When I was asked to be on the front cover of the Sense of Belonging edition, I felt this quiet inner nod. The kind that doesn’t shout, just settles in your body and says: this is yours.

Belonging has been the thread running through my entire life.

I have always been a people person. Drawn to connection. Energised by rooms full of

conversation. Fascinated by humans and the invisible threads that weave us together.

There is something about witnessing someone truly show up -raw, real, unfiltered – that lights me up from the inside. I have spent years observing the way people move through the world, the masks they wear, the walls they build, and the moments when those walls finally come down. But, for a long time, I was misunderstood.

Why does she need so many friends? Is she

really this nice!? What is her intention?

The questions came from others, but they also echoed inside my own head. Before I understood myself, I questioned it too. Why did I crave belonging so deeply? Why did I care so much about acceptance? Why was I always the one making the first move, softening the edges, and choosing kindness?

I watched others move through life with fewer connections, less vulnerability, tighter boundaries. And I wondered if something was wrong with me. If my openness was naïve. If my need to gather people was somehow excessive. I didn’t yet understand that what I thought was a weakness was actually my greatest strength. I guess life needed to break me open for me to learn.

The Breaking

In 2020, I lost my beloved, big brother-in-law to suicide. It shattered our family.

The grief was unlike anything I had ever known. It wasn’t clean. It wasn’t containable. It didn’t follow any timeline or pattern. It arrived in waves – sometimes gentle, sometimes violent – and it demanded to be felt. No spiritual bypass could touch it. No affirmation could soften it. No amount of positive thinking could make it hurt less.

For as long as I can remember, I believed my role was to be the light – the optimistic one, the silver-lining finder, the reframer. I thought I could fix things. Transform them. Make them better. I had spent years honing this skill, turning pain into lessons, darkness into wisdom, struggle into strength. But, not this.

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