You Can Be Surrounded by People and Still Feel Alone

Why women navigating leadership, motherhood, and ambition need more than people who love them. They need people who understand them.

Surrounded But Still Alone.m4a

Jazmine Renae, Women's Leadership Strategist

There's a particular kind of loneliness that I don't think we talk about enough when we discuss women in leadership.

It's not necessarily the loneliness of having no one around you. Sometimes it's quite the opposite.

You can be married, raising children, building a successful career, surrounded by colleagues, and have people who genuinely love and support you. Your calendar can be full, your relationships can be meaningful, and your life can look like everything you've worked toward.

And yet, you can still find yourself feeling like no one fully understands what you're navigating.

I've experienced that feeling, and it's something I've heard reflected in conversations with other women.

Not because the people in our lives don't care. But because there's a difference between having people who support the roles you occupy and having people who understand what it's like to navigate all those roles at the same time.

I can talk to someone about the demands of leadership. I can talk to someone else about motherhood. I can have conversations about marriage, ambition, identity, or the expectations placed on women.

But sometimes, what I'm trying to navigate isn't any one of those things.

It's the intersection of all of them.

It's being a woman whose professional aspirations matter deeply to her while also being a mother who wants to be present for her children. It's understanding the responsibility that comes with leadership while recognizing that your identity, values, and experiences influence how you show up in those spaces.

It's knowing that you're grateful for the life you've built while also wondering where you fit into it.

And sometimes, it's wishing you could have a conversation without first having to explain why all of those things matter equally.

The Leadership Insight

During my recent masterclass, Returning to Yourself: Reclaiming Your Identity in Leadership, we talked about something I believe is missing from many traditional conversations about leadership development.

We're often taught to think about leadership in terms of performance, productivity, influence, and results. And when we talk about the challenges women face, the conversation frequently shifts to work-life balance.

How do we manage our careers and our families? How do we divide our time? How do we become more efficient so we can give enough attention to both?

But I challenged the women in that conversation to consider something else.

What happens when we talk about work and life but leave out the self?

Because there's a third part of that equation that deserves just as much attention.

You.

Your identity. Your values. Your ambitions. Your experiences. The parts of yourself that existed before you became someone's mother, someone's spouse, or the person responsible for leading a team.

And the parts of yourself that continue to evolve as your life changes.

When we leave that third element out, we can become exceptionally good at fulfilling our responsibilities while gradually losing touch with the person fulfilling them.

I think that's part of what makes this particular kind of loneliness so difficult to recognize.

From the outside, everything might appear to be working. You're accomplishing your goals. You're showing up for your family. You're handling your responsibilities.

But internally, you may be questioning whether the way you've learned to lead and live actually makes room for the fullness of who you are.

And because the people around you may only see one part of your experience, you can begin to believe you're the only one asking those questions.

You're not necessarily lacking relationships. You may be lacking spaces where you can bring your whole identity into the conversation.

This matters because the expectations we carry rarely develop in isolation.

Many of us were raised with very specific ideas about what it meant to be a good daughter, a good mother, a successful woman, or a strong leader. Those ideas came from our families, our communities, our cultures, and the institutions we've been part of.

Some of those lessons gave us a strong foundation. Others taught us to prioritize responsibility, achievement, or the needs of others without always considering what those expectations would require us to sacrifice.

And when we enter leadership environments, we're often introduced to another set of expectations about how we should communicate, make decisions, demonstrate authority, and earn respect.

For women whose identities don't neatly fit the leadership models we've inherited, that can create another layer of pressure.

We may find ourselves adjusting how we speak, how we express emotion, how we advocate for ourselves, or how much of our personal lives we're willing to acknowledge.

Not always because someone explicitly told us to change, but because we've learned which versions of ourselves seem most acceptable in certain spaces.

Over time, those adjustments can become so familiar that we stop noticing we're making them.

And if the people around us have never had to navigate those same expectations, they may not fully understand why something that looks manageable from the outside feels so complicated from within.

That's why I believe conversations about leadership have to make room for identity.

Not as an occasional topic or an additional consideration, but as part of the foundation.

You cannot separate the woman from the leader and expect either one to thrive.

I also believe we have to be careful about what we mean when we encourage women to find support.

Support isn't always someone stepping in to take a task off your plate, although practical support matters tremendously. The women I've spoken with have been clear about the importance of childcare, flexibility, mentorship, and leaders who understand the realities of their lives.

Those things are essential, and no amount of personal reflection can replace them.

But there's another kind of support that matters, too.

The opportunity to be in conversation with women who understand the questions you're asking because they're asking some of those same questions themselves.

Women who understand that you can love motherhood without wanting it to become your entire identity. Women who understand that ambition isn't something you should have to apologize for. Women who recognize that wanting to grow professionally doesn't mean you're any less committed to your family.

And women who are willing to challenge you when you're holding on to expectations that no longer serve you.

Because meaningful support isn't always about having someone agree with you.

Sometimes it's having someone help you recognize a pattern you couldn't see on your own.

Your Action Step

I want you to think about the people and spaces you turn to when you're navigating something difficult.

Not just the people you love or the people you know would show up if you needed them.

Think about the places where you feel comfortable bringing your full experience into the conversation.

Where can you talk about your leadership, motherhood, ambition, and identity without feeling like you have to separate them into different parts of yourself?

Maybe you already have a space like that. If you do, consider whether you're making room in your life to engage with it.

And if you don't, I want you to think about what that kind of support would look like.

Would it mean finding a mentor who understands the intersection of your professional and personal responsibilities? Building relationships with women who are navigating similar transitions? Having conversations with people whose experiences challenge the leadership models you've always known?

Or maybe it means becoming more intentional about the conversations you're having with the people already in your life.

I also want you to consider another question:

Are you giving yourself permission to be understood, or have you become so accustomed to being the one who understands everyone else that you've stopped expressing what you need?

For women who are used to leading, solving problems, and supporting others, that can be a difficult question to answer.

We're often comfortable being the person someone else comes to for guidance. It can feel much less familiar to admit that we're still figuring things out ourselves.

But needing perspective doesn't diminish your leadership.

And having questions about your identity, your priorities, or the direction of your life doesn't mean you've failed to build a successful one.

It means you're continuing to grow.

Closing Reflection

One of the reasons I created the LEGACY Leadership Experience was because I didn't want these conversations to end when a masterclass ended.

I didn't want women to recognize something important about themselves, close their laptops, and return to navigating those realizations entirely on their own.

I wanted to create an experience where women could examine the expectations they've inherited, work through the LEGACY Framework, and continue those conversations with others who understand that leadership is inseparable from the lives we're living.

That's why community is part of the experience, alongside the course, group coaching, and opportunities to learn from other women.

Not because I believe every woman needs another commitment on her calendar.

But because I believe growth looks different when you have space to reflect, question, learn, and be challenged without having to leave parts of yourself at the door.

In the masterclass, I shared something that continues to guide this work:

Following someone else's blueprint will not produce your legacy. Your legacy requires your design.

And I believe part of designing that legacy is being intentional about the people and environments that support the woman you're becoming.

You can honor the traditions that shaped you without remaining confined by them. You can value the relationships you've built while recognizing that different seasons of life may require different kinds of support.

And you can be deeply committed to your family, your career, and your personal growth without believing that one has to come at the expense of the others.

If you're ready to explore what that kind of intentional leadership can look like, I invite you to learn more about the Legacy Leadership Experience and the community we're building.

[ EXPLORE THE LEGACY LEADERSHIP EXPERIENCE]

Because you shouldn't have to leave pieces of yourself behind to find a place where you belong.