To belong or not to belong, that is the question.
How we belong, what we belong to, and what belonging means to us, can become the leitmotif of our life. If belonging were as easy to get as becoming part of a group through joining a company, marrying someone or joining a spiritual group, we would all feel safe. If money made us feel totally safe, we would belong when we had money or success. Our sense of personal safety determines our reactivity.
Turns out that belonging is a feeling that increases when we are affirmed and included but reduces when we feel excluded, judged or bullied. Unless we take leadership and choose our ground rules of engagement, inclusion or exclusion, people will not know what it takes to be included.
If we don’t feel included, we react by disengagement, walling off or anger. These are the boundaries that helps us create a sense of inner safety. In this tight inner circle, a few select people can enter, but others are not allowed.
Bullying and domination towards a certain group is another barrier to entry. If a certain group is persecuted, then chances are that their group members will not be hired and passed over for opportunities, further eroding trust between different groups.
Which is why, the courage to be vulnerable enough to share one’s actual state is rare. The courage to be vulnerable is possible only if you have found a way not to be vulnerable anymore or you trust people’s intrinsic goodness towards you or some powerful institution backs your words.
Most people who grow up in brutal cultures, where anybody who is perceived to be weak is kicked around, have to keep a mask on. Otherwise they know that most likely they will suffer for showing their weakness. I had a relative who has since passed, who would never share how much pain she is in, because she knew that it would mean that everyone in the family would get after her for showing her vulnerability. She would hear, ‘why are you sick? stop being sick’ Or exclude her in other ways. Yet, when the mean and tough person is sick, the family has to drop what they are doing to be supportive.
When Dr Brene Brown speaks of empathy and kindness, she is criticized by people who see the harsher reality of existence. Should we molly coddle our young people? should we not tell them clearly that survival is a tough game and teach them how to survive in the face of judgement, criticism and possible exclusion if they are perceived weak?
I don’t have the answer, but truly if this world is only about power and domination, then it is not a life worth living and must be changed. Perhaps being excluded from the pack is a human being’s greatest fear. Family means protection and food. It can mean survival in harsh conditions. But often family is the reason why cultures stagnate. Instead of supporting a family member to pursue their dreams, family uses guilt and belittling. Our well wishers tell us to conform and become bullies ourselves because that is what works.
But, what if unequal freedom is NOT what we want to have?. What if we don’t to lord it over others just because of our privilege. What if we believe that freedom isn’t possible without equity. That financial freedom is not and never can be real freedom.
Then we have to be brave enough to be the change that we wish to see. Then we have to live by our own independently formed rules. We are, therefore we think.
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” – Nelson Mandela.
Behind The Veil 