What is a Good Life? #62
Feeling A Sense Of Belonging with Julia Duthie
On the 62nd episode of the What is a Good Life? podcast, I am delighted to introduce our guest, Julia Duthie. Julia is a partner at PEPCO LLP, the bestselling author of The House on Dogbone St, and the former CEO of both the Academy of Contemporary Music and The True School of Music.
Simply put, I find Julia’s life story incredibly inspiring. She left home and school at the age of 16 after a troubling and challenging childhood, as we discuss in this episode.
She takes us on her journey from working in vegetable market stalls for food in her teens and living in neglected conditions to being a managing director of an IT firm in her mid-twenties.
From her experiences and realisations in therapy to opening up about her past, letting go of shame, and the death of her father sparking her own desire to connect more fully with who she really is, prompting her to accept her sexuality at the age of 50, connect with her creativity, and write a best-selling book.
While she is also completely frank about what presently troubles her and where she suspects she has more to explore in terms of her childhood.
This episode will offer plenty of inspiration regarding how Julia has lived such a vibrant life in the face of difficult beginnings. Her willingness to explore and be herself more fully, as well as the meaning and sense of belonging she is discovering along the way, will give you much to contemplate.
The weekly clip from the podcast (5 mins), my weekly reflection (4 mins), the full podcast (60 mins), and the weekly questions all follow below.
1. Weekly Clip from the Podcast
📣 Announcement 📣
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2. My weekly reflection
I typically say that I feel a sense of belonging when my inner and outer worlds align, when I feel I am my natural self. This usually occurs when I am expressing and creating outwardly what I have a desire to express or create. When I live from that place, I at the very least feel like I belong in my own life. When I feel like I belong in my own life, I feel more connected to myself and generally connect more with all that is in the world. I feel like I am home.
However, that doesn’t eradicate moments where I feel the usual ebbs and flows of belonging or not belonging to what is around me. Whether this weekend that was seeing a similarly aged father walk past me on a path with a baby attached to his chest, like I had, and a friendly look we exchanged, to feeling a bit strained in a conversation amongst a number of people in a language I have yet to master.
After I walked past this father in the forest while walking with my baby, I had to laugh momentarily at the thought of why someone else merely existing, with a beating heart, lungs, with so many of the same experiences as me doesn’t always automatically elicit the same feeling of belonging and connection as others do.
That had he walked past me without a baby, the hello or smile most likely would have been different. I still would have said hello as I was to others that morning, but I found it strange in the thousands of processes and experiences that I share with other human beings, in moments we can distill it down to one or two things as to whether we are going to feel more or less belonging with another human.
I thought there was something a little sad about that. That there is probably something missing with how we are perceiving the world or reality that such belonging or connection can be so easily swayed (whether feeling connection or separation) to what is another human.
A few weeks ago, my weekly Wednesday evening conversation group (see note below if you want to take part) focused on the theme of belonging. It was interesting to hear how belonging was experienced and what other people needed or didn’t need to feel it.
Some suggested it was primarily driven by an internal feeling, perhaps a sense of ease within one’s being. Another suggested that it was primarily driven by the level of acceptance they felt from the group and how they felt towards the group. Which prompted some questioning around the thought that in order to feel like you belong to any group, was some sense of otherness or separation required?
While one person remarked on their sense of belonging when walking in a forest or watching a sunset. Which now that I have reminded myself of that sentence, it makes me laugh a little again, that my inquiry after walking past the other father in the forest, that I contained my bewilderment to our easily swayed sense of belonging only to humans and not the trees and all else that was around me.
The mention of the groups I host prompts a further thought. Within these conversations I have played with silence as a conduit for connection; the silences have ranged from 10 minutes to 45 minutes long last week. Just to note the silences aren’t for the sake of closing our eyes in meditation but to look at each other and connect.
In all the sessions to date, the longer silences continue to be where the sense of belonging and connection is felt most, with ourselves and each other. Now keep in mind that is within groups where, by and large, the verbal part of the conversations feels very connecting itself. However, the silence sinks it deeper.
Which only adds further to the sense I continue to have of a deeper reality at play that our minds, beliefs, and constructs are separating us from. It is not some sense of enlightenment or adding something, more a sense of taking away or letting go for an innate sense of connection to be noticed. I feel we get clues, experiences, and nods to it all the time, but we are so heavily bought into our present interpretation of existence that we continue to avoid it.
However, I believe that is shifting. When I hear so many people suggest they aren’t feeling a sense of belonging in their own lives, let alone with each other or this world, I see it as a clear sign that cracks are appearing in the scaffolding of our present beliefs an it will be interesting to see what unfolds next.
I’ll leave you with a quote I recently saw from the movie Dune that feels fitting: “Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic… The mystery of life isn’t a problem to solve but a reality to experience.”
📣 My weekly conversation group is every Wednesday at 7pm (CET) on Zoom. It is centred around authentic communication & connection and is free of charge while I’m designing a course. Message me here to find out more and to sign up to the mailing list to be informed of weekly meetings and themes.
3. Full Episode - Feeling A Sense Of Belonging with Julia Duthie - What is a Good Life? #62
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4. This week’s Questions
What gives you a feeling of belonging and and what makes you feel like you don’t belong?
Do you need other people to feel a sense of belonging?
About Me
I am a Coach based in Berlin, via Dublin, Ireland. I left behind a 15-year career in Capital Markets after I became extremely curious around answering some of the bigger questions in life. I started this project in 2021, for which I’ve now interviewed around 200 people, to provide people with the space to reflect on their own lives and to create content that would spark people’s own inquiry into this question. I am also trying to share more genuine expressions of the human experience, beyond the facades we typically project.
If you would like to work with me, or you simply want to get in touch, here’s my email and LinkedIn.