BELONGING IS MORE THAN A FEELINGBelonging is all the multi-directional forces (physical, psychological, biological, chemical, spiritual, etc.) that push, pull, and balance the patterns that organize everything, including humans, into the structures that make up the universe. Belonging is the most fundamental human need and our strongest motive. Alfred Adler and many more say it drives everything we do, feel, and think. When we cooperate with these forces and patterns, we experience belonging—it usually feels good and gives us energy. We don't create it but we have power to change how we experience it.
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Belonging matters to us, at such a fundamental level, not just because it is the way the universe organizes itself. It is also baked into our DNA from an evolutionary perspective. For most of human existence, we were hunter gatherers who depended on belonging to our tribe for our survival. If we were disconnected, we would starve, freeze, or be eaten by a saber tooth tiger. Though we can now survive without a tribe, our bodies, hearts, and minds still activate all the internal mechanisms that make us fight, flee, freeze, or fawn when we are threatened by relational disconnection.
In addition, the size of our human brain is based on our social capacity. When fully grown, it is too big to fit through the birth canal. For this reason, our brains do most of their developing while we are in a social context. We depend on those who claim us as theirs for our basic needs during this time. Psychologically, our brains are built with belonging as a fundamental requirement. The energy and patterns of our care givers literally builds the structure of our brains.
Human thriving is built on our ability to cooperate with belonging. Learning how is a life's work. It is shared work. No one can belong by themselves and no one can belong without being themselves.
In addition, the size of our human brain is based on our social capacity. When fully grown, it is too big to fit through the birth canal. For this reason, our brains do most of their developing while we are in a social context. We depend on those who claim us as theirs for our basic needs during this time. Psychologically, our brains are built with belonging as a fundamental requirement. The energy and patterns of our care givers literally builds the structure of our brains.
Human thriving is built on our ability to cooperate with belonging. Learning how is a life's work. It is shared work. No one can belong by themselves and no one can belong without being themselves.
structural belonging - white paper
Research by Emile Durkheim, Alfred Adler, Jean Baker Miller, Emmy Werner, Baumeister and Leary, Bessel Van Der Kolk, Matthew Lieberman, and Julianne Holt-Lunstad concludes repeatedly that belonging is a fundamental human need necessary for mental, emotional, and physical health. Many other researchers, organizations, and institutions before and after agree. However, the condition of belonging has long been associated with a sense or a feeling that arises from the individual subjective experience. I propose that belonging is an objective structural reality that correlates with our cognitive, emotional, and physical senses.
There are three scaleable elements included in structural belonging: identity, output, and input.
Everywhere scientists have looked in the universe, every thing is part of a bigger structure—a group of things. Conversely, every structure is the collective whole of its smaller parts. Sets of parts are cooperatively arranged as a group at each level of scale to produce an identity with a generative result—the output.
Each part is connected so that the output of their intrinsic identity matches the input requirements of other identities in a reciprocal exchange. The exchange is not always direct and does not operate at an equal ratio. Every part receives more resources from the collective than it contributes.
For example, a liver’s output is critical and irreplaceable, but it is limited and specialized by its capacity as a liver. It receives from many other organs in the system in which it is embedded—both directly and indirectly. It takes the input of all the other parts of the system and transforms it into liver output. This is true at every level of existence, no matter how small or how big. Furthermore, the cooperative arrangement connects all things through all levels and at every scale to be generative. The liver is connected and made up of its cells, molecules, and atoms, and the body it is in is made up of its interconnected systems and organs–including the liver.
The fundamental nature of belonging means it matters to a person in the same way breathable air, drinkable water, and nutritious food matter. This is particularly true for infants who, without the structure of belonging, have no controllable connection to shelter, sustenance, or safety. We must be connected with other humans and our environment in such a way that our input needs are met, our true identities are recognized, and our output is valued. If this cooperative arrangement results in generative conditions, we thrive. We cannot live, grow, or be our whole selves without these cooperative connections any more than our organs can live without their cooperative connections with other organs.
