Why does it feel so good when someone gets you ?

You can just be yourself. You feel safe and your mask just drops!

Your brain stops overthinking how you think you “should” be.

In fact, let’s drop that word “should” completely.

Why?

We are immediately making ourselves wrong!

At the Biology of Belonging Conference last week, ex-TV presenter and therapist Kate Silverton shared:

“Those who have felt the cold are the first to offer a blanket.”

Isn’t it so?

I’m sure you can think of an experience right now that blew you away. The generosity and kindness I saw when working with the homeless, those in addiction, those in prisons, and when I was in India blew me away.

There was a room with no furniture where a family of five lived—just a mat on the floor and a TV on a box. But I was invited in to have dinner with the family.

Why?

I said “Hello” and stopped to chat as I cycled past.

We are born to belong.

As Tiger says, “We flourish when we feel we belong.”

The cold?

When you feel left out, you don’t fit in, you feel judged to the core, you’re an outsider.

You need to change to be loved and accepted.

If you could just be different, then everything will be okay.

You aren’t enough.

You never will be.

You feel it in your gut that they “just don’t like you.”

I know, for I was there for many years—and I can still be, when triggered.

When I ask everyone in the Self-Compassion Projects to “give me a Joyworks wiggle if you’ve ever felt like others don’t like you” everyone, and I mean everyone, wiggles!

We are all in this together.

In fact, I was reminded at the conference of the Dalai Lama’s confusion when he first came to the UK.

He didn’t understand how we felt about ourselves.

He had to have it explained to him.

This level of self-loathing that we in the West have.

It was new to him.

Yet a blanket is when you feel seen, heard, and valued. When you can relax, be yourself, say what you really think, see the good in everyone—because they see the good in you!

For we are mirrors.

It’s when you can be playful, cheeky, and laugh until tears roll down your sides, spitting out whatever you have in your mouth as you hold your sides to stop yourself from falling down.

When you feel “part of”—and that makes you feel on cloud nine!

You just feel you.

As Oprah Winfrey shared, if she’d known the secret of having a good life was just being yourself, she’d have started doing it way long before she did. She said, “Being true to oneself is the highest honour on Earth!”

It feels so good when people get us—because we’ve dropped (in her words) the “disease to please.”

In a recent Virgin Money Mini-Stress Buster event, many shared that the way they release stress is to get a “breath of fresh air.”

Another breath of fresh air is just telling it how it is.

Neuroscience proves it.

So let’s be our own blanket—and have the courage to be ourselves and be in a community that gets us!

We do joy better when we are surrounded regularly by a clan who just let us, as my papa always said:

“Just be your ain wee self!”

Right?

If you are craving a new tribe that gets you, come sample the Joy Academy Membership!

Our special founder friend rates have now all gone, but as it’s Mental Health Awareness Week, you can come meet our global Joy Clan for the FIRST month at half price – offer ends Sunday midnight!

Or bring Joyworks to your team or group and help them feel that they are valued, celebrated and belong.

A huge thank you to Suzanne Scott, CEO and Founder of Trauma Informed Parenting for inviting me along as a guest  to the Conference and for this lovely reflection activity. It’s fantastic to be part of the team at TIP and can’t wait for our next project together!!

Photo Zoe Barrie : Scottish Water Conference  Joyworks Staff Wellness Workshops