Let us begin with this: we all need to belong.
To belong — to be part of something larger than ourselves, connected to people with whom we share history, values, or experience — is one of our most fundamental human needs.
Belonging is, quite literally, a survival need.
In his book Waking the Tiger, Peter Levine describes how herds of animals instinctively gather when danger approaches.
A group is stronger than any individual. It provides safety. But the power of a group is not merely protection from external threats.
Belonging to a group also meets our essential need for human connection, for interaction – not to be alone.
For most of human history, we lived in tribes and communities. Although modern life has largely been organized around the nuclear family, our bodies have not forgotten what they once had relied on: the rich web of relationships, the multidimensional holding environment that only a community can offer.
No single individual can provide that.
We need more than one place to turn our needs to. We can’t solely depend on one person’s emotional or physical ability and availability to be there for us. When the two of us are conflicted – this is utterly impossible for them to support us. We need more people, so if we are hurt by an interpersonal conflict – someone would be there for us.
This is why community is an irreplaceable human resource.
The rich web of relationships, the multidimensional holding environment that only a community can offer – no single individual can provide that.
Belonging Makes Us Vulnerable
The groups we belong to become part of our identity, just as our family of origin does. They shape how we introduce ourselves to the world — our family name, our nationality, our profession, our culture; and, perhaps even more importantly – how we perceive ourselves.
Our longing to belong draws us toward seeking communities to belong to. But it is also our Achilles’ heel: belonging makes us vulnerable.
Among the most painful experiences for our body and psyche are rejection, exclusion, or harm inflicted by the very group to which we belong.
When the place that was supposed to offer safety becomes dangerous, something deep inside us is shaken.
When the surrounding in which we have lowered our defenses and leaned into connection suddenly becomes a source of threat – we find ourselves more exposed than ever, more alone than ever.
Feeling unsafe in a group we belong to does more than leave our needs unmet. It undermines the foundations of our identity.
If the people I belong to hurt me or reject me – who am I?
If my community does not accept me – do I have a place in the world?
The wounds that can occur within families and communities are especially profound, not only because seeking help from outside may feel or be impossible.
There is another deep layer that is often overlooked: the need to belong does not disappear simply because the group has become unsafe.
Instead, we are left with an impossible inner conflict between the imperative to flee and save ourselves, and the equally powerful imperative to remain and belong.
But not only being harmed or excluded by the group inflicts this unbearable inner conflict. We also encounter it whenever a group accepts us only on condition that we change.
Because what we long for is to belong fully — as we are.
The demand that we change is a form of criticism. I have written elsewhere about criticism being, in fact, violence, one that destabilizes us at our core.
The same question arises:
If belonging requires me to become someone else, then who am I?
And again – the conflict:
Do I stay in a group whose values no longer feel like my own?
Do I abandon my values, myself, in order to be included and remain connected?
Or do I leave?
In any case, I can no longer wholeheartedly say: this is my group. I belong here.
Feeling unsafe in a group we belong to undermines the foundations of our identity.
If the people I belong to hurt me or reject me – who am I?
If my community does not accept me – do I have a place in the world?
The Body’s Conclusion: Groups are not Safe
Some forms of belonging – as family – can never truly be left behind, and this kind of raptures can carry on through generations.
Thankfully, other belongings can be chosen.
I notice in myself a kind of caution regarding being a part of a group.
A while ago, before an election, I considered joining a political party whose vision deeply resonated with me. I wanted to feel part of something new and hopeful. I wanted to help shape it from within.
Several times I filled out almost the entire registration form.
Each time I reached the final button – Join – I stopped.
Something in me simply wouldn’t go through.
Rather than overriding that hesitation, I became curious about it.
I could acknowledge the part that wanted to belong, and the part that refused to.
What was it afraid of?
Through Focusing, I met the parts of me that had been wounded by belonging.
It began with my family of origin, in which I felt alone. Yes, I belong to it simply by being born into it, yet it never truly felt like a source of support in my life — or even simply a source.
There were also other communities with which I had once identified — socially, politically — that eventually became unsafe when my personal choices and opinions led to condemnation and exclusion.
And my body carries stories older than my own: the experiences of my ancestors who fled their homes and homelands to survive.
No wonder my body has learned this lesson so well:
Groups are not safe.
The Ground Rule: Take Care of Your Own Process
But this is only the beginning. Some groups – especially Focusing groups – can offer an alternative.
When I facilitate a Focusing group I start with this simple acknowledgment: A group is not a safe space.
Especially groups where we invite our most vulnerable and tender inner experiences into the shared space, like Focusing groups.
Every time I say this, I hear the same quiet exhale.
“Yes,” people say to me, sometimes later, privately – “I never really feel comfortable in groups”.
We are not required to trust the group. On the contrary: we are allowed not to trust as long as we need, and from there we establish one of the core principles of Focusing:
Each person takes care of their own process.
Each individual is responsible for themselves.
The only shared commitment is that we do not harm one another.
Practically speaking, this means I continually ask myself:
What feels right for me to share?
When do I want to participate?
Does my body say “no” to this exercise?
As a participant, I want to trust the inner guards that know how to care for me.
As a facilitator, I want to make room for them.
People sometimes worry that such freedom will weaken the group.
What if no one shares?
What if people opt out?
Won’t the group fall apart?
My experience has taught me the opposite.
Yes, a group is an unsafe space to begin with, but it can cultivate safety and trust and following that – deep engagement.
When a group is an allowing environment for every participant, when our pace and our process are genuinely respected, when we are welcome as we are – this remarkable process begins: we naturally become more capable of extending that same respect to one another. We can listen to those who are different from us, and honor their pace and their process.
And the more we feel honored and accepted the more we can trust. We allow ourselves to deepen in and share out more.
Gradually, trust grows and safety emerges, at the group’s own pace, by the group’s unique process.
The group becomes a safe space, and what each and every one of us long for:
A place where I can belong exactly as I am.
When our pace and our process are genuinely respected, when we are welcome as we are… we can listen to those who are different from us, and honor their pace and their process.
The Possibility to Trust
In Family Constellation work we speak of Radical Inclusion, meaning: everyone who belongs to the system has a rightful place within it.
But for the inclusion to be radical, very much like Radical Acceptance of Focusing, it has to allow everyone to be(long) exactly as they are. This is where inclusion turns into belonging.
In that process, our bodies experience the possibility of trust, of leaning on others without the risk of self-abandonment.
We do not have to pay an unbearable price in order to belong.
We can receive empathy, resonance, and support while remaining fully ourselves.
We can experience belonging in its deepest sense, and heal our ancient wounds.
