I M Perfect lady

Do you know the difference between "Fitting in" and "Belonging"?  

It seems like they would be twins, that there is no difference…but there is.  I believe that my experience of the FALC was more about fitting in, than belonging.  However, when I stopped being part of it, I felt like I no longer belonged, yet it was then that I began to belong to myself.  

Same goes with my family.  I used to fit in and I felt I belonged, but only if I was a certain way. The only way I know this, was the fear to change.  The fear of stepping out of the church, the fear of speaking my mind, the fear of not pleasing of disappointing…I had to remain the same, in order to fit in.  I intuitively knew, the slippery slope and confusion that would ensue, if I stopped doing the things I was beginning to resent…I knew that things would change.

It is evident by the last 8 years of estrangement that I had to be a certain way and do certain things to belong; for as soon as I began to change, I no longer fit in.

This fitting in, this club and the way things need to be, IS what keeps us from being ourselves, for usally, our self is not what is needed to fit in.  

I am not certain I can articulate the sameness and format we have to mold into, and how we know, if we don't, we will be set outside of the group.

What I see most clearly is the sameness of the church folks as well as the sameness of my family, how the subtle and not so subtle behaviors are blended into a palatte of the same shade…and it feels hostile to stand out.

Again, in my experience this too is true.  I have felt the attack by being different…where I no longer fit or belong, where my changes are too different to fit in.

Oddly though I belong to my self more than I ever have in my life.

Here is how Brene Brown explains the difference in her book, "The Gift of Imperfect"…along with her definition of love.

"One of the biggest surprises in this research was learning that fitting in and belonging are not the same thing, and, in fact, fitting in gets in the way of belonging. Fitting in is about assessing a situation and becoming who you need to be to be accepted. Belonging, on the other hand, doesn't require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are."

"Before I share my definitions with you, I want to point out three issues that I'm willing to call truths."

"Love and Belonging will always be uncertain.  Even though connection and relationship are the most critical components of life, we simply cannot acurately measure them. Relational concepts don't translate into bubbled answer sheets. Relionship and connection happen in an indefinable space between people, a space that will never be fully known or understood by us. Everyone who risks explaining love and belonging is hopefully doing the best they can to answer an unanswerable question. Myself included."

"Love belongs with belonging. One of the most surprising things that unfolded in my research is the pairing of certain terms.  I can't separate the concepts of love and belonging because when people spoke of one, they always talked about the other. The same holds true for the concepts of joy and gratitude, which I'll talk about it in a later chapter.  When emotions or experiences are tightly woven together in people's stories that they don't speak of one without the other, it's not an accidental entanglement; it's an intentional knot.  Love belongs with belonging."

"Of this I am actually certain. After collecting thousands of stories, I'm willing to call this a fact: A deep sense of love and belonging is an irreducible need of all women, men and children. We are biologically, cognitively, physically, and spiritiually wired to love, to be loved and to belong.  When those needs are not met, we don't function as we were meant to. We break. We fall apart. We numb. We ache. We hurt others. We get sick. There are certainly other causes of illness, numbing, and hurt, but the absence of love and belonging will always lead to suffering."

"It took me three years to whittle these definitions and concepts from a decade of interviews. Let's take a look."

Love: 

We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness, and affection.

Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them – we can only love others as much as we love ourselves.

Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection damage the roots from which love grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are acknowledged, healed and rare.

Belonging:

Belonging is an innate human desire to be part of something larger than us. Because this yearning is so primal, we often try to acquire it by fitting in and by seeking approval, which are not only hollow substitutes for belonging, but often barriers to it. Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater that our level of self-acceptance.

"One reason that it takes me so long to develop these concepts is that I often don't want them to be true. It would be different if I studied the effect of bird poop on potting soil, but this stuff is personal and often painful. Sometimes, as I turned to the data to craft definitions like the ones above, I would cry. I didn't want my level of self-love to limit how much I can love my children or my husband. Why? Because loving them and accepting their imperfections is much easier than turning the light of loving-kindness on myself."

"If you look at the definition of love and think about what it means in terms of self-love, it is very specific. Practicing self-love means learning how to trust ourselves, to treat ourselves with respect, and to be kind and affectionate toward ourselves. This is a tall order given how hard most of us are on ourselves. I know I can talk to myself in ways that I would never consider talking to another person. How many of us are quick to think, God, I'm so stupid and Man, I'm such an idiot? Just like calling someone we love stupid or an idiot would be incongruent with practicing love, talking like that to ourselves takes a serious toll on our self-love."  Brene Brown

Her research I have lived.  It is amazing to read what I already know to be true and to have her study boundaries, compassion and love and belonging while I lived this out in my life.

It is like reading a research paper about your experiences…and so thankful for my boundaries.