True Belonging Starts Within Us

"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

​In last month’s blog post about stories and community I touched on belonging and this month there’s more to say! I tend to lead with my heart if you hadn’t noticed, and belonging is near and dear to me. In fact, of the three basic human needs, safety, belonging, and dignity – my go-to and non-negotiable is belonging. For much of my life I’ve mixed up belonging and fitting in, this meant that belonging was about what others thought of me and how I could “fix” myself to be more liked, more accepted, sometimes just more. I have spent a lot of time proving my enoughness to fit in. Oof, that’s a lot of work and it’s exhausting work because there is a drum beat of “not enough” pounding in the background the whole time I do it. And all this work, as hard and draining as it is, hasn’t and won’t lead to true belonging because it can’t.

​True belonging is not about finding a certain place, group, or situation; instead it's about finding ourselves. True belonging starts within us. It starts with acceptance of who we’ve been, who we are, and who we are becoming. For me this idea of acceptance has been a bit of a bugaboo. I’m very practiced at conditional acceptance, when I do this, look like this, feel like this then …​

​​All acceptance lives on the other side of this big wall called “when” or sometimes “if.” That wall keeps getting taller and longer and more difficult to climb the more I do, the more I think, the more I feel. And what I know, is that all of my finagling to make myself more is building the wall. It’s funny though, I know this and yet I continue to build. It’s what I’ve practiced, it’s my uncomfortable comfort zone of striving and driving to fit in.
 
This uncomfortable comfort zone is the place where my thoughts go into overdrive. Where I wake up in the middle of the night with my to-do list running through my head and a vague (and sometimes not so vague) sense of panic about not getting it all done. This is the place where I flirt with overwhelm and sometimes overwhelm wins me over. And when I come back to acceptance, what I’m up to right now is enough, writing this blog post is enough, taking my dog for a walk is enough, listening to a loved one is enough, being present in this moment is enough. The acceptance of it is a balm to the stinging wounds of “not enough.” This acceptance emerges when I’m here in this moment, acknowledging, allowing, accepting, and appreciating, the four A's from Jim Dethmer’s work that I offered in my first ever blog post back in January 2020. These four A’s are the path to connecting with who I am and when I do that I begin the process of belonging to me.

​As Amanda Blake says in Your Body Is Your Brain “Connection is an essential nutrient for our brains, and thus a powerful healing force for our lives. And presence is a necessary component of genuine connection. When you connect more deeply with yourself you grow your capacity to connect more deeply with others.” This type of connection is belonging, it’s belonging to ourselves and each other. This is not even in the same universe as fitting in. This month I’m highlighting Brené Brown’s book, Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone. She defines true belonging as “the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find the sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness.” Yes, that’s it! That’s what is possible when we turn toward and nurture who we are. It’s not necessarily comfortable, and it’s deep and clear and connected. When we step into this space of connection to ourselves and others, that’s where our light shines and inspires. Looking to shine brighter? Let’s connect.