Training 'that voice'

The voice in my head tells me "You don't belong."

I hear it all the time. I hear it along with a clanging noise, a false note, a claxon sound. It tells me "danger danger danger," and suggests I step aside, step aside.

So I do. I so want to belong that I try. I show up, I raise my hand, I speak well, I get compliments on what I say and how I say it. I get it, and I usually get it well.

But I never really feel like I belong. I see a sidelong glance down the table, or a subtle note being taken. I feel a fakey smile or sense that someone feels threatened. Am I imagining this? Yeah, sure. Probably. Much of it is because I am set up to expect them not to want me. It feels like the lunchroom in junior high, and even high school. Like the school bus and having nowhere set to sit.

But some of it is not made up. Some of it is my keen sense of people, my ability to read through some of the things people are saying to actually hear what they want to say. I'm quick to take offense, sure. But that doesn't mean there isn't offense offered.

I don't always act on the instinct to run. I stay, sometimes. I usually regret it, but not always. Sometimes it's OK. When I manage to stay, it's because I am telling myself "It's only a story, you are hearing rejection where there is none, they have no reason to outright reject you, you are OK."

And then I doodle on my scratch pad, drawing broad swirls, and count my breath. In, out, in, out, in, out, up to five and back down to one. It's only a story.

If I do this 5,000 more times -- about the number of times I have believed the story -- it might help.