The more introspective you are, the more you will feel like you belong.
Or at least that's the prevailing narrative of spiritual gurus and positive psychology experts, such as Eckhart Tolle and Brené Brown.
As I present in my book The Quest: The Definitive Guide to Finding Belonging, I disagree. True belonging arises from social interaction with fellow humans; it doesn't just come from within. "Due to its nature as a sentiment that stems directly from social interaction, it is simply impossible for it to arise from isolation," I write.
People explore many paths to experience an authentic sense of belonging; relying uniquely on spirituality alone doesn't cut it. The quest for belonging may start with the self, but we need to go further to address our fundamental need to belong.
Life is messy, and there must be a lot of trial and error in places, surroundings, and communities before an individual can truly belong authentically.
For Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert, the search for belonging was through a solitary journey across multiple countries. Indeed, an individual may experience belonging through travel, but these feelings usually don't last in perpetuity. Most of us seek something more approachable and permanent. Or, at the very least, we want a guide on how to find belonging when we need it.
For Tolle, by contrast, individuals should not rearrange their circumstances to find belonging but instead find peace only through a deep understanding of their deepest selves.
For Brown, as she shares in Braving the Wilderness, these are all well-intentioned and inspiring, yet the question for most of us remains: How? How exactly do we get to this idealistic destination? Where do we start this journey?
"We want to know how to get there and not what it feels like once you are there," I write. Not to mention that not many of us can afford the resources on spiritual or experiential journeys.
I would go further and say the focus on the self is a type of spiritual bypassing -- a term coined by clinical psychologist John Welwood to describe the use of spiritual concepts to shirk the necessary development work.
True developmental work is hard, and there are no shortcuts or hacks. We need to do the work to overcome our loneliness.
For me, it came from personal necessity.
I may have uncovered a splash of belonging via different social circles, but I was trying to fit in.
I may have experienced belonging highs through my love addiction and chronic dating, but these escapades were ephemeral every time.
I may have found belonging at the company I started, but I learned after selling it that it was a temporary substitute for the belonging I needed in my personal life.
And a more secure sense of belonging took a long climb.
It wasn't until I moved, distanced myself from toxic friends and groups (and found new ones), and started a family that I started feeling like I belonged for the first time. Of course, it took time and introspection, but that was only a part of my quest.
We feel like we belong when we have secure and socially affirming relationships. This creates a positive feedback loop: We seek out more of these and thus experience belonging even more deeply.
To capture this concept of a virtuous cycle, I had to create my own definition of belonging: The sense of fit within a social system where an individual feels accepted and essential while experiencing moments that reinforce these feelings.
"Find the belonging you deserve, and it will bring you a joyful life," I write.