Belonging Is a Feeling, Not a Place

I hear a version of this sentence every single week.

"I have been here for eight years now and I still do not feel like I belong."

You can change the number to two years, ten years or even twenty. The longing underneath it always sounds the same. It is the belief that belonging should have happened by now, that it should have clicked into place like something you unlock after enough time.

But belonging does not work like that. It is not a place and it is not a destination. It is not a right that gets handed to you. Belonging is a feeling. More specifically, it is a feeling that only you can feel. No one else can place it inside you.

I used to think otherwise. Before counselling so many migrants, if someone told me they did not feel like they belonged, my instinctive reply would have been something like "of course you do." I meant it kindly, but it never landed. No one was ever convinced when I responded that way. It felt flat and it put a stop to the conversation. In their eyes I could see that my good intention had landed like dismissal. It was the emotional equivalent of patting someone on the shoulder and moving on. That was the moment I understood something important. Belonging is not created through reassurance. It is not something you can give someone with a sentence. It has to be felt and the body is the one that decides when that feeling arrives.

Over time I began to see a clear pattern. People were not longing for someone to tell them they belonged. They were longing for something much deeper. They were longing to feel safe. They were longing for connection. They were longing to feel seen.

Belonging is what happens when those three experiences overlap. It is when your shoulders finally drop. It is when your breath becomes deeper without you noticing. It is when laughter and tears come easily. It is when you no longer feel conscious of how you are moving through the world. It is a full body exhale.

We mistake belonging for something external. We think it has to do with how long we have lived somewhere or how many friends we have or how many cultural moments we can interpret correctly. None of these things guarantee belonging. They give you proximity to connection, but they do not create the feeling itself.

Connections are what create belonging. They are the groundwork. They are the cords that carry the emotional current. And the most important thing about connection is something people often miss. Connection has to run in both directions. You have to plug in from your end for it to work. It is no different from a computer cable. If only one side is connected, nothing flows. Many migrants are surrounded by people who are willing to connect with them, but because they do not feel safe or understood or grounded, they cannot plug in from their end. And so they conclude they do not belong, even when others believe they do.

This is why fitting in is not the same as belonging. Fitting in is surface level. It is adjusting yourself to match the environment. You can fit in almost anywhere if you try hard enough. But belonging is internal. It cannot be forced or performed. It comes only from genuine connection, not compliance or mimicry.

Listening to hundreds of migrant stories has shaped my understanding of belonging in ways I never expected. I have never migrated myself, so I did not have to think about belonging this deeply until I kept hearing the same ache repeated over and over. Now I understand that the ache is not about place, it is about connection. It is about feeling safe enough to be yourself. It is about feeling welcomed without having to earn it. It is about feeling seen without having to explain your entire history.

Belonging is not something you wait for. It is something you create through connection. You cultivate connection by showing up where your body feels the possibility of safety and where there is mutual interest in knowing one another. You cultivate it by allowing people to see small, real pieces of you rather than the polished version you think is expected.

You belong when you plug in. Not before. Not because time has passed. Not because someone told you that you do. You belong when your body recognises safety and connection at the same time.

And that feeling is worth the wait.


Looking for a place where you will feel like you belong? Join us on the third Thursday of every month at the Brave Belonging Circle