What Macklemore, Ed Sheeran and the psychology of belonging can teach us about staying true to ourselves

The story involving Macklemore and Ed Sheeran has generated a lot of discussion about Palestine, political expression, neutrality and the responsibilities that come with having a public platform. But beyond the political debate, there is another question worth exploring, one that is deeply psychological.

Macklemore chose to speak publicly about Palestine while performing at an Ed Sheeran concert. He later said that he had been removed from the remaining US dates of the tour. Sheeran, for his part, said that the decision had been made by the venues and spoke publicly about his own position, including his choice not to make public statements on the issue, choosing neutrality.

First of all, let’s clarify a few things.

He said:” I am appalled by the conflict between Israel and Palestine”. Except it’s not a conflict, it’s a genocide. As stated by the UN

He said: “Just because I choose not to speak publicly, it doesn’t mean I don’t have them, and it doesn’t mean that I don’t care.” Except not speaking is a choice, and it means taking the side of the oppressor. We need to speak up when the people who are being oppressed can’t do it loud enough. 

For many of us, this story feels bigger than music?
Because it talks about values, integrity, honesty, authenticity. And maybe underneath it there’s something deeply human: fear, shame, and the need to belong.

What happens when the need to belong comes into conflict with our values?

Because this isn’t only something that happens to celebrities, it happens to all of us. It happens when we disagree with our friends but don’t say anything. When we remain silent at work because speaking up might have consequences. When we hide an opinion because we are afraid of being judged. When we stay in a relationship because leaving would mean losing our sense of belonging of feeling alone. When we adapt ourselves so much to a group that, eventually, we aren’t quite sure where the group ends and we begin.

The need to belong

Human beings are social creatures, and we develop our sense of self through relationships and communities. From childhood onwards, belonging tells us something important: I am accepted here. I have a place here. I am not alone. And therefore I’m safe.

The need for belonging isn’t a weakness. It is a fundamental human need. Being excluded can feel threatening, rejection can hurt (just like physical pain), and social isolation can have a profound impact on our psychological wellbeing. So it makes sense that we sometimes prioritise belonging over other things, especially when the potential cost of disagreement feels high.

Our minds can start producing a very familiar set of messages:

Don’t say that.

It’s safer not to.

They won’t understand.

You’ll make things uncomfortable.

You might lose something.

Maybe just keep quiet.

None of these thoughts necessarily mean that we are weak or lacking courage. Sometimes they are attempts to protect ourselves.

The problem begins when protection becomes a way of life.

When belonging becomes conditional

There is an important difference between belonging and fitting in. Belonging means being able to participate in a relationship or community while remaining yourself, while fitting in can mean changing yourself in order to be accepted, and this distinction isn’t always obvious.

We all adapt to other people. Healthy relationships require compromise, negotiation and consideration, and we don’t need to express every thought we have or insist on having our own way all the time. But there is a point at which adaptation becomes self-silencing.

You stop asking:

“What do I actually think?”

and start asking:

“What am I allowed to think here?”

You stop asking:

“What matters to me?”

and start asking:

“What will keep everyone happy?”

And gradually, belonging can become conditional on abandoning parts of yourself.

The psychological tension

This is where things become complicated, because two things can be true at the same time:

I want to belong.

And:

I don’t want to betray myself in order to belong.

Neither need is necessarily wrong, because the desire for connection is human and so is the desire to live according to our values. The psychological difficulty comes when these two needs pull us in opposite directions. Imagine knowing that speaking honestly could cost you an important relationship, or that expressing your political position could affect your career, or that challenging the people around you could make you the outsider. Suddenly, “being authentic” isn’t an abstract concept anymore. There is something at stake, and that’s precisely why integrity can be difficult.

Why values matter

Values are not simply opinions about what is right or wrong. They help us answer deeper questions:

What matters to me?

What do I stand for?

What kind of person do I want to be?

They give direction to our choices. And when our behaviour is consistently disconnected from our values, something can begin to feel wrong, even if, externally, everything seems fine. We might have the successful career. The relationship. The social circle. The approval. The opportunities. And yet something inside us may feel increasingly disconnected, maybe because belonging without authenticity can become a strange form of loneliness.

You are surrounded by people. But you are not necessarily being known.

The cost of staying in the comfort zone

This is one reason why remaining in our comfort zone isn’t always psychologically comfortable. Sometimes the comfort zone protects us from immediate discomfort while creating a longer-term cost. We avoid the difficult conversation, we don’t express what we believe, we don’t leave the relationship. we don’t challenge the environment we’re in. we don’t take the risk. And for a while, everything feels safer. But if we repeatedly silence ourselves to preserve our belonging, we can gradually lose contact with our own preferences, needs and values.

