Welcome to Discover Belonging
My View
Introduction
Welcome to “My View” – my blog for discussing and learning more about our sense of belonging and its place in our relationships. The pictures on the right of many of the posts are the view from the back of my house at various times and seasons. It is a great place to meditate and contemplate the questions and insights that arise when considering our sense of belonging.
The posts themselves are built from how I can see the Six Critical Elements of a Sense of Belonging being applied to our current lives and input that I receive about this broad topic from comments I am sent from readers.
When I started to research the area of human belonging, I came across quotes like “belonging is a notion both vaguely-defined and ill-theorized” (Antonsich, 2010) and that the difficulty in being definitive about it was due to the fact “that there are few psychological constructs with which it would be unrelated” (Van Orden, Cukrowicz, Witte, and Joiner, 2012). I found that a sense of belonging is much more recognized by it absence than its presence. May (2011) suggested that our unconscious sense of belonging allows us to “go about our everyday lives without having to pay much attention to how we do it” until there is a disruption in our environment.
This was reflected by one of my study participants who said, “Please let it suffice to say that I wouldn’t even be aware of it [a sense of belonging] as an issue were it not for these questions I have been prompted to ask myself now. An important thing to contemplate, I must admit. It is probably a splendid idea for everyone to do so. But it remains, had I not been asked, I never would have thought of asking them myself.” When facing the large questions of who we are and where we belong, I echo his comment. We need to ask ourselves about our beliefs, values and goals. We need to ask ourselves about how we became who we are and how we can become who we desire to be. And, I fully believe with him, that it is a splendid idea for everyone to do so.
I hope you will join me by sharing the posts and commenting on them to expand our knowledge and experience of a sense of belonging. Subscribe if you would like to receive emails about the blog or comments I have received.
