Hello wild ones
I hope your Sunday is treating you well so far, over this way, the rivers are swollen and leaves are thickly coating the earth, slowly turning into a fertile soup in which to birth life.
I’m enjoying the increased darkness, it feels like a comforting blanket that wraps around me, calling me to rest, inviting me to slow down.
Below is your Sunday connection letter, this one is about the difference between belonging and fitting in, I hope you enjoy it.
Fitting in is not the same as belonging.
Usually fitting in to a consensus, a ‘normal’ way of being, involves cutting parts of ourselves away, suppressing the fullness of our own souls, quietening our truth so we can be accepted, liked, approved of.
Yet belonging is where we feel accepted and loved for all that we are, where we feel safe enough to express who we are and be supported to grow.
I was so shocked to learn in the research that the opposite of belonging is fitting in
-Brene Brown
I spent much of my life, cutting parts of myself away, painfully reforming my voice, my shape, my colours and my dreams in order to be safe and to fit into environments, groups and individuals.
I thought it was my job to tame myself, that it was a sign of health to fit in.
I often think of this impactful quote -
“It is no measure of health, to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society”
- Krishnamurti
When working with people in recovery and mental health challenges, often, one of the goals mentioned by some organisations, was a need to get people to fit themselves back into society, and often back into the places that didn’t serve them in the beginning.
Sometimes I noticed a sort of trend to want to gaslight a persons whole feeling sense, the feeling sense that was telling them that the people, place or environment didn’t suit them, and instead they were persuaded to swallow their feelings and form themselves to be better and more easeful, so that they can fit in to a society that was damaging to their mental and emotional health.
Another part of the above quote by Krishnamurti is -
Is society healthy, that an individual should return to it? Has not society itself helped to make the individual unhealthy? Of course, the unhealthy must be made healthy, that goes without saying; but why should the individual adjust himself to an unhealthy society? If he is healthy, he will not be a part of it. Without first questioning the health of society, what is the good of helping misfits to conform to society?
And while I do believe finding places where we feel a sense of belonging, and people with whom we can feel safe with, where we are supported to grow and shine is incredibly important and needed for the soul and our health.
But this shouldn’t mean being pushed to fit into any social situation, group or event and then end up feeling like there is something wrong with us when our inner knowing just feels rubbish in these environments.
Making people fit in, making ourselves fit in, can create depression, anxiety and grief if that fitting in goes against integrity, feeling sense and the voice of the soul, body and heart.
If fitting in involves gaslighting our feelings, then in a way, it is self harm.
Fitting in will nearly always mean reforming ourselves to get other people to like us. Fitting in, will most often mean that we betray and gaslight ourselves.
The minute you become who someone wants you to be to fit in and make sure people like you, is the moment you no longer belong anywhere. For it is not belonging we find in these places, it is unbelonging.
I will not stay, not ever again, in a room or conversation or relationship or institution that requires me to abandon myself
- Glennon Doyle
Does this ring true for you? Have you ever felt like you are always changing your shape or feeling tone, your energy or truth depending on what environment you’re in? I know I have.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great skill to be adjustable and flexible, it can be a heart warming thing, to be able to make people comfortable, but if your main goal in a conversation or social event is to make sure people like you by adjusting who you are, then you are betraying yourself for external validation and also being fake, manipulative and not in integrity with others, which can lead to bitterness, resentment, loneliness and confusion.
So many of us feel like we can either have our integrity in tact, and be our wild, unique self, or we can have our belonging. But we most often believe we can’t have both and that we have to decide which one to go for.
But you can have both, in fact, one can only exist with the other.
Becoming secure in who we are, backing ourselves and bringing who we are to places and situations is difficult for anyone, especially in our culture. This habit of shape shifting for others often starts in childhood, where we learn to put our feelings, our intuition and our senses aside for people, for external validation, or to fit into the norm.
As children we are most often told who to be and who to become, and this can have devastating consequences.
It can lead to adults who hide who they are, mistrust their inner knowing, forget the flavour of their own dreams and voice.
For our own souls, and our own life, as well as for our own mental and emotional wellbeing, I believe we need to find ways and places where we can be true to ourselves and start to remember what belonging feels like.
True belonging doesn’t come with just joining a group. It’s not pretending, selling out or fitting in because its easier or safer.
Belonging asks us to be vulnerable, to be prepared to get a little uncomfortable, and slowly learn how to be ok with being with people, without betraying who we are.
“Belonging is being part of something bigger than yourself. But it’s also the courage to stand alone, and to belong to yourself above all else.”
– Brené Brown.
In reality, the only true belonging that exists, and the connection that underscores everything else and all other relationships in life, is that powerful sense of belonging to ourselves. We are so often trying to belong elsewhere that we turn our backs on this most important and key aspect of belonging. We so often spend our time walking through another’s landscape, that we forget the feeling of our inner landscape and the weather and medicine that lies there.
If we do not accept and care for ourselves; if we don’t belong to ourselves, and dont listen to our own truths, trust our own hearts, dislike our own wildness, how can we truly bring ourselves and our integrity anywhere else?
Nature, is a wonderful place to remember what belonging feels like, to sit and watch in the forest, riverside or meadow, how each being belongs. To feel how nature ignites our parasympathetic nervous system and helps us feel safe and alive, igniting within the memory of the soft strength within and it helps us to remember what it is to feel secure and held for who we are.
Being in nature, helps us to find belonging in something far greater.
I have gone out into natures arms over and over, to come back to who I am, to take strength and love from those places and let it feed me.
I often think of our true self as our wild unique selves, before the taming took place, our wild souls voice, and this wildness inside, is the one that can lead us back to belonging like a dandelion within, pushing beyond the taming.
Belonging so fully to yourself that you’re willing to stand alone is a wilderness–an untamed, unpredictable place of solitude and searching. It is a place as dangerous as it is breathtaking, a place as sought after as it is feared. 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.
– Brené Brown
Growing our weeds above the taming and the people pleasing can be exposing, it can make us feel self conscious and worried as to what other will think.
But the more you let yourself grow and rewild the taming, the more those who love your wild beauty and song will gravitate to who you are. The more the gateways to belonging will open up to you.
Don’t hide yourself, for out there are people places and moments that are trying to find you, how are they going to find you, if your magic, your true soul is hidden under the grey?
Glennon Doyles Podcast - we can do hard things. This one is about creating our own belonging.
Below is a recording for a sit spot, a simple practise that can be a regular activity that helps grow a sense of belonging to the outside world as well as the inner
THANK YOU so very much for being here and giving me space in your inbox.
Sending you much care and warmth for your Sunday
Brigit xx
Thank you Brigit 🙏
i have a beautiful example of my dog, who never fit nor belonged in city life. he was very reactive towards other dogs, walking him was not a pleasant experience. of course we tried all sort of training and ways to help him but with no avail. and then we moved out of the city. and the dog, without any training or any input from us just changed. he is so much more relaxed. he can walk without lead, his morning business is done in the sound of sea and singing birds. he is ok now with other dogs, we even had one staying overnight with us and our dog fully accepted and respected her presence. its a beautiful example that in a place that is good for us, no work or persuasion is required for change. my dog finally became himself simply by moving him away from the environment that wasnt suitable for him.