You Belong to Yourself Before You Belong Anywhere Else

Before a bent tree belonged to the forest, it belonged to itself, found the light, and grew.

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Segment 2: Returning to Wholeness

Episode 7

You Belong to Yourself Before You Belong Anywhere Else

Who you are is not something you earn. It is something you return to. - Dr. Kidi

Reflection

“They call me Goggles,” she said, almost smiling, as she sat on the exam table.

The room was quiet in the way clinics often are. Bright lights. Clean walls.

I rolled my chair closer and lowered myself to her eye level. Not to examine her, but to meet her. She adjusted her glasses, though they did little to hide her large, bulging eyes.

“Goggles?” I asked. “Who calls you that?”

“My friends. My family. Everyone, really.”

At first, she kept it light.

A smirk.

A shrug.

A practiced expression of someone who has learned how to make discomfort easier for others to digest. Then her face shifted. Not dramatically. Just enough. The smile thinned. Her eyes softened. The body spoke before her words did.

“It’s how they show love in my circle,” she said. “They don’t mean it badly. It’s like a hug. To make me feel better.”

“Better about what?” I asked.

“My eyes,” she said. “They’re big. They stick out. They look like goggles.”

My patient, whom I will call Eva, had Thyroid Eye Disease, an autoimmune condition where inflammation causes the tissues behind the eyes to swell, persistently pushing them forward. It can affect vision, comfort, and appearance. It is not cosmetic. It is not a choice. It is the body responding to imbalance.

“Do they know it hurts you when they call you Goggles?” I asked, knowing the answer, yet wanting her to hear herself say it.

She paused. Then said quietly, “I don’t think so. Why would they? I’ve never told them. And I answer to it. I laugh with them.”

“They can see it anyway,” she added. “Even through my glasses. Unless I wear dark ones. Sometimes I don’t know which is worse. Wearing sunglasses inside or letting them see my goggles.”

“My goggles?” I said gently. “You just used the same word to describe your eyes.”

“What choice do I have?” she whispered. “It’s true. They’re right.”

Her voice tried to stay steady, but her large, pearly eyes betrayed her pain. Tears gathered in them, holding the fluorescent light the way a tide holds the moon.

“Can you help me make them smaller?” she asked. Then came one last, soft “Please,” and the tears fell like clear beads slipping from a sacred place, tracing her cheeks with the elegance of rain on glass.

Even in sorrow, her eyes were not something to hide.

They were vast.

They were bright.

They were breathtaking.

Yet the world around her had taught her otherwise.

This was a familiar story. In middle and high school, anyone who looked different was often given a nickname without their consent, usually tied to a physical feature. Some of those names followed people into adulthood, and even now, many still respond to them as if they were their own. Rarely does anyone ask what it felt like to be renamed. It was not framed as cruelty.

It was treated as normal. And that is part of what made it last.

Many of us learned early that being seen as we are could be dangerous. That standing out invites commentary. That the safest path was to accept the label before it cut too deeply. To laugh first. To agree quickly. To call ourselves what others already had, often shaped by their perceptions and their unexamined insecurities.

Eva tried to fit inside a narrow definition of beauty which generally is a common practice. We bleach our skin, change the way we talk, change the way we wear our hair, not always because it is who we are, but because we want to belong.

I remember being told by a counselor not to wear braids to my medical school interviews, so I did not.

In one interview, I was asked if I planned to have children. I said no. Not because it was my truth, but because I felt I had to cross the bridge to the other side.

I told myself it was temporary.

I told myself it was a strategy.

I told myself it was what it took to become a doctor. Maybe it was.

But even after I got there, the tests do not stop.

A patient will look past me and ask, “When is the doctor going to see me?” And in that moment, I feel the old message again, the one that says you must keep proving that you belong. 

I have heard parents talk about which child has “good hair” and which one does not, as if worth can be measured in texture. I have watched people be shamed of their weight, height, skin tone, accent, and simply for taking up space as themselves. Maya Angelou captures it beautifully in her poem When I Think About Myself: 

“I laugh so hard I almost cry.

I laugh until I start to die.”

So we laugh along.

We hide.

We comply.

We accept the name.

We dull the sting.

We build armor to soften the blow and keep the peace, just to survive. And eventually, we start embracing the very habits that silence who we are. We forget that the performance was a shield.

Then, we begin to agree that who we are is not enough.

That we will belong later.

After we adjust.

After we change.

This is not a conspiracy. It is a passage. A painful shift from the innocence of simply being into the awareness of how the world measures, compares, and categorizes. Somewhere along the way, we learn to edit ourselves. And too rarely does someone stop and say: your eyes are beautiful. Your skin is enough. Wear your hair your way. Your body is not a problem.

Belonging to yourself means saying no to labels and yes to the truth of who you are now, to this body, to this moment. And if I choose to change, it is not to earn love or permission. It is to care for what already belongs to me. Because when you do not belong to yourself, belonging anywhere becomes fragile.

Exhausting.

Conditional.

And fitting in leads to betrayal.

I told Eva not to hide her big eyes. As she said, people will notice them anyway. Instead, I invited her to stop shrinking. I asked her to take a lesson from Muhammad Ali: choose your own name, your own story, your own belonging. Do not hand anyone the power to rename you in a world still too full of people who assume they have that right. Doing so will cause you to abandon belonging to your body.

