Quotes About Belonging

Stop scouring people's faces for evidence that you're not enough. You will always find it because you've made that your goal. True belonging and self-worth are not goods; we don't negotiate their value with the world. The truth about who we are lives in our hearts.

If we want people to fully show up, to bring their whole selves including their unarmored, whole hearts—so that we can innovate, solve problems, and serve people—we have to be vigilant about creating a culture in which people feel safe, seen, heard, and respected.

Now I understand that in order to feel a true sense of belonging, I need to bring the real me to the table and that I can only do that if I'm practicing self-love. For years I thought it was the other way around: I'll do whatever it takes to fit in, I'll feel accepted, and that will make me like myself better. Just typing those words and thinking about how many years I spent living that way makes me weary. No wonder I was tired for so long!

If I get to be me, I belong. If I have to be like you, I fit in.

When we spend a lifetime trying to distance ourselves from the parts of our lives that don't fit with who we think we're supposed to be, we stand outside of our story and hustle for our worthiness by constantly performing, perfecting, pleasing, and proving. Our sense of worthiness—that critically important piece that gives us access to love and belonging—lives inside of our story.

Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn't change the truth that I am brave and worthy of love and belonging.

Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging.

Heartbreak is more than just a particularly hard form of disappointment or failure. It hurts in an entirely different way because heartbreak is always connected to love and belonging. Over time, the more I've thought about heartbreak and love, the more clearly I've realized how vulnerable we are when we love anyone. The brokenhearted are the bravest among us—they dared to love.

Belonging is being somewhere where you want to be, and they want you. Fitting in is being somewhere where you want to be, but they don't care one way or the other. • Belonging is being accepted for you. Fitting in is being accepted for being like everyone else. • If I get to be me, I belong. If I have to be like you, I fit in.

True belonging has no bunkers. We have to step out from behind the barricades of self-preservation and brave the wild.

We want to be part of something, but we need it to be real - not conditional or fake or constantly up for negotiation.

Spiritual connection and engagement is not built on compliance, it's the product of love, belonging, and vulnerability.

When a group or community doesn't tolerate dissent and disagreement, it forgoes any experience of inextricable connection. There is no true belonging, only an unspoken treaty to hate the same people. This fuels our spiritual crisis of disconnection.

We are worthy of love and belonging now. Right this minute. As is.

The people who have a strong sense of love and belonging, BELIEVE they are worthy of love and belonging.

A deep sense of love and belonging is an irreducible need of all women, men, and children. We are biologically, cognitively, physically, and spiritually wired to love, to be loved,

Once we belong thoroughly to ourselves and believe thoroughly in ourselves, true belonging is ours.

It's not an accidental entanglement; it's an intentional knot. Love belongs with belonging.

Laughter, song, and dance create emotional and spiritual connection; they remind us of the one thing that truly matters when we are searching for comfort, celebration, inspiration, or healing: We are not alone.

True belonging doesn't require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are.

When we spend a lifetime trying to distance ourselves from the parts of our lives that don't fit with who we think we're supposed to be, we stand outside of our story and hustle for our worthiness by constantly performing, perfecting, pleasing, and proving.

what we are ethically called to do, is create a space in our schools and classrooms where all students can walk in and, for that day or hour, take off the crushing weight of their armor, hang it on a rack, and open their heart to truly being seen. We must be guardians of a space that allows students to breathe and be curious and explore the world and be who they are without suffocation.

Just because someone isn't willing or able to love us, it doesn't mean that we are unlovable.

Show up for collective moments of joy and pain so we can actually bear witness to inextricable human connection. Women and men with the strongest true belonging practices maintain their belief in inextricable connection by engaging in moments of joy and pain with strangers.