Human Connection and the Desire to Belong

Human Connection and the Need to Belong 

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Following up on my post about friendship from last week, I’ve been thinking a lot about human connection and how we all have a desire to belong. We all want to be heard, seen, and acknowledged. We want to be appreciated for who we are, what we have accomplished and for others to be proud of us. But for many of us we sacrifice ourselves in the process of pleasing others. We dim our light and our truth so we can fit in and all that does it creates a void. That void we think can only be filled by finding another space to fit into. So we change and adjust ourselves to fit into that space so that we can belong, never truly being ourselves. 

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The reality is that when we are truly ourselves. When we truly show up as our most authentic selves we don’t need to meet specific external expectations from others. When we shed the burdens and expectations put on us by others we truly start to belong. Because for us to truly belong we have to understand ourselves fully. We all want to feel important and be desired but if we chase those feelings without trusting our own intuition and inner conviction we are just abandoning ourselves and we will never find the sense of belonging that we seek. 

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How many of us have abandoned dreams because someone we cared about said it wasn’t possible? How many of us have stopped doing something because we didn't feel support from loved and cherished ones despite the fact that we knew what we were doing was an expression of our soul. Everytime we do that we abandon ourselves and when we abandon ourselves we make it that much more difficult to find connection and to truly belong. 

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So what does it mean to truly belong? In order to truly belong we need to truly understand ourselves. I have talked about living our highest life and living from our soul and that is a start to belonging but it goes further than that. In order to understand ourselves we also need to understand and learn about ourselves. Not just learn what we are good at but to truly look inside our own soul and see what we are capable of. To look at ourselves and to understand who we are before the world puts expectations on us from our external accolades and achievements. While external praise is nice, it is often surface level and leads us to doing external tasks for the praise related to it but never filling our soul. However, when we find things that light our soul on fire and we pursue them for ourselves rather than external achievement we start to actually start living. 

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Once we understand ourselves we can start to be vulnerable and deliberate with our actions. The importance of vulnerability is it allows us to feel connected to others. Vulnerability happens when we feel safe with ourselves and others. Think about situations where you were maybe hesitant to express yourself or hesitant to be vulnerable with someone. Vulnerability is a hard thing, but being vulnerable allows us to build connection and through building connection we can find love. Not just romantic love. But love that transcends who we are. It allows us to be fully present and available for those around us. It allows us to hold space and energy for those who we care most deeply about and allow them to heal and grow and step into their soul's purpose and understanding. However, we can’t be truly vulnerable if we fail to understand and learn about ourselves. 

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Being vulnerable is scary, it requires a level of intimacy that we don’t learn about in school or is taught. It is a feeling and understanding that can only be experienced but once you feel safe being vulnerable and understand who you can be vulnerable with you unlock your potential. You can start living fully from the soul because you have unchained yourself from the burdens that others tethered to you. This freeing effect allows you to fully give to others because you understand who you truly are. 

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And all of that leads to the most important thing - belonging. Stripping away everything about us so we are left with just our soul and when we truly understand our soul we start to belong. We know the places that are good for us and those that we need to leave. We know that everywhere we enter is a place that we belong in and we do not need to change our language or the way we dress or the way we act in order to fit in. We authentically show up and live with deliberate action aligned to our soul’s purpose. That is what it means to belong. And when we fully show up in spaces we model the behavior so that those in our lives can learn to do the same. We authentically speak from the heart. We feel a contribution to society and find places that feel like home. We experience joy. We start to receive recognition for the things beyond our external achievements to celebrate our soul. 

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True belonging isn’t a feeling. It is the by-product of truly understanding ourselves so that we can fully show up and be vulnerable with others. It’s the sacrifice of the ego and need to be like others to live authentically to oneself knowing that doing something for others only takes us further away from who we are meant and called to be. It creates the deep desire that we all crave. The desire and belief in yourself is the key to belonging. It is fundamental to being alive; to be human and the moment you can achieve that is the moment you truly start to live. 

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