Do we ever fully belong?
REFLECTING ON OUR SENSE OF BELONGING ON A MORNING WALK IN CANNAREGIO, VENICE, ITALY
Recently, I met up with friends from my university days. We once shared a strong sense of belonging, built on similar lifestyles, phase of life, and living within literal visibility of each other.
As our lives have diverged - with me moving to several countries while others settled down - I've consistently been challenged to redefine what belonging means to me.
Seeking belonging is akin to searching for a comfort zone that we will have to exchange for discomfort whenever we expand and grow.
The innate human desire to be witnessed propels us to seek connections beyond ourselves. We attempt to quench this urge through partners, children, friends, family, religion, nationality, occupation, or any other chosen affiliation.
Growing up with a family spread across the globe highlighted early in my life that even family ties don't guarantee a solid sense of belonging. It’s turning out:
Belonging isn't a solid state to arrive at, but a fluid concept, constantly evolving as we do, as ultimately, we only ever fully belong to ourselves.
James Baldwin, the African American novelist and social critic, captured this sentiment with his phrase:
"Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition."
The Cost of Conforming
The American writer and activist Rita Mae Brown unflinchingly captured that seeking belonging can come at a high cost, stating that the reward for conformity can easily be that everyone else likes you except yourself. This poignant insight highlights the personal cost of abandoning our authenticity in favor of societal approval.
The fluidity of belonging became starkly apparent when I left a corporation after a decade. Most people I had seen daily fell out of my life instantly, as if our sense of belonging was tied to my official role.
While initially painful, this experience gradually paved the way for a more complex understanding of belonging that remains an ongoing journey of open-ended inquiry in my life explorations.
And while ejection can feel fiercely painful, people letting you go are also letting you evolve to be more than you were in the known constellation.
How Relationships reflect Belonging
We use our relationships and various roles to explore our sense of who we are. It's like shining a spotlight on the multi-layered aspects of our complex nature.
Each experience we process highlights a different angle of ourself and how we belong. In a way, what we relate to can be seen as our chosen curriculum in the school of life.
We get to work with our daily experiences to understand ourselves better by how we interact with whatever situation confronts us.
Our relationships mirror our own complexity. For instance, we might feel a connection through a shared interest in art with one friend, while sharing book recommendations or a love for hiking with another.
Even in long-term relationships, the aspects that make us feel we belong can change significantly over time, as we are all constantly transforming.
Identifying with a set idea of belonging can severely limit us and restrict others when we try to keep them in a defined box.
It's healthy for our collective sanity to periodically disidentify from each role we fill, returning to our essence. In a comparable way, mountain climbers return to base camp to recover and recharge before venturing out to the next level of exploration, going higher than where they were the last time, expanding their exploration.
Parameters that Impact our Sense of Belonging
It seems that shared language and culture have a critical impact on our sense of togetherness. Friends have repeatedly commented that I appear to be a different person depending on the language I'm speaking or the country I'm in.
Traveling and living abroad I´ve been touched by how quick we are to help each other when taking steps in unfamiliar surroundings. Giving each other a sense of belonging in a foreign environment, as we watch out for each other as a community of shared humanity.
When I moved to Madrid, I was amazed by the hospitable culture. Neighbors, friends, and strangers made me feel welcome with ease before I even spoke their language.
These sentiments resonate with the words of the Dalai Lama, as he claimed that “wherever we have friends is our country, and wherever we receive love is our home.“
Balancing our Desire for Belonging
A critical aspect of our desire for belonging as social creatures seems to be the quest for security, as we rely on each other for survival. We become part of a community by contributing to society. By integrating ourselves to a certain degree, we show appreciation and create connection.
We seem to oscillate between our desire to contribute as social beings, our need for social acceptance, and our yearning to truly be ourselves. Finding our balance is crucial in our quest for both being part of something bigger and aligning with our individual truth.
How we Contribute Best
Our best contributions are strongly linked to living a life aligned with our natural strengths and talents.
When I find myself pondering my purpose, especially as I haven’t followed many of the socially prescribed paths I thought I should have “by now”, the words of the Irish poet, and former priest John O'Donohue feel inspiring. He encourages us to not doubt that “to be born, is to be chosen” .
In his work he frequently reminds us, that we are sent here because there is something special for each of us to do that could not be done by someone else. Highlighting that we are not exchangeable.
This perspective offers wisdom for living a full life - exploring what we were sent here for, and to claim completely the life that is offered to us.
Everything we explore during our time here is borrowed - we are guests on this planet, meant to guard it with care as we explore, while we learn, express ourselves and live.
We don’t ever truly own anything, as much as we try to buy into a feeling of security.
Feeling a sense of safety and belonging is something we individually have to define on our journey of constant change - it is meant to change along with us being in constant transformation.
Where to Find a feeling of Connection
Creativity is strongly fueled by our quest to find a sense of belonging through self-expression and following the call of our soul. As one form of expressing ourselves collapses to make way for a new one, we have ongoing opportunities for growth and transition.
It's often through creative expression that I've found my "Goldilocks zone" - that sweet spot where everything feels just right.
Just as the Goldilocks zone in astronomy refers to the habitable area around a star where conditions are perfect for life. In personal terms, it's where we feel most alive and connected, akin to “being in flow”, as the famous phrase goes.
Belonging through Co-Creation
When singing in a choir or playing marimba in a percussion ensemble, I've experienced a profound merging into something bigger than my individual contribution. It was a connection that transcends words, akin to a collective harmony.
This sense of affiliation through creativity extends beyond artistic pursuits. In my professional life, every team I've been part of has created a deep sense of belonging within the daily challenges we shared as a group, along with the design language we developed.
When combining the unique talents of individuals within a team, we don’t just create products or solutions - we forge a shared identity, a collective expression of our combined creativity.
These experiences have shown me that belonging isn't just about finding our place in the world; it's about actively co-creating that place with others by contributing our most natural strengths.
It's in these collaborative, creative spaces that I've often felt most like myself while also feeling inspiringly connected to others.
These observations reveal a deeper insight:
Belonging is fluid, as we never belong in a fixed way. It’s rather about putting together the puzzle of our complex selves, one exploration at a time.
The constellations in our life are constantly changing, just as each aspect of ourselves and everyone else is in permanent transition. In this way,
Our desire to belong largely guides our choices in what we live.
So, as you ponder your own journey: How do your roles and relationships shape your sense of belonging?
It is in the exploration of how we relate to what we experience that we often find our authenticity as most permanent form of belonging, to accompany us throughout our whole life.
Have you asked yourself:
How do you balance your various roles while staying true to your authentic self?
What is challenging about this?
How do your cultural and personal identities influence your sense of belonging?
How does self-expression play a role in your quest for belonging?
What does the concept of "home" mean to you?