How to Find Your Place in the World When You’re a Square Peg in a Round Hole
Written by Jayne Robinson, Spiritual Coach & Advisor
Jayne Robinson is a skilled, intuitive spiritual advisor and coach. Director of JR Coaching, International Best Selling Author of That Impact Book, and Founder of the Good Initiative.
Belonging is one of our most basic human needs. We’re wired for it. It’s why we search for our “tribe,” why we move cities, switch careers, join communities, and spend years chasing that elusive feeling of this is where I fit.
I know this search well.
It’s taken me from my small country town to big capital cities, across oceans to the spiritual centres of Bali, to surfing villages, and to the jungles of Costa Rica. I’ve danced in spiritual communities, sat in Ayahuasca ceremonies, and shared conversations with strangers who felt like lifelong friends.
I thought that one day I’d land in a place and say: Yes. This is my group. These are my people. This is home. Yet… it never came.
For years, I thought that meant something was wrong with me. I felt like the proverbial square peg in a round hole, always a little too much of one thing and not enough of another. My life became an ongoing attempt to file down the edges, to pick one identity and stick to it, to fit neatly into a single category.
The dance floor realisation
On Saturday night, something shifted. A light bulb went off.
I was on a crowded dance floor at an ecstatic dance (a sober party), moving my body to an incredible set that transported me back to so many moments across my travels. Ecstatic dances in Bali. Drumming circles in Costa Rica. Surf town beach parties. Ceremonies where strangers became family in hours.
The sheer joy of sharing a moment with other humans, whether that moment lasts for a song, a night, a month, or a chapter of your life, is incomparable. Connection is connection. And when we start to recognise that it’s all around us, in endless opportunities, something changes. It becomes less about finding belonging and more about allowing it in, and that’s when we naturally start to go within.
So many people walk through life closed off to this. Afraid to make eye contact. Afraid to start a conversation with a stranger. Afraid of rejection, of being seen as “weird” or “too much.”
It reminds me of a recent walk in London. I passed a young woman wearing the most incredible shoes. I smiled and told her so, but she stared straight ahead, kept walking, and didn’t say a word. I get it. In a big city, there’s always the risk you’ll encounter hostility or worse. But moments like this happen everywhere, and far too often.
I see it in coaching sessions, too. People are deeply connected to their intellect, but not to the human. They can ace the meeting, deliver the strategy, smash the KPI… but they’ve forgotten how to linger in eye contact, to be curious, to share space with another person without an agenda. That disconnection breeds loneliness, a quiet ache that makes the longing for belonging even more acute, yet never truly fulfilled.
That night, surrounded by strangers-turned-dance-partners, I realised the joy I’d been chasing in one fixed “place” was never going to be found in a single postcode or peer group. It was already here, in the moments I let myself belong to myself, so I could connect with others freely, without needing them to define me.
A blend of everywhere I’ve been
That night, I also understood something else. Each community I’ve been part of, each culture I’ve immersed myself in, has given me something. From the grounded presence of small-town life to the ambition of big-city living. From the spirituality of Bali to the freedom of surf towns. From the deep ceremony of Costa Rican jungles to the light-hearted joy of international friendships.
I’ve taken a piece of each place, each value system, each group, and brought it back with me. In essence, I am all of those parts and none of them at the same time.
I am a blend. A hybrid model. I was never meant to be “just one thing.” The square peg in a round hole feeling wasn’t a flaw, it was a sign I was never supposed to squeeze into one shape to begin with.
Accepting that gave me the freedom to enjoy people for what they are and what they bring to my life, without needing to claim them as my permanent place of belonging.
Because I am whole. And I am home, within myself.
Why this matters for you
We spend so much of our lives looking outward, scanning for the place, the people, the job, the relationship that will finally make us feel like we fit.
But what if the truest belonging doesn’t come from finding the right group? What if it comes from becoming the kind of person you can’t help but belong to?
Questions to reflect on
Here are some questions to pour a cacao or your favourite cup of coffee or hot drink and sip over, or journal with:
Whose approval are you still chasing, even if you won’t admit it?
If you took pieces of every experience, culture, and community you’ve been part of, what would that blend look like?
How would your life feel different if you stopped trying to fit into one “box” and embraced your variety?
Where in your life have you most deeply felt a sense of belonging, and was it with people or within yourself?
Have you ever realised that not fitting in somewhere was actually freedom in disguise?
What’s one moment of unexpected connection with a stranger that’s stayed with you?
How much of your sense of belonging comes from external validation versus internal self-acceptance?
If you could carry “home” within yourself, what would it feel like?
Coming home to yourself
When you stop hunting for the one group, one city, or one identity to define you, you create space to gather belonging from everywhere: a smile across a dance floor, a conversation on a park bench, a fleeting connection that leaves a lasting mark.
Belonging stops being something you “get” from others and starts being something you bring with you. You walk differently. You meet people differently. You stop trying to trade parts of yourself for acceptance and instead offer your whole self, no edits, no disclaimers. And that changes everything, because once you belong to yourself, you can belong anywhere.
So maybe the question isn’t “Where do I fit?” but “How much of me am I willing to bring into this moment?”
Because of that, not the postcode, not the people, not the role, is what turns anywhere into home.
Read more from Jayne Robinson
Jayne Robinson, Spiritual Coach & Advisor
Jayne Robinson is an intuitive spiritual advisor and coach. As the Director of JR Coaching and an avid student of life, Jayne is much like the phoenix rising, leaning into her edge of personal development, emerging from her own transformations and spiritual quests time and time again. As such she is dedicated to helping clients do the same, to create a vibrant new chapter in their lives. Supporting successful entrepreneurs and individuals searching for more to move beyond boredom and burnout, guiding them through a spiritual voyage of uncertainty and fear to a transformative metaphorical death to rebirth. Her mission: embrace discomfort, uncover hidden possibilities, and transform your life.