When You Leave Your Body, You Leave Your Home

And still, Eva came to the clinic carrying an exhaustion that did not come only from disease. It came from the constant effort of concealment. Not the tiredness of a long day, but the deeper fatigue of always managing how she is seen which felt safer than listening to her body’s request to simply be herself.

She knew the medical language: inflammation, autoimmune response, Thyroid Eye Disease. But knowledge did not calm her nervous system around other people. Instead, it prepared her for fitting in. She learned to anticipate the gaze before it landed. She adjusted her posture, edited her expressions, and used her glasses like armor. When hiding failed, she made herself smaller. Her mind ran a constant script.

They’re staring.

Make it a joke.

Hide better next time.

Don’t let them see you care.

Over time, the script hardened into something that sounded like truth. You are Goggles.

At first, the cost whispers. Shoulders that never fully drop. A breath that stays high in the chest. Then one day you realize you are living from the neck up, observing your life instead of inhabiting it. Each outward search carried her farther from the home within. And the body pays for that vigilance. Chronic stress keeps the system braced. It slows healing. The question: Am I acceptable? replaces the knowing I am who I am.

I did not cure Eva's Thyroid Eye Disease. I treated her symptoms, and they improved. But remember, curing and treating are not the same as healing. And her healing begins only when she stops negotiating her right to exist and returns to her body as home. And when belonging stops being a performance. When her body feels safe.

Reclaiming the Body as Home

Reclaiming the body as home where you belong is not a single breakthrough.

It is a practice. A return.

It means entering rooms without leaving parts of you behind.

Carrying your whole self, not a curated version.

Saying, this is me, and I am staying.

It is wearing sunglasses to protect your eyes from the sun, not to disappear.

It is changing your hair because you want to, not to be accepted.

It is caring for your body to support your health, not to earn worth.

It is honoring your history, your presence, and your voice.

It is being who you are, without apology.

This is not selfishness. It is self respect. It is becoming your own safe place.

Now I want to invite you into that same return with a simple question: Is there something you hold that keeps you from feeling at home in yourself?

Most of us have at least one thing.

A feature.

A feeling.

A truth we keep editing just to be accepted.

When you feel yourself pulling away from who you are, practice these tools repeatedly. They build awareness over time and guide you back to belonging to yourself.

Mirror Practice

Look at yourself in the mirror for 10 seconds.

Relax your shoulders.

Say: This is me. I am enough.

No Explanation Pause

When you feel the urge to explain yourself, stop.

Take one breath.

Say less than you planned.

Let silence do the work.

Pace Reset

Notice your speed.

Slow one thing down by half.

Your walk.

Your speech.

Your breathing.

Belonging grows at a human pace.

Permission Slip

Silently give yourself permission: I am allowed to take up space.

Repeat once.

Then move on.

Belonging Check-In

Ask yourself: Am I performing right now?

If yes, soften your face and slow your breath.

Say: I do not have to earn belonging.

Each time you intentionally pause and return, you strengthen that belonging. Not perfectly, but steadily. Like walking home in the dark by memory, step after step, until your hand finds the door without searching.

This work also asks for kindness.

Notice where you judge or label others.

Pause.

Choose differently.

Help them return to themselves too.

When enough of us do this, we become safer to be around. And slowly, we build a world where more people can breathe, be seen, heal, and belong.

A world that feels like home.

Tinfash: Dr. Kidi’s Healing Space

A space to breathe. A space to listen. A space to begin again.

Journal Invitation
Writing by hand helps you slow down and listen more closely. It connects your thoughts to your body and invites honesty without the need to edit. This kind of presence supports deep healing. Your words do not need to be perfect. They only need to be yours. Let your words arrive just as they are.

Journaling is a powerful way to build this awareness. Writing helps you notice patterns: where your time goes, what drains you, and what nourishes you. It slows the day down enough for truth to surface.

Where in my life do I feel the urge to hide, perform, or make myself smaller in order to belong?

What part of me is asking to be seen, named, or reclaimed as home?

If I belonged to myself first in that space, what would I do or say differently?

Healing Mantra
Mantras are healing because they steady the nervous system. They interrupt spiraling thoughts and help your body feel safe enough to soften.
Choose a quiet moment. 
Sit, stand, or lie down. 
Take one slow breath in and a gentle breath out.
Repeat the mantra softly, out loud or in your mind. 
Let it move with your breath. 
No force. 
just presence.

I belong to myself. 

Call to Connection

As a doctor and a fellow human, so much of what I know about healing has come from meaningful exchanges with people like you. Our shared stories and quiet beginnings teach me again and again that there is wisdom in simply starting.

I would love to hear your thoughts about beginning again.

I am here for you.

I am also here to grow alongside you.

If you have suggestions, ideas, or requests, share them in the comments. You can also jot down your reflections and send me a screenshot.

If you feel moved, review, rate, and share this with a friend who may be ready to reconnect with their own healing.

Visit drkidi.com for more reflections from What Healing Knows.

Follow @drkidi.healing to join a community learning to return to themselves, one gentle moment at a time.

To read my short stories go to Substack @drkidi.

With that, we have begun our healing connection.

Until next time,

Embrace the journey. Keep listening. Healing knows the way.

Love and more love, 

Dr. Kidi