Day 32 – Adapting to Belong

You look like you belong here, someone said to me, as I was sitting and reading in a café. I smiled politely and continued reading. If I had responded I would have snapped. I didn’t really know why then. But I do now. The word “Belonging” just touches a chord. A nerve that is often raw.

I don’t belong. I have adapted – I wanted to say. But it wasn’t his fault and I wasn’t really going to say that statement to him in any case.

I have learnt to adapt to my environment. But that did not mean I felt belonged.  

We mistake the two words often.

Adapt is often a physical mental environment thing, making adjustments for some kind of survival on the outside. Some way of masking and ‘blending’, so that we are safe.  Belonging is an emotional, even spiritual necessity. A way to feel like roots growing on the inside. A place where ‘safe’ is not even a necessary word. It’s often signposted with people but not only. It is ‘unmasking’. Adaptation can be seen and learnt, belonging is invisible and is a journey.

Why is knowing this distinction even necessary?

Because, we pay a huge price for not calling, the need for belonging by its name. We then, either take it for granted and make it not a necessary and important conversation, or reward the masking, which is often the case. But we all have a deep need to. The ache to belong in a space, in relationships and community can be so pervasive that it colors everything we do. Which is why we have national anthems, family, festivals, rituals and also wars.

The casualty of false Belonging is Authenticity.

Human beings have an inherent desire to have allegiance for something bigger than just themselves. One just needs to see the high levels of engagement in Volunteerism. And if it is not there, there is a feeling of being lost, of splintering. It shows up often in early years as rebellion.In later years as we grow older, the rebellion just takes subtler forms. It quickly gets throttled down or shamed. And years later masquerades as indecision, ennui or worse, “I don’t really care “. Indifference.

Indifference outside – Isolation inside

It also made me think of the direct relationship between Belonging and rebellion.

Rebellion is often a cry for Belonging

It’s an Important conversation because we, as a society are bringing up our children in this paradigm.

I was having a conversation with a friend about his daughter, my son going through this hard phase of “rebellion’. And I find it really important to ‘revere it’. This sense of ‘this is unfair’ that he, my son, goes through at his work often, is really important, even though sometimes looking at his frustration I want to intervene. And I have to remind myself, that this is his fire, his right of passage. And he is getting cooked. And that he has the wherewithal to grow through this on his own. I trust him.

We do great disservice to the souls of our children by not letting them rebel.  Just like it was done to us. This is how they choose what to adapt to and where they belong. This is their way of sensing and communicating that they “care” for, their internal and external world their beliefs for the way the society is wrong in many ways and it is. They point out to us the “change” that we often don’t want to see. Because our ego’s get hurt. This could also be our cue to show we trust and have faith in them.

It is also alarming how quicky we forget we were there once – and how it felt. It’s almost an unconscious vengeance, I did not get my chance and so I won’t give it to you.

We do it in more and more “sophisticated ways” – we reward compliance handsomely. Not allowing controlling shaming this rebellion, is how we “tame” them. Make them feel unbelonged.  So that they have to work towards earning what was already theirs. This rage of unbelonging grows till, they don’t care anymore. The screams for a wanting to do something, pledge allegiance to something bigger than themselves, are silenced. And we feel proud, pat ourselves on the back and say, “great parenting”, look he/she is so sweet, well mannered, complying. It sends shivers down my spine. To think, we just lost out on a Soul.

The irony is, we are the same people who then also complain about this “young generation”, that does not care. I hear it in my work in reference to “Millennials” – They are so materialistic. They only think about themselves.

I find these double standards, that we have stopped even noticing because we have “adapted” to the culture, disturbing. I know I have to fight it on the inside very often to not fall and follow this trend. And sit and learn to work through this need to rescue. Mostly myself not him.

Sometimes, we adapt as an act of rebellion.

 That way I don’t have to Care, or show that I do

Perhaps we need to stop and really examine where in our own lives do we experience belonging, the spaces were ‘safe’ is not a necessary word. Where your Authentic self can show up. Where conversations are not often peppered with ‘I am sorry’.  Where guilt is not the operating principle. Where shame is not a control mechanism.

Belonging, is our inherent right. It should not have to be fought for or earned. We have been side tracked

Over a period of time I have gone from feeling not belonged – to not wanting to belong – to knowing I always belonged, I just didn’t see it. It’s been an arduous journey.

It’s time for a turn around in perception.

I belonged the day I was born. I belonged to my parents, my family, my gender, my country, my ethnicity, my species. How did we forget this? How and when did I , do we , continue to buy onto this story of separation?

Maybe it’s quietly, insidiously ‘sold’ to us? As a way of designed separation , so that we can be controlled. A tax levied for not complying. So that we keep “working for it” the love the sense of belonging, which is systematically denied.

Perhaps it’s time we spoke up and owned our Belonging as a default setting, a birth right. Perhaps knowing we already belonged we would not go through life not caring, what happened to us, others, to the earth. Perhaps if we came from a knowing that we do belong, and nobody can give or take that away from us we can finally have the freedom to be authentic and not be afraid and comply. And finally do the things we are here to do share our unique gifts without inhibition.

I wonder, how would the society be, if we belonged in our own skin to our own self to start with. Would that throw many businesses that thrive on this “not belonging” and exploit it for profit, out of gear? Could it stop the wars outside as we stop rebelling inside.

Sebastian Junger, Author of Tribe, writes . “Humans don’t mind hardship, in fact they thrive on it; what they mind is not feeling necessary. Modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary. It’s time for that to end.”

I agree.

It’s time we stopped this mad longing for belonging.

 You can’t travel far enough to be where you already are.