A reflection inspired by Brené Brown’s perspective on belonging.
The opposite of belonging isn’t isolation, it’s fitting in.
I have spent so much of my life comparing myself to others, then thinking the solution to my differences is to fit in – to squeeze the square peg into the round hole that is the embodiment of a “like everybody else” mindset. When I finally do fit in, I realize an immense isolation in it all, because it will never provide me with a deep sense of belonging. So if I aim to fit in, yet never find belonging, where then do I seek it?
From what I have found, the first step to belonging is belonging to ones’ self. In other words, being true to yourself and to your truths. Vulnerability comes freely from this place, and from this place comes a sense of belonging with others.
Don’t aim to fit in, aim to belong. There is a huge difference. Fitting in implies that I am manipulating myself into a preconceived space set up for me to maintain the arrangement of someone else’s constructed space.
We can belong to people who understand the sacredness of their own belonging, and see ours as sacred. The mutual understanding of the other allows for us to be truly ourselves and belong.
Never fit in. Belong.
Brown shares a Theodore Roosevelt quote which I would love to include in this post. It highlights the resistance to fitting in.
The man in the arena
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
Theodore Roosevelt