compassionate rebuilding of self-trust.

Trusting your sensations.
Trusting your impulses.
Trusting when something doesn’t feel right, even if you can’t explain why.

That strange story from my past didn’t mean I was difficult or disruptive.

It meant something in me knew I mattered, even before I knew how to say it cleanly.

If this resonates - if you recognise yourself in the quiet contortions, the subtle self-editing, the longing to finally relax into who you are - you’re not broken.

You’re becoming honest.

My Hi-Vibe Reset is a soft, grounded space for women who are ready to stop twisting themselves to belong, and instead want to come home to themselves in life and in work.

It’s a place to:

No fixing.
No forcing.
No performance.

Just an invitation.

Because real belonging doesn’t start out there.

It starts when you decide you’re allowed to stay with yourself❣️

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