THE COMPANY IS NOT YOUR FAMILY: THE LIE OF BELONGING AND THE BIRTH OF THE AUTHENTIC SELF

There is a type of pain that does not bleed, leaves no visible mark, yet corrodes the most intimate architecture of who we are. It is the pain of disconnection. The pain of being detached, uprooted, torn from the relational fabric that gave us the illusion of belonging. We are not talking about loneliness here — that, in fact, can be chosen, cultivated, even desired. We are speaking of something more primordial and devastating: the experience of being rejected by the tribe. And when that tribe is called a “company,” “organization,” “work collective,” the wound takes on contours that rationality can barely comprehend.

The Invisible Pain of Disconnection
Because we, relational beings par excellence, do not merely work in groups. We are constituted through them. We construct collective mirrors in which our identity recognizes itself, validates itself, anchors itself. And when these mirrors are shattered — whether through a dismissal, a restructuring, a shift in organizational culture that renders us obsolete — it is not just a job that is lost. A piece of our self-narrative is lost. The affective map that located us in the world is lost.
And inevitably, chaos follows.
But it is essential to begin by understanding something rarely said: affiliation is not an emotional luxury. It is an ontological necessity. From the moment we are born, we survive because someone recognizes us, names us, includes us. Affiliation is the act that pulls us out of invisibility and inscribes us into a web of shared meanings. Without it, there is no “I.” There are only fragments, noise, loose potentials. The child who is not seen withers. The adult who is not recognized falls ill. And the professional excluded from the collective to which they have devoted time, energy, presence, enters a kind of anticipatory mourning — because it is not just the future that is lost, but also the past that ceases to make sense.
So, when the company throws you into chaos — whether by how it communicates, the pace at which it implements changes, the coldness with which it manages offboarding processes — it is not merely reorganizing structures. It is tampering with the most delicate matter of human experience: the need for meaningful connections. And this is no small matter. Because the affiliation the organization offers, or withdraws, operates on a psychic level far deeper than we imagine. It touches our ancestry, the collective memory of when being expelled from the tribe meant certain death. And although today we do not die physically for losing an institutional bond, something within us reacts as if the threat were real. Panic is ancient. Fear is structural. Shame is visceral.

The Confusion Between Identity and Affiliation
But there is something even subtler and more dangerous in this process: the confusion between identity and affiliation. Because when we spend years, sometimes decades, within the same organizational structure, we begin to believe that we are what the company says we are. Our titles, functions, internal recognition start to define not just what we do, but who we are. And when this structure rejects us, the sensation is not one of job loss — it is a loss of existence. As if the company were the source of our identity, not merely one of the stages where it manifests.
This is the trap. And it is fed by a system that, consciously or unconsciously, cultivates emotional dependency. The more the organization becomes the epicenter of an individual’s life — their sense of purpose, social network, self-esteem, agenda, reason for being — the more vulnerable they become. Because any exclusive affiliation, any tribe that becomes the sole reference of value, is potentially totalitarian. And when exclusion occurs, the emptiness is proportional to the emotional investment made.

Chaos as Revelation
But chaos, as painful as it may be, carries a liberating truth: it unmasks the fragility of the structures we take as absolute. Chaos is not collapse — it is revelation. It exposes what was hidden under layers of functionality, routine, conformity. It shows that the affiliation that seemed solid was, in fact, conditional. That the belonging that appeared unconditional had fine-print clauses. That the tribe that seemed welcoming operated according to logics of utility, performance, strategic fit. And this, though painful, is valuable information. Because it is from this clarity that one can begin to rebuild — no longer from the illusion of external security, but from the internal capacity for conscious choice.
And here lies the turning point: identity is not discovered. Identity is constructed. It is decision. It is a narrative we rewrite every day, based on the experiences we live, the relationships we cultivate, the values we choose. The company never had the power to define it. Never did. What it had was the power to convince us that it did. And when we lose this illusion, we gain something far greater: existential autonomy.
But this autonomy does not come ready-made. It must be forged in chaos. And forging requires courage to face difficult questions. Questions that most people spend a lifetime avoiding. Who am I when I belong nowhere? Who am I when I have no title, position, or defined role? Who am I when no one recognizes, validates, or applauds me? These questions are terrifying because they confront us with the void. But it is precisely in this void that the possibility of authentic reconstruction resides. Because only when we stop seeking our identity in the eyes of others — including the eyes of institutions — can we begin to build it from within.
And this leads to a fundamental distinction: there are affiliations that expand us, and affiliations that diminish us. There are tribes that invite us to growth, difference, uniqueness. And there are tribes that demand uniformity, submission, erasure. The first form of affiliation is relational, dialogic, alive. The second is instrumental, functional, disposable. And what many discover at the moment of rupture is that they were connected to a collective that never saw them as whole subjects — only as pieces fitting into a larger board.
But here lies a responsibility that cannot be ignored: if affiliation is a necessity, it is also a choice. And every choice implies consciousness. We cannot control the forces that cross us — layoffs, restructurings, organizational crises — but we can control the degree of awareness with which we engage. We can choose tribes that respect our integrity, recognize our humanity, that do not treat us as disposable resources. And, above all, we can choose not to deposit in any external structure the power to define our value.
Because what chaos ultimately reveals is this: affiliation with any institution will always be partial, temporary, conditional. And this is not a tragedy. It is a truth. A truth that frees us from the illusion of eternal security and invites us to take authorship of our own existence. Not as isolated, self-centered, narcissistic individuals — but as relational beings who consciously choose their tribes, their bonds, their forms of belonging. Beings who know they can belong without losing themselves. Who can affiliate without annihilating themselves. Who can connect without merging.
And this requires emotional maturity, relational sophistication, existential lucidity. It requires understanding that our existence was never individual, but our identity must be sovereign. That we live in networks of interdependence, but our value cannot depend on external validation. That we need bonds to constitute ourselves, but those bonds cannot imprison us. It is a delicate, complex, paradoxical dance. But it is the only dance possible for those who wish to live with integrity.

