Feeling that you belong is the key to feeling connected
Hello you wonderful human.
It’s lovely to be with you again. The team and I think it’s just awesome that you’ve chosen to read this article. I think you’re going to really get some good insight to help you get the connection you need.
The nexus of belonging, worthiness and authentic connection is a HUGE topic. The absence of one, two or all of them will have us experiencing loneliness. I could write a book on this nexus to support you. But you’re busy and need to get on with your day. I’ve worked to make this article accessible for you and helps you to become a more connected human, but please know that there’s an ocean of support behind these words.
Belonging and loneliness
We humans need to feel that we belong. We need to feel that we are part of something much greater than ourselves. This applies to you, irrespective of how you identify as a human, whatever you do for a living or wherever you live in the world.
You need to feel that you belong.
Sometimes, not feeling that we belong is a major source of our loneliness. This is especially the case when we experience loneliness outside of a situation when we would normally expect to feel lonely, like when we’re grieving the death of a loved one or the sudden end of a relationship.
The feeling of not belonging can be at the core of the existential dread we experience as part of a loneliness experience. As humans, we need to feel that we belong. We need to feel that we matter. We need to feel that we’re part of something bigger than just ourselves.
Loneliness is never far away when we don’t feel that we belong.
The heaviness of not belonging
Let’s sit for a moment with the gravity of feeling that we don’t belong.
It’s heavy, isn’t it?
It’s deeply uncomfortable to entertain for a moment that at the heart of our loneliness experience is a belief that we’re unworthy of belonging.
This heaviness is one of the main reasons I’ve seen over my time working on loneliness and human connection that keeps us in our loneliness. We simply do not want to admit – to ourselves and others – that we don’t feel that we belong.
In a society that praises eternal optimism and a ‘good vibes only’ attitude, this heaviness is something that causes us to feel shame and feeds the belief that we’re broken. We don’t want to talk about it out of fear that it’ll ruin the vibe.
Not talking about it only makes it worse and makes the heaviness heavier.
In reading this article to this point, I feel that you’re as familiar with the heaviness as I am. I also suspect that you’re wanting to take steps to do something about it.
Keep reading. I’ve got you.
The magic equation
When you don’t feel that you belong, you feel lonely. When you feel that you belong, you feel connected.
To feel that you belong, you need to feel heard and you need to feel seen.
Mathematically speaking, this can be summarised in the following equation:
Heard + Seen = Belonging
Focus on belonging
It’s a simple equation, isn’t it? Basic, even. To feel that you belong, you need to feel seen, and you need to feel heard. Simple isn’t always easy.
There’s a catch. Have you spotted it?
In our rush to feel that we belong, we can rush to be seen and we can rush to be heard.
That rush can look like posting endless photos and videos on social media. That can sound like talking a lot in meetings at work. It can look like going to a whole lot of effort to be seen to say and do all the right things at the right time.
It can feel like hustling and being in a frenzy of doing in the hope that we’ll feel seen and heard in return.
I want to get all language nerd for a moment, because there’s power in the nuance. In that rush to feel seen and to feel heard, we can forget the subject of the advice.
You.
You need to be seen and you need to feel heard so that you feel that you belong.
Let the power of the emphases marinate in you for a few moments.
Make it real, not performative
I’m not talking about being seen and heard in any old way. That’s performative. When we perform, we can’t be surprised when loneliness returns after going to all the effort to be seen and heard. The loneliness returns – sometimes with interest – because the all-seen and all-heard performance we’ve been running is not you.
You – you gloriously messed-up, weird and wonderful human. You.
I’m resisting going off on all sorts of tangents about why it’s so hard to show up in the world as the imperfect humans we both are and how we can both aim for perfection or procrastinate before we allow ourselves to be seen and heard. That’ll be in lots of future content.
For now, the key is this: you need to be seen, and you need to be heard – just as you are in this moment – for you to feel that you belong.
And when you connect as the gloriously imperfect human you are in that moment, the connection you receive back is almost always the connection you need.
Simple? Yes. Easy? Not always. But I promise you it gets easier with practice.
One final thing
You and I live in the real world so we both understand that sometimes we need to put our faces on a perform a certain role. We can most often notice it at work, but we can perform a role in our relationships with our significant others, our friends and families and in the community.
If such performances are the exception, that’s generally ok. If the performances are the rule and you rarely – if ever – get to be you, you’ve likely found something that you get to work on.
Let’s end your loneliness
As always, we at HUMANS:CONNECTING never want you to get to the end of any of our content without a little something to help you end your loneliness and feed connection.
For this article, I invite you to reflect on these questions:
From where do I get my sense of belonging?
Where in my life can I be me?
Where do I feel the need to perform?
How can I be in more places and spaces where I can be me?
I’m not sorry that these aren’t easy questions to answer. I’m not sorry if the answers make you uncomfortable.
Discomfort is ok. The change we need in life doesn’t happen when we’re comfortable.
Remember: You’re braver and more courageous than you’ll ever give yourself credit for.
I know this because you’re here reading these words to the end of the article and some of the content and questions were heavy.
You’re awesome. Go and do something nice for yourself.
That’s it for this article
We’ve got some great content coming in the next few weeks to help you become a more connected human. The next article is on the relationship between connection and trust.
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Until next time, be awesomely you.
~ Phil
Important:
All views expressed above are the author’s and are intended to inform, support, challenge and inspire you to consider the issue of loneliness and increase awareness of the need for authentic connection with your self, with those most important to you and your communities as an antidote to loneliness. Unless otherwise declared, the author is not a licensed mental health professional and these words are not intended to be crisis support. If you’re in crisis, this page has some links for immediate support for where you may be in the world.
If you’re in crisis, please don’t wait. Get support now.
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