How To Find Your People

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Every week, I share stories, lessons, encouragement, and practical healing and growth practices from my life and work with others.

Hey Beloved, I'm Nakeia

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“Love the people who love you.”

You are not meant to go through life alone.

You need the five kinds of people we are going to talk about today—plus a few others.

You may be rolling your eyes because of your relationship history. Breakups, family drama, and being exhausting by the relationship you have with yourself may have tempted you to give up on love and deep connection. But I have some thoughts that may help. If you have struggled to find your people in the past, lean in…

Let’s Start With Relationships

Of all the decisions you have to make in your lifetime, who you spend your days with is top five in terms of importance. And when I say who you spend your days with, I mean the people in your life. I mean your relationships.

Esther Perel says, “The quality of your relationships will determine the quality of your life.” I think it was Tony Robbins who said, “The people in your life are either a lesson or a warning.” And I always say, “In a relationship is the most vulnerable place to be.”

There is a reason why relationship talk is the most popular among conversations in wellness and mental health. It is because people will stress you the F out! You know who I’m talking about. I’m talking about your family. I’m talking about your beloved. I’m talking about your kids. And I’m talking about yourself (because the relationship you have with yourself is also often stressful.)

Relationships are important.

I actually have a couple of relationship beliefs. And I’m going to call these beliefs… Usually, I say truths, but I’m going to say beliefs because we may not believe the same thing, and that is okay.

1. I believe is that everyone needs some kind of relationship. You can’t go solo your entire way through life. You need a friend, you need a mentor, coach, or advisor, and you need biological or chosen family. You need somebody. Everybody needs somebody. And I say biological or chosen because I am one of those people who doesn’t have a traditional family. I wasn’t raised by my mother or father. I was fostered by my grandmother. My grandmother moved from Georgia, where all of her family lived, to New Jersey. So, it wasn’t a lot of us in New Jersey. So a lot of our “family” was actually not biological family. They were chosen family. So some of the women I grew up calling auntie were actually my grandmother’s best friends. But to me, they were aunties and they were very significant figures in my life. My friends, my forever friends, are actually like my sisters. I have amazing siblings. Shout out to my sissies and my brother. But some of the people that I feel are the closest to are my friends, and I consider them my sisters. So you can have biological family, or you can have chosen family.

That’s important to note because a lot of people struggle in their relationships as a result of the relationships they’ve had with their family. So our relationship history often determines what our future relationships will look and feel like. But everybody needs somebody. I like to say we all need to feel seen, heard, and felt by someone. So everybody needs a relationship.

2. I believe is that the relationship you have with others mirrors the relationship you have with yourself. And you’re not gonna like this because some of you are like, “My relationship with myself is not like the relationship I have with my boyfriend or my husband because I don’t like them all the time and I love myself.” Well, why don’t you like them? Let’s get into it. Why don’t you like them? Is it because they are not always loving to you, kind to you, accountable to you, consistent in your life? Perhaps they are harsh and abusive. Verbally, they don’t speak very well to you. Ask yourself: are you loving, kind, accountable, consistent, or harsh and abusive to yourself? Are you allowing someone else to do to you what you already do to yourself? Because Dr. Thema says, “If you loved yourself, some of the things you are deliberating over would be an easy choice.” You questioning whether or not the relationship is good for you wouldn’t be a question if it was good to you, right? And if you are accepting or tolerating anything other than goodness, it is because somewhere inside of you agrees with the fact that you don’t necessarily deserve consistent goodness in your life.

So it’s not always about how you treat yourself that is mirrored. It’s also about what you believe about yourself that is reflected or mirrored in your relationships. And that’s deep. And I can coach you through that. But I will stand by the belief that your relationships you have with others mirrors the relationship you have with yourself.

3. I believe that some relationships are not meant to last. Some relationships are meant to be temporary. They just are. That is a painful experience. I know what it feels like to be heartbroken over the end of a relationship. The friendship felt like it was going to be best friends to the end. You thought you had met your forever love. Y’all did things together, created memories together. You loved who you were in the relationships with those people. They brought out the best in you, inspired the best of you, and in you. But they may have served their purpose for that season of your life or called forth certain things that you needed in your life. And when the purpose was fulfilled, it was time for it to end. And that is okay.

Just because it didn’t last doesn’t mean it was never meant to be.

4. I believe there will likely be someone of significance in your life that will either inspire you to live your best life or derail you from it. You can trace the moment you decided to step into your brilliance back to a person that did or said something, guaranteed. It could have been your kindergarten teacher. It could have been your high school sweetheart. It could have been your pastor or rabbi or imam. It could have been someone significant in your life, a parent who said, “You’re so smart.” “You know what, you deserve better than this.” “You know what? You are a brilliant communicator, writer, athlete…” And you believed them. It inspired brilliance in you, greatness in you. You took whatever they said that was great in you to the next level.

Or, you can trace back the moment you decided you didn’t deserve the best. You weren’t good enough. You didn’t have it in you… back to someone who said or did something. They may have said things like, “The people in our family don’t do things like that.” And you held tight to that belief and became like the people in your family instead of like yourself. They said, “You want too much. You asked for too much.” And you thought that you were being too much, you were a burden, and that you were extra, so you started to shrink, hide, and be humble. Don’t let people in your life humble the greatness out of you.

Stick close to people who:

Invite you

Excite you

Inspire you

Revive you

Encourage you

Challenge you

Restore you

Heal you

Grow you

And remind you of who you are.

Stick close to people who do those things in your life.

Stick close to people who see the real you—The truest, highest, holiest, most divine version of you. Stick close. And if you’re saying to yourself, I don’t have anyone in my life or people in my life who invite me, excite me, inspire me, revive me, encourage me, challenge me, restore me, heal me, help me grow, or remind me of who I am. I have something that will help.

