As human beings we have an inherent need to belong, whether with an intimate partner, to a family, friendship circle or community with shared values and experiences, and in due course to ourselves, our purpose and innate potential, and ultimately to Earth and the Cosmos. The un-belonging complex ejects us into an existential wilderness similar to being cast out of the Garden of Eden … the loss of belonging is psychically life-threatening and as such amplifies anxiety.

The structures underlying belonging are constructed through our bonding experiences and attachment history. There is an invisible umbilical cord between mother and child in those first years of life which provides a sense of safety, one of the basic building blocks in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. This eventually gets transferred to the father, then friends and the wider community. What if this natural need was violated through endangerment, abuse, neglect, an intolerance of difference or an outright rejection instead of being nurtured?

As we are initiated into the ways of consensus reality, we may become estranged to parts of ourselves at the cost of fitting in. Shame plays a big role as we learn to hide natural parts of ourselves having received the message that to belong you have to adhere to the rules or you will be ridiculed, punished, bullied, shunned, isolated, ghosted, excommunicated or disinherited. The motivational need to seek proximity of others, as manifested in our relational needs, is hard-wired into our brains. We are a social specie and the fear of abandonment by our kind is often at the heart of an abandonment of ourselves. We face an epidemic of alienation and social isolation - to the extent that Japan has appointed a minister of loneliness to try and curb the rate of suicide.

Thus, the tension to belong and follow the path of individuation (stand out/be special) is an age-old conflict. Finding your tribe, to be in resonance with others creates heart coherence, but ultimately the task is to find the home within ourselves, allowing the return of the lost unwanted parts of ourselves. We need to, as Toko-Pa Turner writes, ‘Remember ourselves home’.

Written for @jungsouthernafrica

References:
(1) Toko-pa Turner (2017) Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home
(2) https://thisjungianlife.com/episode-154-belonging-the-search-for-home/

Image credit: The more together (2019) by Chika Idu https://www.artmajeur.com/en/chikaidu/artworks/12894623/the-more-together

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