Why do we need to feel belonging?

Most human beings experience the need to feel part of something: a family, a country, an urban tribe, a community. Even those who choose to live in isolation often consider themselves "part" of a movement that chooses that way of life.

This is because deep loneliness, that which does not link you to anyone even from a symbolic point of view, is extremely frightening. It is associated with disappearance and death. Therefore, we try to unite through lines that group us, it is a way of being recognized in our existence, of being accepted and valued by others. This is essential for survival.

From recognized studies, we know the importance of affection, physical contact, and recognition by the caregiver towards the baby. This does not only need biological care: eating, being bathed, and sleeping. But he also needs emotional contact. According to studies, it was observed that babies who did not receive it weakened and died. Knowing this, we keep in mind how essential it is for the human being to be recognized by another, even from the first moments of life.

Belonging is what throughout life will help us build our identity. Feeling belonging to one's own family is important because it implies that we are recognized as members and that, to a certain point, dignifies and validates us. People who grow up in very dysfunctional families and who do not live through this experience often feel lost, isolated, belonging nowhere, strange, alien and with nowhere to turn. The initial bond has not been able to be built, and Lao represents in a certain aspect the bond with life and with the possibility of growing and achieving things in the future.

This bond, however, has many opportunities to rebuild. In adolescence, the peer group plays a primary role in this regard. It becomes the point of reference, the mirror through which the adolescent will build her identity. Feeling part of a group is, at this stage, essential. Others return what they perceive of one, it is a way of contrasting how we are and thinking about how we would like to be.

The feeling of belonging is associated with self-validation since every record that we achieve of ourselves comes from the way in which another can mirror it. This happens from the first moments of life, we feel that we exist because this is reflected in the faces of our mothers, fathers, or caregivers. The feeling of existing is related to the bond with others. Membership confirms this for us. "We are part of this, therefore we are recognized and validated."

In many cases, belonging to a social group is so decisive that the person fails to develop a feeling of self-validation and seeks to be defined and recognized exclusively on the basis of this. Sometimes great confusion is generated by thinking that belonging to this or that group is our entire identity, covering up and making our uniqueness invisible. This is a problem because, in this way we become overcrowded, we lose our individuality.

Belonging is what unites us with others and therefore makes us feel less alone. However, the union is as important as the separation. To be able to distinguish what unites us and, at the same time, what differentiates us from others, in order to be able to continue on our own path.

 

Thank You

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Also Read:

1. Contempt and undervaluation in parenting.
2. What is Susceptibility?