Belonging; again.

Throughout life we all at one point or another feel we ‘belong’ to something or someone. It was something I had never given much thought to; however once again my cancer journey was about to teach me something new about myself.

As I’ve written about previously, back in July I made a relatively big decision; resigning from my job with no new job to go to. A choice I made due to a number of reasons.

Resigning gave me a chance to rebuild, to evaluate and to figure out what I needed from my next career move. However it also highlighted to me how work gives you a sense of ‘belonging’. Something I had started to figure out in my sessions with my Macmillan Counsellor over the past few months.

Starting the job in London which as I mentioned in the last blog post was a whole new experience to me in itself started to give me a sense of ‘belonging’ again. The people I worked with didn’t know it; other than my boss and a couple of people none of them knew what the previous 10 months in my life had been like.

Although I knew the job was only for 12 weeks; I took the opportunity to build new relationships and build a new sense of ‘belonging’ with people and a business.

As with all jobs it had it’s ups and downs during that time, but for some reason I could see things in a completely different light. Just a few months prior I had no idea what the months of October through to December were going to be like for me. How can life turn almost 360 degrees and give me an opportunity like this?

Being in the role for a short period of time meant I needed to learn quickly, build relationships even faster and get on with getting the job done. This job, these people, this experience gave me confidence and the sense of ‘belonging’ I had been missing for quite some time since leaving my last role.

So why am I writing about this? I guess I wanted to share my experience with you in case you were going through something similar. A cancer journey like the one I had, although I was absolutely one of the very lucky and fortunate ones still creates ‘waves’ and a knock on ‘ripple’ effect through aspects of your life, months and I am sure years after the initial phase of treatment and recovery is ‘over’.

I lost my sense of ‘belonging’ not with my wife or family; but with that thing that we ‘all’ moan about getting up for each day; work and the role I could play within it. Being around a new group of people, sharing new experiences, views and working on common goals gave me all of that back. I was welcomed by strangers and left a business 12 weeks later all the better for knowing them.

If you’re feeling like your sense of ‘belonging’ is missing whilst on your journey, I can assure you it’s absolutely normal. Like I keep saying; everybody’s journey will be different but if you are feeling lost, trust me, the stars will align and you will get your sense of ‘belonging’ back. I never knew where mine was going to come from but I’m so thankful it happened the way it did.

The picture at the start of this post was one I took walking for the train after finishing on my last day. I stood for about 5 minutes taking it all in and feeling so grateful I could be part of it.

To those I worked with in London; Thank you.