the Meaning of Belonging

When we talk about belonging, we usually understand it as belonging to a group, a team, or a community. This is true, because we are born with a deep need for belonging, with the need for human connection, which is a survival need. The thing is that throughout our lives we internalize the social roles that the society and the family we were born into expect from us and place upon us. Since we will do anything in order to belong, to avoid being cast out of the tribe or the community, at a fairly early stage in life we learn to feel ashamed of who we are or of parts of ourselves. We begin to distance ourselves from who we are, hiding aspects of our true nature. A conflict begins to form between who we truly are and who we present outwardly. We lose the ability to create authentic connection, not only with others but also with ourselves. Authentic human connection requires us to reveal our true self, the self we sometimes feel ashamed of. And so we end up wandering through life with the sense that something in us is missing, feeling a lack that we usually try to fill with something or someone outside of us.

Brené Brown described in her research on shame that the opposite of belonging is fitting in. When I ask myself questions like: Who do I need to be? How should I behave? What should I do in order to be accepted? How do I meet the expectations? I distance myself from myself, and from any possibility of true belonging. True belonging does not ask me to mold myself, does not ask me to distance myself from who I am, or to define myself in relation to someone or something based on what I am not. It may feel like a self-definition, but it is also a trap. If I act within the existing power structure out of a desire to belong, what is it that guides my actions? From which truth am I acting? To whom and to what am I committed? If I feel a sense of fitting in because I behaved as expected, it means I have betrayed myself. Belonging is the grace of simply being. The only possibility, then, is to define my own way of being in the world, independent of anyone or anything. It is not a simple task at all, but if I do not define my way, I will not belong to myself. I will lose my way in a world full of forces that will act on me and push me to behave in ways that distance me from my true self. I will act from fear rather than from love.

After I grew tired of trying to belong and trying to change what is unjust in the world, I began asking myself: How can I come closer to myself? How can I act from my deepest inner truth? How can I be more and more myself? This requires examining how it is right for me to act in every situation. It requires me to face my deepest fears, and to let go of many things I once believed I needed.

The years in which I worked in education taught me to trust the compass I can always return to: the compass of choosing love. It is the commitment to choose faith and patience, the only path to growth and development. It is the willingness to work with whatever is happening inside me, out of deep commitment to the young people in my care and to their unspoken needs. It is the commitment not to look for answers outside, not to blame others or myself for what happens to me. It is a willingness to walk the path, to face the shadows, to meet my own survival mechanisms. I am not to blame for them, and therefore I can be kind and gentle with myself when I encounter these parts within me. This is a journey that keeps expanding, and each time it asks for more trust, more patience, and more inner connection. A journey in which the only commitment is to my inner truth, to belong to what I perceive as good in the world, to love.

“ You only are free when you realize you belong no place - you belong every place - no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great… ”

Maya Angelou

Picture taken from Pinterest