Authorship Born from Chaos
And when chaos arrives — and it always does — the question we must ask is not “why was I rejected?” That question keeps us in the place of the victim, of passivity, of powerlessness. The liberating question is: “to which tribes, values, and collective purposes do I choose to affiliate from now on, consciously, actively, and sovereignly?” Because it is this question that returns power to our hands. That removes us from the position of being chosen and places us in the position of choosing. That transforms the chaos of threat into opportunity. That transforms an ending rupture into a beginning.
But this transformation does not happen on its own. It requires inner work. It requires that we look at the wounds opened by disconnection and understand what they reveal about our unmet needs, about the expectations we placed on external structures, about the illusions we cultivated regarding what security, belonging, and recognition are. It requires that we revisit our history of affiliations — from childhood to the present — and understand the patterns that repeat. It requires that we ask ourselves: which tribes did I choose out of fear? Which did I choose out of convenience? Which did I choose out of authenticity? And, above all: which tribes am I still choosing today?
Because the uncomfortable truth is that many of us remain in toxic, diminishing, violent affiliations out of fear of the void that would emerge if we disconnected. We prefer the known pain of inadequacy over the liberating uncertainty of autonomy. We prefer to be accepted in tribes that diminish us rather than risk the temporary solitude that comes before finding tribes that expand us. And this makes us sick. It fragments us. It keeps us trapped in a reduced version of who we could be.
So, when the company puts us in chaos, it is paradoxically giving us a gift. A brutal, painful, unexpected gift — but a gift nonetheless. Because it is forcing us to look at what we had been avoiding. It is pulling us out of the existential comfort zone and placing us in front of the urgency of reconstruction. It is showing us that the security we sought outside never existed. And that the only possible security is the one we build within.
But building this inner security requires accepting something that contemporary culture rejects with all its might: impermanence. We live in a society that sells stability, predictability, control. That promises that if we do everything right, we will be safe. That if we dedicate ourselves, we will be recognized. That if we are loyal, we will be rewarded. And when these promises prove false — as they always do — despair is proportional to the illusion we nurtured.

Belonging Without Losing Oneself
But impermanence is not the enemy. It is the nature of things. Everything flows, everything changes, everything reconfigures. Organizations change. Cultures change. Strategies change. And we also change. The attempt to fix identity, to find a definitive tribe, to secure a permanent place, is a struggle against the very essence of existence. And any struggle against the essence of existence generates suffering.
This does not mean we should become indifferent, detached, cold. It means we must learn to connect consciously, knowing that every bond is temporary, but no less meaningful. It means we must love our tribes, contribute to them, give ourselves to them, but without confusing them with our source of identity. It means we must belong without losing ourselves. And that is an art. An art that requires practice, reflection, courage.
And perhaps the greatest courage is this: to use chaos as raw material for reconstruction. Not in the sense of “quickly overcoming,” “turning the page,” “moving on” — those ready-made phrases that deny the complexity of relational grief. But in the sense of inhabiting chaos with presence, allowing it to pass through us, extracting not easy answers but deep questions. Questions that reconnect us to our essence, to our values, to our most legitimate desires. Questions that help us discern between the affiliations that were imposed on us and the affiliations we truly want to cultivate.
Because, at its core, what chaos invites us to do is dance. Dance with uncertainty. Dance with impermanence. Dance with the possibility of continuously reinventing ourselves. And this dance is only possible when we accept that the star born from chaos is not the same one that would have died had we remained in the old order. It is a new star. A star that exists only because the previous structure collapsed. A star that shines only because there was enough darkness for its light to become visible.
So yes, you are in chaos. And you can cling desperately to the old identity, trying to reconstruct what no longer exists, seeking in other tribes the same affiliation you lost, repeating the same patterns of emotional dependence. Or you can use this chaos as raw material. You can look inward and ask: who do I choose to be, now that no one is telling me who I should be? Which bonds do I want to cultivate, now that I understand that every bond is a choice? Which tribes do I want to join, now that I know authentic belonging only happens when there is integrity?
And this choice, this decision renewed daily, is what makes us truly free. Not free from bonds — because bonds are the very substance of existence. But free within bonds. Free to choose. Free to leave. Free to reconfigure. Free to dance.
Because, in the end, what defines a full life is not the stability of the tribes to which we belong, but the consciousness with which we affiliate with them. It is not the durability of bonds, but their quality. It is not external recognition, but internal sovereignty. And when we learn this — when we truly integrate this — chaos ceases to be a threat and becomes an invitation. An invitation to be reborn. An invitation to recreate. An invitation to give birth, within ourselves, to the star that could only exist because there was enough courage to traverse the darkness.
And this star? It dances. It dances with chaos. It dances with impermanence. It dances with the freedom to be, even when there are no external structures left to tell us who we should be. It dances because it understands that identity is not destiny. It is movement. It is continuous creation. It is conscious, active, sovereign affiliation.
And you? Are you ready to dance?

If this text resonated with you, I invite you to explore hundreds of other reflections on human cognitive-behavioral development, organizational development, and conscious human relationships on my blog. There, you will find insights that challenge conventional thinking and expand understanding of what it means to live, work, and relate in an integral and evolving way.

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