We are different than most other things because we are more conscious. Rather than submitting to our belonging instincts, we have developed norms and ideologies around independence that have damaged the cooperative connections that hold our belonging structures together. We have hidden our intrinsic identities behind protective egoic facades, shamed our input needs as weaknesses, and stretched our output capacities far beyond reasonable boundaries. The facades, shame, and stretching have acted like corrosion to the relational connections of our belonging structures, and we are essentially coming apart at our joints.
The result of our crumbling belonging structure is that we are tired, sick, sad, worried, and angry. In addition, by trying to fit ourselves in false structures (socioeconomic classes, religions, fandoms, corporate and political hierarchies, etc.), most of us have lost contact with our true identities. We are not sure what we have to offer that is of real value. Our economy places unbalanced value on monetarily measured production and non-relational inputs such as money. The result is we are separated, adrift, and toxically lonely. When our intrinsic identities are not connected cooperatively with other intrinsic identities to form generative conditions, our thoughts, feelings, and actions focus on achieving connection.
Fortunately, even though we have designed and lived within prohibitive cultural norms, our relational connecting instincts can still guide us to rebuild our connecting structures. If we spend the valuable time to share our personal stories, we can rediscover our identities and regenerate groups that honor and sustain our need to belong.
There are three scaleable elements included in structural belonging: identity, output, and input.
Everywhere scientists have looked in the universe, every thing is part of a bigger structure—a group of things. Conversely, every structure is the collective whole of its smaller parts. Sets of parts are cooperatively arranged as a group at each level of scale to produce an identity with a generative result—the output.
Each part is connected so that the output of their intrinsic identity matches the input requirements of other identities in a reciprocal exchange. The exchange is not always direct and does not operate at an equal ratio. Every part receives more resources from the collective than it contributes.
For example, a liver’s output is critical and irreplaceable, but it is limited and specialized by its capacity as a liver. It receives from many other organs in the system in which it is embedded—both directly and indirectly. It takes the input of all the other parts of the system and transforms it into liver output. This is true at every level of existence, no matter how small or how big. Furthermore, the cooperative arrangement connects all things through all levels and at every scale to be generative. The liver is connected and made up of its cells, molecules, and atoms, and the body it is in is made up of its interconnected systems and organs–including the liver.
The fundamental nature of belonging means it matters to a person in the same way breathable air, drinkable water, and nutritious food matter. This is particularly true for infants who, without the structure of belonging, have no controllable connection to shelter, sustenance, or safety. We must be connected with other humans and our environment in such a way that our input needs are met, our true identities are recognized, and our output is valued. If this cooperative arrangement results in generative conditions, we thrive. We cannot live, grow, or be our whole selves without these cooperative connections any more than our organs can live without their cooperative connections with other organs.
We are different than most other things because we are more conscious. Rather than submitting to our belonging instincts, we have developed norms and ideologies around independence that have damaged the cooperative connections that hold our belonging structures together. We have hidden our intrinsic identities behind protective egoic facades, shamed our input needs as weaknesses, and stretched our output capacities far beyond reasonable boundaries. The facades, shame, and stretching have acted like corrosion to the relational connections of our belonging structures, and we are essentially coming apart at our joints.
The result of our crumbling belonging structure is that we are tired, sick, sad, worried, and angry. In addition, by trying to fit ourselves in false structures (socioeconomic classes, religions, fandoms, corporate and political hierarchies, etc.), most of us have lost contact with our true identities. We are not sure what we have to offer that is of real value. Our economy places unbalanced value on monetarily measured production and non-relational inputs such as money. The result is we are separated, adrift, and toxically lonely. When our intrinsic identities are not connected cooperatively with other intrinsic identities to form generative conditions, our thoughts, feelings, and actions focus on achieving connection.
Fortunately, even though we have designed and lived within prohibitive cultural norms, our relational connecting instincts can still guide us to rebuild our connecting structures. If we spend the valuable time to share our personal stories, we can rediscover our identities and regenerate groups that honor and sustain our need to belong.