Ways To Find Your People

One question I get often is, “How do I find my people?” I’ve shared several versions of my answer. This is the kind of guidance I give my one-on-one clients. So pretend like we are in a session. You are either sitting across from me, or we’re on Zoom.

Your people are doing what you want to do.

You have to know this. Your people are doing what you want to do because your people are like you. You share the energy of your people, you share the temperament, often the personality, often the desires of your people. So your people are doing what you want to do.

Your people are doing what you are currently doing.

So, some of your people are doing what you want to do in the future. They are mentors. There are people you aspire to. They are people who you would call an inspiration. Others are actually doing what you don now. So the reason you can’t get your friend to go with you to a spin class or a pottery class or a cooking class is that your current friend isn’t interested in those things. And that’s why you feel like you don’t have your people. That person has been in your life since you were 15, and they stick around because you are familiar. But truly, they are not friends to you—they’re just people you know. Your true people are doing what you do somewhere. They’re in the class, they’re enrolled in the course, they’re on the job, they’re on the boats, they’re on the plane doing the things you also love doing.

Your people are in the spaces you belong in.

Your people share space with you, literally. They’re at the movies, they’re at the school, they’re at the church, they’re at the conference… They’re doing what you want to do or what you are doing in the spaces you want to do them in.

So instead of sitting at home on a Friday night, maybe go to the place you want to be in and find your people. What are your current interests? What are you interested in right now? What are you into? Is it reading, cooking, working out, researching, or hair? Identify your interests, and engage in them publicly and in community with other people. Show up to the events you’re interested in. Share the things you are doing on Instagram instead of memes from everybody else. Share yourself, so that people can see you.

Prompts & Examples:

What are your current goals? What do you aspire to?

This is important because remember: your people are doing what you do or want to do. So they also have a goal to lift a certain amount of weight. They’re in CrossFit. They’re at the gym. They also want to run a marathon. So they’re in a run club training for the next marathon. They’re at the hair salon. They’re at the mall. They’re at the grocery store in the produce department picking over the red and green peppers just like you are. And you need to do those things so that you are around the people who have the same goals as you. They want to eat better, just like you. They want to take care of themselves physically. They want to invest in their appearance.

A luxury hotel. Sitting at the bar, drinking a mocktail or a cocktail. Eating a Caesar salad or a crab cake. Where are they?

Love The People Who Love You

I have met people in the spaces I mentioned. I am still best friends with my college roommate. I still hop on the phone with someone I met on vacation. I am still friends with and in a friend group with someone I met at a conference.

I can’t leave this conversation without addressing this one thing. Note, I didn’t spend a lot of time on intimate partner relationships. Although I believe that, in addition to a friend, a mentor, a coach, a biological or chosen family, a lover is valuable. But I understand that not everyone has that same belief. Some very happy single people are single by choice. But I do want to take the time to talk to those who are like me, and desire a romantic relationship in their life. Please do not withhold happiness from yourself because you don’t have that.

You have the friends, you have the family, the chosen family, you have the mentor, and you feel like you will never have the love of your life. I want to share something with you. Many people struggle because they are chasing after unrequited love. The love they see others have, the love they imagine they’d experienced by now… When there is someone somewhere already loving them unconditionally—or willing to.

There is someone somewhere giving you their time, giving you their energy, giving you inspiration, holding you accountable, sharing the compliments, and you’re not receiving it because it is not coming from someone you sleep with at night. And I want you to know that you are missing out on genuine connection. And it could be that you have not met that person because you are not living the energy that is required to attract them. You look like you are at a deficit. You look like you are lonely. You act like you don’t have anyone in your life. And that is not attractive.

One of the most attractive thing about a person is how they sit in themselves with confidence, love, assurance, purpose, and contentment. When you see someone walking and they look good, they smell good, they are dressed well, and they’re living their lives, even if it’s by themselves, you want to know that person.

What do they do? Where are they going? What do they want to do? I want to get with them.

Everyone that I am friends with invited me into their lives. I met a friend I was sitting next to at church one Sunday. I was by myself. She was by herself. We sat next to each other. And I went to a black church where they’re gonna tell you to turn to your neighbor every 10 minutes in service. And so we turned to each other and said what the pastor said to say, all service. At the end of the service, Tara said, We need to be friends. And we’re still friendly. We’re still friends to this day. Years later, when reminiscing on how we met, she said, “You looked good, you smelled good, I loved your outfit, and I loved your hair.” And that is why she actually wanted to be my friend. She didn’t know that I was going through the biggest heartbreak of my life. She didn’t know I felt a little lonely. She just saw me in my space, in my element, being myself, and living my truth. I was in service praying that day for direction, for wisdom, but it wasn’t something that I exuded from my body. I’m lonely, I’m undecided, I’m heartbroken… And that is why we are friends.

Check your energy. The quality of your relationships determines the quality of your life. The quality of your relationship with yourself determines the quality of your life.

Final Thoughts

I’m gonna leave you with this: There are certain people who are assigned to your life to love you through it all. Through every version of you, through every season of growth and change, through moments of chaos and moments of calm, through the losses and the lessons, and through the success and the glory. You won’t come by a ton of those kinds of people. They show up in the form of family, a lifelong friend, a mentor, or some other kind of connection. To have one person like that is a blessing. To come across more than one may be a miracle.

Stick close to people who stick to you. Love the people who love you. Give your time to people who give their time, energy, care, and attention to you. If you don’t have those people in your life, you can find those people. They are doing what you do currently. They are doing what you want to do in the future. They are in the spaces that you belong in.

Get out of the house, get from behind the desk, turn off the TV, and get into your life. Live your life, beloved—and the people who want to live your life with you will see you, they will feel you, and they will hear you.

Until next time, beloved, I hope this helps.