The question then becomes less:

“How do I avoid losing what I have?”

and more:

“What am I losing by staying?”

This is where the idea of integrity becomes important. Integrity is not about being morally perfect, and it is not about never compromising. Also, it certainly doesn’t mean that every value we hold should automatically dictate every action. Rather, integrity can be understood as the ongoing attempt to bring our values, words and actions into alignment. Not perfectly, but intentionally. And sometimes, that alignment comes with a cost.

When Belonging Comes at the Cost of Integrity

The cost of staying true to yourself

This tension (the need to belong and the need to remain connected to our values) becomes particularly difficult when being ourselves carries a real risk. It is easy to talk about authenticity when there is nothing to lose. It becomes much harder when speaking honestly might affect a relationship, a friendship, a job, our social position or our sense of security.

This is where fear enters the picture.

Fear of rejection is not simply a fear of someone disagreeing with us. At a deeper level, rejection can activate the fear that we will lose our place within a relationship or community. We may begin to experience disagreement as a threat to connection: If I say what I really think, will they still want me here? Will they see me differently? Will I still belong? And this is extremely vulnerable.

For some people, this fear can become so familiar that they start anticipating rejection before it has even happened. They monitor themselves, adapt their opinions, soften their language, hide parts of their identity or avoid certain conversations altogether. They become very good at reading the room, but less able to hear themselves.

There is nothing inherently wrong with adapting to other people. In fact, psychological flexibility requires us to take other people’s perspectives into account. We cannot move through relationships expecting everyone to agree with us or behave exactly as we would. Compromise is part of being human. The difficulty begins when compromise becomes one-sided: when maintaining the relationship consistently requires us to abandon something important about ourselves.

And this is where shame can become particularly powerful.

Shame tells us that there is something wrong not simply with what we have done, but with who we are. If we believe that being different, difficult, political, emotional, ambitious, vulnerable or outspoken makes us unacceptable, then hiding those parts of ourselves can become a strategy for maintaining belonging. We don’t necessarily think, I am abandoning myself. We might simply think, I’m trying not to cause problems.

Over time, however, constantly editing ourselves can have consequences. When there is a large gap between the person we present to the world and the person we experience ourselves to be, we can begin to feel disconnected from our own lives. We may struggle to know what we actually want because we have become so accustomed to considering what everyone else wants first.

This is particularly relevant when we talk about values. Values are not just abstract principles that we put on a list somewhere. They influence the way we want to live and the choices we make. If I value honesty but repeatedly lie to avoid conflict, there may be a tension between my behaviour and the person I want to be. If I value compassion but remain silent when someone is being harmed because speaking up would make me uncomfortable, there may be another kind of tension. The discomfort doesn’t necessarily mean that I have done something wrong, but it can be a signal worth paying attention to.

This is one reason why integrity can be uncomfortable. Acting according to our values doesn’t always make us feel better in the short term. Sometimes it does the opposite. We might feel anxious, guilty, exposed or afraid. We might disappoint someone. We might lose approval. We might even lose something concrete: an opportunity, a friendship, a position or a source of income.

So why do it?

Because there is also a cost to repeatedly acting against ourselves.

We often talk about the consequences of taking risks, but less often about the consequences of never taking them. There is a psychological cost to living a life organised almost entirely around avoiding rejection, conflict or uncertainty. Safety can gradually become more important than meaning. Approval can become more important than authenticity. And eventually, the question isn’t simply whether other people accept us. It is whether we can still accept ourselves within the life we have created.

This doesn’t mean that every uncomfortable feeling is a sign that we should speak up or walk away. Sometimes staying silent is the right choice, and sometimes compromising is necessary, or sometimes protecting ourselves is more important than expressing everything we believe. Context matters, power matters and consequences matter. Integrity isn’t about turning every situation into a moral test. What matters is becoming conscious of the choice.

Am I staying quiet because I have thoughtfully decided that this is the best thing to do, or because I’m terrified of what might happen if I speak?

Am I compromising because this relationship matters to me and I want to find a way through a disagreement, or because I have learned that my needs don’t matter?

Am I adapting because I genuinely want to, or because I believe I won’t be loved if I don’t?

Those questions can take us somewhere much more interesting than simply asking whether we are being “authentic” enough.

Authenticity is living true to ourselves, not necessarily without filters.

