Belonging… What is it?
One of the feelings that come up to the surface lately in my life is a "Sense of Belonging." I am suffering from the absence of love and Belonging.
I want to be a part of something; I want to have a safety net, a place where I call home — Home is where the heart is, and it involves People. I don't have that. I am frustrated, and I still am. I still feel down from time to time realizing that I don't have this sense. I am craving for it; I have never been wanting something in my life as much as I want to feel a "Sense of Belonging."
Today, where I wrote this Medium, I can't sleep. It's 2 AM, and I just let myself busy watching some talks, journaling, and now writing Medium. As I stumbled across YouTube of Brene Brown's Interviews, I found one video about her talking about Belonging.
Woah, I said to myself, it is true the Universe is Helping Us. This time I am craving a sense of Belonging. The universe made me find Brene Brown's Interview Videos talking about Belonging.
I like to educate myself about what I’m currently feeling; I want to understand why I feel that way and what exactly I’m feeling? What emotions I am experiencing, and what is the definition? And how to handle that?
Researching all these helps; it made me think clearer and feel like I know myself more. Somehow, that clears my foggy mind and gives me a splash of hope, and I can smile again. Weird, isn’t it? Yes, it is.
I thought, that Belonging is like we have a crew, like a posse, a squad, and Belonging is something we kind of negotiate with external groups of people, but it's not.
What I found from Brene's talk is that:
True belonging is a spiritual practice and it’s about the ability to find sacredness and be a part of something, but also the courage to stand alone.
And the people, for those of us who struggle to have the courage to stand alone, especially when we know that at-risk, we’re risking that sense to be part of something because we disagree. After all, we have a different opinion because we love something different — That is the mark of True Belonging.
To say, “Yes, I am a part of something bigger but will stand alone when I need to.” You belong everywhere and nowhere, and that is Liberation!
Listening to this talk somehow flashed me back to her talk about “Braving the Wilderness” it is a practice that came from the book, and it is:
“Don’t walk through the world looking for evidence that you don’t belong because you will always find it. Don’t walk through the world looking for evidence that you’re not enough because you’ll always find it.”
Our worth and our Belonging aren't negotiated with other people. We carry those insights inside of our hearts.
And so… For me, I know who I am. I’m clear about that. And I’m not going to negotiate that with people. I might negotiate a contract or a topic with people, but I’m not gonna negotiate who I am with people. Because then, I may fit in with them, but I no longer belong to myself, which is a betrayal I am not willing to do anymore. I just can’t do it.
We have to belong to ourselves as much as we need to belong to others. Any belonging that asks us to betray ourselves is not true Belonging.
I hope to learn more about belonging because I know that finding a sense of belonging in close social relationships and with our community is essential to well-being. What makes belonging necessary for us is that we are a social species and can’t survive without one another.
So for myself, and everyone who’s experiencing the same challenge as me now, hang in there… You’re not alone. And please, please, please, keep going.
Take care until then,
XX
