How Movement is the Spark of Belonging
I’m lonely, standing on the side of a mountain in New Zealand, thumb out like some sort of alpine hitchhiker, (which, at this point, is basically my job description). My snowboard is getting heavier by the second, my feet are going numb, and the wind keeps trying to rearrange my hair into something out of a wildlife documentary.
The whole “edge of the road alone” thing I can deal with. What’s getting to me is that I’m living among a ragtag bunch of travellers who’ve been thrown together like mismatched socks. They all seem to get along, but for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on, I just can’t let my guard down around them. Like someone forgot to teach me the secret handshake.
So here I am, my mind in full catastrophe mode, feeling like the world’s loneliest person and half-convinced I’ll be found years from now, permanently frozen in this awkward pose.
Then this car pulls over.
The driver rolls down her window, Tammy has the kind of easy smile that says she’s got this covered. Jenny’s in the passenger seat, and the car which, of course, is called Nigel gets introduced as the third member of their gang.
Tammy and Jenny have this effortless chemistry that could leave someone feeling like a side note, but their banter just melts me right in. It’s as if “rescue the stray snowboarder” was a planned part of their day between “morning coffee” and “epic adventure.” Nigel doesn’t say much, but he does splutter along like he’s in on the joke.
A few days later, I’m back on the slopes, messing around on a kicker. As I launch over the jump, someone’s voice cut through the cold - “Go for it!”
That’s Winnie.
She glides over with a huge grin and a cheerful “Nice one!” Her eyes lighting up with the obvious relief of finding even one other woman on this mountain full of dudes.
Suddenly, fitting in doesn’t feel so much like graduate-level calculus. With these three girls, everything falls into place. As quickly and violently as I’d felt I didn’t belong, I now feel like I do. The relief of easy laughter and the feeling when your shoulders drop lifts the weight of being on edge. With them I can be gloriously, messily, unapologetically myself.
From early-morning meet-ups chasing fresh powder to late-night hangouts, we grew close. But I realise now that it was the moments in movement - breathless climbs, face plants in fresh powder, carving graceful turns down the slopes - that did more to bond us than conversation ever could. Moving together fused us into a team, a found family.
There are moments, moving beside a friend, when it’s as if you’re both caught in the slipstream of the same current. Maybe you’re striding through city streets or picking your way up a muddy hillside, sharing the same rhythm of effort and breath. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking or silent, in these stretches of movement, friendship shapes itself around you.
I didn’t have words for it at the time, but I’d caught glimpses as a teenager. Whenever music pulled me onto the dance floor, even on the most awkward nights, I felt barriers drop away. Dancing brought freedom in motion, that made connection far more effortless.
It’s only in looking back that I see the deeper alchemy. Movement, shared side by side, tugs us out of our own anxieties and draws us into a collective presence.
Science now explains what I felt intuitively. Moving together releases endorphins and oxytocin, weaving a kind of invisible glue that amplifies empathy, trust, and joy. Our brains, through mirror neurons, echo the experience of those we move with offering a sense of emotional attunement that underpins true friendship. Research even shows that sharing movement can increase bonding by as much as 236%.
Across cultures and eras, synchronized movement - dancing, rituals, working alongside one another - has bound groups closer, helped them withstand hardship, and rooted a sense of being part of something bigger than oneself. It’s movement that transforms strangers into companions, and companions into people you trust with your whole self.
Those days in New Zealand live with me still, long after we scattered across continents. Though Tammy’s in the Alps, Winnie’s in Australia, and Jenny’s in San Diego (thankfully only 2 hours away), when we reconnect it’s as if the old momentum returns and belonging is immediate. Proof that those shared adventures built something unshakeable. We learned together that real friendship isn’t built only on shared interests or words exchanged, but by moving, side by side.
So next time you head out for a run, a walk, or to play sport with a friend, remember you’re doing far more than passing the time. You’re nurturing the kind of connection that lasts long after the activity ends. In motion, we don’t just find our own physical strength we also create belonging, and sometimes, the kind of friendship that feels as grounding and rare as home.
(If you’re curious about the fascinating science behind this, how our brains connect us through movement, I explore much more in my book Mirror Thinking: How Role Models Make Us Human, Bloomsbury.)
