It’s a practice that requires us to be vulnerable, get uncomfortable and learn how to be present with people - without sacrificing who we are. It’s not fitting in or pretending or selling out because it’s safer. It’s not the belonging that comes with just joining a group. We’re going to have to learn how to listen, have hard conversations, look for joy, share pain and be more curious than defensive, all while seeking moments of togetherness. We’re going to have to sign up, join and take a seat at the table. We’re going to need to intentionally be with people who are different from us. It’s about breaking down the walls, abandoning our ideological bunkers and living from our wild heart rather than our weary hurt. The special courage it takes to experience true belonging is not just about braving the wilderness, it’s about becoming the wilderness.
No matter how separated we are by what we think and believe, we are part of the same spiritual story. We seem to have forgotten that even when we’re utterly alone, we’re connected to one another by something greater than group membership, politics and ideology - we’re connected by love and the human spirit. And with the world feeling like a political and ideological combat zone, this is remarkably tough.
No matter how separated we are by what we think and believe, we are part of the same spiritual story.īelonging to ourselves means being called to stand alone - to brave the wilderness of uncertainty, vulnerability and criticism. Once we belong thoroughly to ourselves and believe thoroughly in ourselves, true belonging is ours. It’s not something we achieve or accomplish with others it’s something we carry in our heart. Being ourselves means sometimes having to find the courage to stand alone, totally alone. This definition has withstood the test of time as well as the emergence of new data, but it is incomplete. Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.” Because this yearning is so primal, we often try to acquire it by fitting in and by seeking approval, which are not only hollow substitutes for belonging, but often barriers to it. “Belonging is the innate human desire to be part of something larger than us. In 2010, in my book The Gifts of Imperfection, I defined belonging this way: We need true belonging, but what exactly is it? We want to be a part of something, but we need it to be real - not conditional or fake or constantly up for negotiation. It feels like something that we all crave and need in our lives. I don’t know exactly what it is about the combination of those two words, but I do know that when I say it aloud, it just feels right.
But we’ll need to risk discomfort and criticism and show the world our real selves first, says vulnerability researcher Brené Brown. So many of us long to be part of something real.
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