Because authenticity isn’t about saying everything we think. It isn’t about refusing to compromise. And it isn’t about putting our own needs above everyone else’s. It is about developing enough awareness to recognise what is happening inside us and enough freedom to make choices that are consistent with who we want to be.

And sometimes, that means accepting that belonging has a price.

The question is whether that price is something we consciously choose to pay, or whether we have been paying it for so long that we’ve forgotten there was ever a choice.

That is where counselling can become useful. Not because a counsellor can tell us which values we should have or what decision we should make, but because therapy can create a space where we can slow down enough to hear the different parts of the dilemma: the part that wants connection, the part that wants safety, the part that is afraid of rejection and the part that knows something no longer feels right.

The aim isn’t to eliminate the conflict between belonging and integrity. That conflict is part of being human. The aim is to become more capable of holding it, understanding it and making choices with greater awareness.

Because perhaps the goal isn’t to find a life where we never have to compromise.

Perhaps it is to build a life where we don’t have to disappear in order to belong.

So What about Ed Sheeran?

Whatever our opinion of their individual choices, this is where the psychological question becomes interesting.

They are artists, but they are also part of an industry, and they are humans. They have relationships, contracts, audiences, collaborators, professional interests, reputations and financial stakes. Their decisions don’t happen in a vacuum.

And that is precisely what makes integrity difficult. It is relatively easy to say “stand up for what you believe in” when you have nothing to lose. It becomes much harder when speaking carries consequences.

Macklemore’s decision to speak publicly illustrates one side of this tension. He was willing to put himself in a situation where his words could have professional consequences, but he chose to speak up for the people who aren’t heard, from a position of privilege and an audience that could listen and potentially start a change.

Sheeran’s position illustrates another side: the decision not to make a public political statement and his emphasis on neutrality. We can definitely argue that while Macklemore used his privilege to try and make a change, Ed Sheeran chose to hide his values and his views to maintain his privilege, his enormous amount of money, and his network of powerful connections.

And this is where I think the story becomes relevant beyond these two artists.

Because we can ask ourselves: what do we do when our values come into conflict with our interests?

We want to belong. We also want to be able to respect ourselves.

We want connection. We also want autonomy.

We want safety. We also want to live according to our values.

Sometimes these things coexist quite easily. Sometimes they don’t.

And when they don’t, we have a choice to make. Not necessarily a dramatic, public choice like the one these artists faced. More often, it’s a series of tiny decisions that nobody else sees.

Do I say what I actually think?

Do I challenge this?

Do I stay silent?

Do I go along with the group?

Do I protect my position?

Do I risk being disliked?

Do I prioritise my values or my immediate interests?

Speaking up and out is risky, and it’s scary, because we’re human. But bing human doesn’t mean we shouldn’t examine our choices.

If we always choose comfort, what happens to our courage? If we always choose belonging, what happens to our individuality? If we always choose self-protection, what happens to our values? And if we repeatedly tell ourselves that we are “neutral” when what we are actually doing is protecting our own position, what happens to our integrity?

Perhaps this is the most uncomfortable lesson in the whole story. We don’t only need to ask ourselves what we believe.We need to ask ourselves what we are willing to risk because we believe it. Because values that never require anything from us are easy to hold.

Integrity begins when those values become inconvenient. And perhaps that is why Macklemore’s decision resonates with so many people. Not because speaking publicly automatically makes someone morally superior, but because it demonstrates something psychologically difficult: the willingness to tolerate the possibility of rejection, professional consequences and loss of belonging in order to remain aligned with what you believe.

And perhaps Ed Sheeran’s position is uncomfortable for the opposite reason. It reminds us that sometimes the things we call neutrality, pragmatism or self-protection can also be ways of avoiding the cost of our own values.

Again, the question isn’t whether we are perfect. It is whether we are honest enough to recognise the bargain we are making.

What are you protecting when you stay silent?

What are you afraid of losing?

And if belonging requires you to abandon something you deeply believe in, is that really belonging — or is it simply the price of admission?

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Sources:

Eisenberger, N. I., Lieberman, M. D., & Williams, K. D. (2003). Does rejection hurt? An fMRI study of social exclusion. Science, 302(5643), 290–292.

Kross, E., Berman, M. G., Mischel, W., Smith, E. E., & Wager, T. D. (2011). Social rejection shares somatosensory representations with physical pain. PNAS, 108(15), 6270–6275.

Holt-Lunstad, J. (2024). Social connection as a critical factor for mental and physical health: evidence, trends, challenges, and future implications. World Psychiatry, 23(3), 312–332.