For several years I’ve wrestled with the question: How can I help people get out of the ruts they occupy and start building satisfying, purposeful lives.
Yes, sometimes I wish my lane as a professional coach was something more tangible like weight loss or investing. That seems easier.
But nearly every human throughout history has asked, what is the purpose of my life?
I find the question surfaces for people going through a midlife transition – not just there, but often there. Prompted by a change in identity like divorce, empty nest, sobriety, or the simple awareness of time passing, the real question is:
Am I satisfied with how I’m spending my wild and precious life?
Am I doing with my life what is mine to do?
There’s a restlessness living deep in the question, and Western culture isn’t great at helping people answer it. For some reason, it’s my calling to do so.
On Belonging – Here’s what I know:
Joy and satisfaction rest on three pillars: love, belonging, and purpose. But we don’t talk enough about the second pillar: Belonging.
I don’t need to tell you Americans are living the most independent and socially isolated lives in human history.
Humans are wired to live in tribes of 30-40 people, but few of us still do. Our brains, which evolve much slower than culture, can’t figure out where everyone is, which makes us anxious.
Conservative estimates say 30% of Americans feel lonely at least once per week. Thirty percent of 18-24 year olds report feeling lonely every day.
Because of the negative health outcomes associated with loneliness – dementia, heart disease, depression, anxiety, stroke – the US Surgeon General has called it a public health epidemic.
Our culture’s veneration of hyper-individualism created a crisis of belonging – even before the pandemic.
What Do We Do?
Writer and global citizen Brian Stout defines belonging as “a felt sense in our bodies of safety, power, wholeness, and welcome. It is a relational quality that can be cultivated and practiced.”
It’s only been 80 years since a swath of the American population moved off multi-generational farms into apartments in the city or suburbs full of single-family homes.
Even more recently, people have abandoned regular church attendance and the rhythm and community it provides.
Twenty years ago, 42% of US adults attended church weekly, says Gallup, today it’s 30%.
Those are but two places, rich with friendship, connection, and support, where we once were embedded. For many those places have completely vanished, and nothing has replaced them. Where do we practice belonging now?
Plus, hyper-independence teaches that to protect our freedom, we must keep our options open, commit to nothing, and value independence the most.
We see clearly now the fruit of that tree is isolation, loneliness, superficiality, and selfishness.
We must do better.
How to Belong Again.
The wise approach is not independence, but interdependence. To commit ourselves deeply and regularly in a place, with people, who both need and are needed by us.
However, such a commitment costs time, personal freedom, patience, and effort. It’s hard, but so is loneliness and disconnection. Choose your hard.
And don’t we so admire people who are other-focused and generative? How do we become those people?
Step one: Admit to the isolation and loneliness. This can be tricky because there is a grade-school stigma attached to not belonging. Rather than risk feeling like a “loser” and admit we are dying for connection, we just stay “super busy at work” and binge Netflix alone at night.
Step two: Realize that human connection is a biological imperative. And Instagram doesn’t count. Co-regulation is a fancy term for live, in-person, face-to-face communion with another nervous system. Ever feel calm in the presence of someone’s calm? Happy? Exuberant? That’s co-regulation. Many non-western cultures never gave up on it, and they are healthier for it.
Step three: Commit somewhere. Evaluate your skills, interests, and talents. Witness the needs in your community and ask which of them outrage you.
Where can you show up, not to rescue or fix, but to contribute? Then go and do it.
Not just occasionally, to see how you like it, but regularly. Commit to a place and a people doing work you care about, even when it’s messy and hard, as it will most certainly be. Churches with a healthy service apparatus, (plus community meals – yay!) are a great place to start. I’m looking at you, First UMC Pensacola, but there are many, search them out.
Step four: Recognize it’s not about you. It’s about embedding and allowing yourself to be used and needed – year after year. Believe it or not, when you learn to give without self-immolation, you find yourself refilled with something that feels a lot like love and purpose.
I know this sounds nuts in our self-obsessed culture, where we avoid committing to things and people just to keep our options open.
Ironically, we can be so focused on self-care, self-improvement, and self-analysis that we find ourselves swimming in a beautiful pool of awareness and options, but we’re still in there alone.
Let’s fix that by taking the focus off us and placing it on others. It’s there we discover a deep forgotten well of living water – a place where we finally belong.
________________________________________
Erin Kirk is a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) with 7 years in local practice. She is a L1 trained Internal Family Systems Practitioner, a relentless gatherer of people, and an East Hill local.
The exact path to purpose is on the agenda at the 2024 Pensacola Firegirl Retreat, Oct 25th-28th at the Pensacola Beach Hilton. This women’s-only event is designed to help you craft and plan the elements of your happy second half, in the exuberant presence of other women doing the same thing.
For more information, go to Girl Catch Fire.
For a Pensacola Locals Only discount use this link to register.
