It’s a practice that requires us to be vulnerable, get uncomfortable, and learn how to be present with people without sacrificing who we are. It’s not fitting in or pretending or selling out because it’s safer. It’s not the belonging that comes with just joining a group. True belonging does not require you to change who you are it requires you to be who you are. True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness. Schawbel: How do you define “true belonging” and how is this different from “fitting in?”īrown: The quest for true belonging begins with this definition that I crafted from the data: The data that emerged from the research on true belonging can start to connect some of the dots around why we’re sorted but lonely and perhaps contribute new insight into how we can reclaim authenticity and connection. Either way, the choices we are making to protect our beliefs are leaving us disconnected, afraid and lonely. For the moment most of us are either making the choice to protect ourselves from conflict, discomfort, and vulnerability by staying quiet, or picking sides and in the process adopting the behavior of the people with whom we passionately disagree.
When our belief that there’s something greater than us, something rooted in love and compassion, breaks, we are more likely to retreat to our bunkers, to hate from afar, to tolerate bullshit and to dehumanize others.Īddressing this crisis will require a tremendous amount of courage. That connection - the spirit that flows between us and every other human in the world – is not something that can be broken however, our belief in the connection is constantly tested and repeatedly severed. Schawbel: Why do you believe a sense of true belonging is the solution?īrown: We’re in a spiritual crisis, the key to building a true belonging practice is maintaining our belief in inextricable human connection. We will do anything that gives us a sense of more certainty and we will give our power to anyone who can promise easy answers and give us an enemy to blame. We move away from a belief in common humanity and unifying change and move into blame and shame.
When we ignore fear and deny vulnerability, fear grows and metastasizes. But If I had to identify one core variable that magnifies our compulsion to sort ourselves into factions while at the same time cutting ourselves off from real connection with other people, my answer would be fear. Any answer to the question “How did we get here?” is certain to be complex. We’ve turned away from one another and toward blame and rage. Her TED talk - “The Power of Vulnerability” - is one of the top five most-viewed TED talks in the world, with more than thirty million views.ĭan Schawbel: Why do we currently have a crisis of disconnection in our society?īrené Brown: We’ve sorted ourselves into factions based on our politics and ideology. She has spent the past sixteen years studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy and is the author of three #1 New York Times bestsellers: The Gifts of Imperfection, Daring Greatly, and Rising Strong. Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston where she holds the Huffington Foundation – Brené Brown Endowed Chair at the Graduate College of Social Work.
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