Journey to Belonging

By Ilene Winokur

Reflecting on life is important, but what if it leads to discovering your sense of belonging? Dr. Ilene Winokur discovered a sense of belonging by sharing her story about life in two very different places she calls home: Buffalo, NY, and Yarmouk, Kuwait. Friends and family were curious about how she adjusted to life in two different cultures. Dr

• Language: English
• Publisher: EduMatch
• Release date: Nov 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781953852571

Book preview

Preface

The trance of unworthiness keeps the sweetness of belonging out of reach. The path to ‘the sweetness of belonging,’ is acceptance - acceptance of ourselves and acceptance of others without judgment.

Tara Brach

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After much reflection, I realize that I never felt a sense of belonging in school while I was growing up. I always felt misplaced or the odd one out. My family moved several times while I was in elementary school, and even when we finally settled down, I moved from school to school due to where my house was located and the school levels available. I completed kindergarten in Lindenhurst, NY; grades 1 and 2 in Tonawanda, NY; grade 3 at Longfellow Elementary school in Kenmore, NY; grades 4 and 5 at Washington Elementary and grade 6 at Lindbergh Elementary, also in Kenmore, and then entered Kenmore Junior High School where I finally remained for three years before entering high school. By then, I had already found it difficult to make and retain friends as a very shy, introverted child. I wore eyeglasses by the time I was in second grade and was a rule follower but felt out of place in the context of school. I was bullied by a fellow student who followed me home from school every day of grade 3. I was always upset when I got home. It got so bad that my mother finally drove around the neighborhood to find him, so she could shout at him to stop bothering me. Her initial explanation was that he was trying to get my attention because he liked me. I still find that hard to believe, and I know she was just trying to make me feel better. It didn’t.

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Another difficulty I had fitting in was being one of the only Jewish families in the neighborhood. Our community was mostly White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. I tried to fit in, but never felt like I belonged. As Brené Brown says, Fitting in is about assessing a situation and becoming who you need to be accepted. Belonging, on the other hand, doesn't require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are. In fact, there are many discussions about ways to ensure children feel accepted and happy in their surroundings in order to learn, but we pay little attention to ensuring they feel a sense of belonging: at home, in the classroom, and with their peers. It took me many years to realize how essential it is to feel a sense of belonging. That is why I have written this book. I believe my experiences with finding my sense of belonging will help others find theirs.

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This book began with several blog posts explaining my journey to belonging in Kuwait, my journey to understand life in two different cultures: Buffalo, New York and Yarmouk, Kuwait. Along the way, I discovered that feeling a sense of belonging helped me understand the reason I felt at home in both places. I also learned that feeling a sense of belonging is essential for each of us to thrive and succeed. I also realized my stories demonstrate three types of belonging, self-, personal, and professional, along with our ultimate life goal to leave a legacy that is a model for others to follow. As I read through various articles and studies about belonging, I put my experiences into each context and realized that I needed to understand and appreciate my authentic self before I could have healthy personal and professional relationships with others. It wasn’t until I gained self-confidence, self-efficacy, and self-worth that I began to experience feelings of personal and professional belonging within my communities.

Chapter 1

Introduction

What is belonging?

Fitting in is about assessing a situation and becoming who you need to be to be accepted. Belonging, on the other hand, doesn't require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are.

Brené Brown

My journey to belonging began years ago when people I met or relatives I visited asked me about how I had adjusted to life in two very different places. I read that to feel a sense of belonging, we need to feel safe, to feel that we can be our authentic selves, not pretending to fit in with others by being the same as them. I believe, as did Abraham Maslow, the founder of humanistic psychology, that rather than a hierarchy of needs, the steps intertwine and go back and forth, in and out. They change as we experience different stages in our lives. I also believe safety and belonging are the prerequisite conditions for happiness, satisfaction, success, and achievement. We can be our best selves as we move back and forth between the stages and experiences. Part of feeling safe is having basic needs met, such as food, clothing, and a roof over our heads. These don’t happen in a straightforward manner. Feeling a sense of belonging is a continuum that we move back and forth throughout our lives, and other needs should be in place to achieve well-being. In our classrooms and our homes, the focus should be on healthy relationships and creating a safe space to ensure each of us finds our sense of belonging.

After reading the research about belonging by Brené Brown, Abraham Maslow, Scott Barry Kaufman, and others, I concluded there are three types of belonging: self-, personal, and professional, with our ultimate life goal to become a good ancestor, to be remembered for good deeds and serve as a model for others to follow. If we establish ourselves first with self-belonging or a sense of self-worth and self-confidence, then our relationships with family, friends, and those closest to us will be healthier and more fulfilling.

Humans are relationship seekers. We need to feel a connection with others in order to feel safe. Frequent interaction plus persistent caring creates bonds that are sought after by humans and motivate us. This need is rooted in the development of mammals over past centuries and their ability to survive (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). In simple terms, belonging is a basic need all humans have, and if it isn’t fulfilled, we don’t feel well, and we cannot achieve our goals. Researchers Baumeister and Leary conducted a literature review in 1995 and proposed two conditions for belongingness. They called it the belongingness hypothesis: People seem to need frequent, affectively pleasant or positive interactions with the same individuals (and) the interactions need to occur within a framework of long-term, stable, caring and concern (p. 499). Superficial or infrequent positive interactions with casual acquaintances are not fulfilling. We need healthy long-term relationships to feel a sense of belonging.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow before Bloom ¹ is a popular phrase used by educators to place a focus on social and emotional learning (SEL) and trauma-informed pedagogy before introducing content objectives. Educators believe that focusing on Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy supports children’s need to feel safe and sets them up for academic success. However, while educators might know about the hierarchy of needs, they might not be aware that Maslow did not visualize his theory of motivation as a pyramid.

Abraham Maslow was the founder of the humanistic psychology movement. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a motivational theory in psychology and comprises five tiers: the most basic human needs are physiological (food and clothing), then safety (job security), love and belonging needs (friendship), self-esteem, and self-actualization. ² According to research by Scott Barry Kaufman published in his book Transcend (2020) and an interview he published in Scientific American with the researchers who verified this information, Maslow never portrayed the hierarchy of needs as a pyramid. In the 1960s, a management consultant created the visual to simplify the theory of motivation for students in university business courses. However, after years of research, Maslow determined there is no linear path to achieving the needs or self-actualization. His notes and letters document his belief that people flow in and out of different needs depending on their life circumstances and experiences. Unfortunately, what we learned in our introduction to psychology course about Maslow’s theory was not entirely his work. Due to his early death at age 62, Maslow never completed his research, so Kaufman spent years searching through his published and unpublished writings to make sense of Maslow’s theory. Below is a table that clears up the general misconceptions about Maslow’s theory based on Kaufman’s (2020) findings.

Kaufman extended Maslow’s theory of motivation to show an integrated hierarchy of needs. According to Maslow, "The human needs are arranged in an integrated hierarchy rather than dichotomously, that is, they rest one upon another… This means that the process