The Borderless Heart at the Center of Belonging

As humans we have an inherent need — right — to belong. Sadly, as the peacebuilder John Paul Lederach says, we have organized ourselves not around belonging but othering. In other words, we all know what it feels like not to belong.

Growing up, I heard many stories from my Sicilian relatives about the challenges of assimilation as loud, pope-loving, pasta-making immigrants in a proper Protestant community. My Irish relatives said the same. My great-grandmother, who lived with me when I was a kid, didn’t know what to do when the love story of how she met my great-grandfather drew attention in the Fall River Herald shortly after they met. Not being seen was far better than being seen as different. Both sides of my family knew fear as they sought to belong in a new place. And both, when I asked what they did to adapt, said they first had to belong to themselves. 

This is not easy advice, especially today when so many groups have purity tests to differentiate who is welcome versus who will be “othered.” The advice my family gave me about belonging could only be known through experience. The first time I learned this was as a teen after many years of being bullied in school. And then again in Seminary when I was surrounded by people who sought piety and, well, I appreciated irreverence. These two experiences helped me understand the pain of being excluded. It’s an emotional pain that we now know — thanks to science — exists in the same regions of the brain as physical pain. And like a physical disease, it kills us prematurely.

Based on her research, Brené Brown says that belonging may not be what we think it is. She says, “Belonging is being a part of something bigger than yourself, but also the courage to stand alone and to belong to yourself above all else.” The research supports what my family knew and what I learned through experience. Belonging can exist within you, but it requires you to be grounded in you. It requires you to touch the fire of your vulnerabilities. To run away will only put you on a path where you exclude others to avoid your own pain and try to be at home somewhere other than yourself. 

While it is true that we can’t force the people and institutions we love to love us back, that does not mean we don’t have important work to do for ourselves as we work to be at home within ourselves. And when we do, it helps others. The thing we often forget about understanding our own pain — our deep vulnerabilities — is that it can open us up or close us off. By being at home in yourself, you better understand who you are and become more compassionate. 

The practice of grateful living is an exceptional tool for awakening to your life and creating belonging. In every moment, the practice invites you to return to yourself again and again. Rather than run ahead or away, it says come back and take a look. It asks, what is life giving you right now that can open you up and help you belong to this very moment and place where you find yourself? And if you listen and observe, you discover that you are enough no matter what someone else may want you to believe.

When I return to myself and stand firmly in my vulnerabilities, I know time and again that I am not possible without others. I believe this is universally true. So then, thanks to grateful living, we must ask: what can we do to better care for each other?

Photo by Tim Mossholder

Joe Primo, Grateful Living

Joe Primo is the CEO of Grateful Living. He is a passionate speaker and community-builder whose accomplishments made him a leading voice on resilience and adversity. Gratefulness for life, he believes, is foundational to discovering meaning and the only response that is big enough and appropriate for the plot twists, delights, surprises, and devastation we encounter along the way. A student of our founder since his studies at Yale Divinity School, Joe is committed to advancing our global movement and making the transformational practice of grateful living both accessible to all and integral to communities and places of belonging. His TED talk, “Grief is Good,” reframed the grief paradigm as a responsive resource. He is the author of “What Do We Tell the Children? Talking to Kids About Death and Dying” and numerous articles.

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