Brené Brown starts her book with a quote from Maya Angelou, which, she admits, had been troubling her for years: ‘You are only free when you realise you belong no place—you belong every place—no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great.’ But how can you stay connected if you belong nowhere? Brown claims that true belonging is a spiritual practice. We don’t negotiate it with external groups, as true belonging lives in our hearts. Only by staying true to ourselves we can experience sacredness both in being a part of something and standing alone – belonging everywhere and nowhere. ‘You bend and stretch and grow, but you commit to not moving from who you are.’
‘Even when we’re utterly alone, we’re connected to one another by something greater than group membership, politics, and ideology – we’re connected by love and the human spirit.’
Brown argues that we’re experiencing a spiritual crisis of disconnection as a result of ‘sorting ourselves out’. We choose groups that make us feel most comfortable, and separate ourselves from everyone who we believe are different from us. We not only sort ourselves out but we also do so to others by making assumptions which lead to faulty judgements which in turn fuel disconnection. As humans, we are wired for connection, and by separating ourselves from one another we create a feeling of loneliness. ‘So how did we get so sorted and lonely?’ asks Brown. The answer is fear. We are afraid of being vulnerable and getting hurt so we hide in ideological bunkers which protect us from everything but disconnection and loneliness – the two biggest sufferings of all.
‘True belonging has no bunkers. We have to step out from behind the barricades of self-preservation and brave the wild.’
To brave and become the wilderness we must release our fears and cultivate the sense of trust. To help us do that, Brown shares her BRAVING checklist.
B – boundaries
R – reliability
A – accountability
V – vault
I – integrity
N – non judgement
G – generosity
The checklist serves us as a reminder that both trusting others and oneself is a vulnerable yet courageous process.
‘The wilderness can often feel unholy because we can’t control it, or what people think about our choice of whether to venture into that vastness or not. But it turns out to be the place of true belonging, and it’s the bravest and most sacred place you will ever stand.’
Next week, we’re going to look at the first out of four practices of true belonging – ‘People are hard to hate close up. Move in.’
Stay tuned!
Discussion questions:
- What does true belonging mean to you?
- If we are not afraid to stand alone, do we still need the sense of belonging that comes from community?
- How can we stay connected without losing who we are?