External and internal displacement

A sense of identity and belonging is something many of us wrestle with throughout our lives. For some, this comes through migration, relocation, or living abroad. For others, it arises from experiences of social exclusion, discrimination, or simply feeling different from those around them.

Whatever its origins, displacement is not only geographical. It can also be psychological. We can feel disconnected from our culture, our community, our family, or even from ourselves.

Belonging is both internal and external

For many years, I believed that the therapeutic journey was all about focusing on our inner world. As we develop greater self-awareness, self-acceptance, and self-compassion, external circumstances inevitably have less power over our sense of identity. Whilst there is truth to this, I have come to appreciate that belonging is not solely an internal achievement. We also need relationships and communities that recognise, affirm, and reflect who we are.

Our sense of self is shaped in relationship. While no one person or group can fully understand every aspect of our identity, meeting people who share parts of our experience can give us the sense of recognition that we need in order to lessen the distance we feel from our original culture and thus from vital aspects of ourselves.

Feeling at home away from home

There is something enriching about living alongside people from different backgrounds and embracing new ways of seeing the world. Yet many people who have relocated continue to long for places and relationships where they feel understood without having to explain themselves.

We often experience this sense of familiarity through shared culture, language, profession, age, sexuality, values, or life experience. These connections remind us that we belong somewhere.

Having lived in different countries, I often found myself absorbing the culture around me in an effort to fit in. In doing so, I gradually became more disconnected from my own cultural roots.

While integrating into a new culture is an important part of building a life elsewhere, I have learned that it is equally important to preserve the parts of ourselves that we do not wish to lose. Belonging should not require us to abandon who we are.

The hidden grief of migration

Migration often brings opportunity, growth, and new possibilities. It can also involve profound loss.

Coming from South America, there are aspects of my culture that I have found difficult and was relieved to leave behind. At the same time, I have deeply missed many things that shaped my early life, including speaking my first language, familiar landscapes, food, literature, music, and the everyday rhythms of home.

These losses are not always visible to others, despite being deeply felt.

The grief associated with leaving one’s homeland is often underestimated. Even when migration is voluntary, it usually involves saying goodbye to people, places, and ways of living that helped shape our identity.

Carrying home within us

Our earliest experiences of care provide an emotional template for what feels safe and familiar. As adults, we naturally seek relationships and environments that evoke these feelings of security and belonging.

When the culture we live in feels unfamiliar, we may continue to experience ourselves as outsiders, even after many years. This can leave us feeling divided between different worlds, belonging fully to neither.

Over time, integration (in the psychological and cultural sense) often comes through developing both internal and external resources. Internally, we learn to mourn was was left behind. Mourning involves acknowledging what was loved and lost. It also involves recognising the ambivalence inherent in what and whom we love. Understanding our reasons for leaving, whether conscious or unconscious is also vital in recognising and taking ownership of the choices made. Externally, we may seek relationships, communities, and places where our identity is recognised and valued.

Acknowledging what has been lost does not prevent us from embracing what has been gained. In fact, mourning our losses often makes it easier to build a meaningful life in the present while remaining connected to the past.

Integrating who we have become

Psychotherapy can provide a space to explore questions of identity, belonging, and cultural experience with curiosity and compassion.

Working with a culturally informed therapist can help us understand how our background continues to shape us, while also recognising how we have grown and changed over time.

The goal is not to choose between one identity and another. Rather, it is to integrate the different parts of ourselves into something coherent and authentic. In doing so, we begin to feel more at home, not only in the places where we live, but within ourselves.

To listen more on the topic of belonging, check out the podcast: What It Means To Belong with psychotherapist Mark Vahrmeyer.