The need to belong

The need to belong can distance us from what we want or enhance a field of our development. In this article we will explain why. In addition, we will detail what it is about and how to create a belonging that nourishes us… instead of taking steps away from our well-being.

Health has to do with the social, psychological and physical field, according to the World Health Organization. Therefore, our quality of life usually increases when we invest in one of these plans. In this sense, interactions enrich the social level; Therefore, an intelligent measure is to take care of them.

However, making a certain interaction become a dependency can cause us great harm. We will also talk to you about that today.

Need to belong, what is it?

When we talk about the need to belong, we refer to that interest in being part of a group. And, when we say necessity we mean, an irresistible or urgent impulse to do it. In this sense, when people feel that this need is not covered, we usually use means and invest important resources to make it stop being like that.

Abraham Maslow, humanistic psychologist, spoke that human beings must satisfy certain needs in order to achieve self-realization. But this author, He did not refer to necessity as dependence, Rather, he proposed that it was difficult to achieve a need that was at the top of the pyramid without having nourished the others.

In this way, if we look at the social landscape, unfortunately it would be easy to find people who have an exaggerated desire to belong; so much so that it is toxic.

When wanting to connect, it distances us

When need motivates everything, it can distance us from our goals, even from who we are. This is because we only focus on how to enter that long-awaited group and forget about the rest of the plans. On the other hand, when we try to be involved, we can sabotage our purpose: anxiety prevents us from being spontaneous.

This means that, as with all needs, The satisfaction of one does not cancel out the satisfaction of the others when it consumes the entire range of resources we have available.. In a special way, we talk about attention and time.

By thinking over and over again and not being able to continue our lives without it, we distort our projection, supporting it on a very dangerous dependency: dissatisfaction. We begin to forget ourselves, and we stop knowing what we are like, which is essential for assertiveness when making decisions in our daily activities.

How to create a belonging that nourishes us?

Putting aside the mask or the theater may be a good idea. Showing ourselves in a natural way will also make us end up fitting into certain groups naturally, minimizing wear and tear and making rejection more unlikely.

For another, we can flow Sometimes we anchor ourselves in thoughts or emotions that are of little help. There are even times when we pay too much attention to what happened or we keep thinking repetitively about what is going to come; This makes spontaneity difficult, and we stop enjoying the present moment.

In fact, Steven C Hayes, American clinical psychologist, points out in his book A liberated Mind. How to Pivot Toward What Matters, the essential of separating the important from the accessory so that we can live with greater freedom, harmony and courage.

On the other hand, Belonging to a group is not everything. Although systematic and unwanted isolation does not help either, what matters is that a need does not end up completely hijacking our plans. It is not always necessary to satisfy one need before jumping to another; In fact, in many cases, the alternation is positive.

Going one step further, we can say that Sometimes people feel excluded, even if they belong to a certain group, society or culture. Martín Hopenhayn talks about this in his article “Sense of belonging in fragmented societies. Latin America from a global perspective. He comments on how globalization, politics and identity play an important role in the feeling of belonging.

In sum, The need to belong is toxic when it is so intense that it leads to the hijacking of resources and interests. and healthy when we talk about it being a stimulus for growth. So, perhaps the key is not to satisfy it, but to choose those resources that we can afford to invest in this field and allocate them to it.

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