Belonging Is Something You Do

Yearning to belong begins early in life and becomes especially challenging during transitions such as leaving home, entering new environments, risking rejection, trying new identities, asking for help, and forming friendships. College can mirror broader difficult periods where loneliness, stress, financial pressure, and fear of failure are common. When belonging is missing, people may feel separated from others despite being surrounded by them. That separation can trigger thoughts such as feeling odd, behind, too different, or unwanted. A study of over 16,000 undergraduates across 104 U.S. colleges found that students with higher psychological flexibility reported a greater sense of belonging.

"Seeking ideas there makes sense. College can be a hard time for young people, and it may be a useful model of challenging times generally. Think about what students face: Leaving home, or at least leaving old roles. Entering new rooms. Risking rejection. Trying on identities. Asking for help. Making friends. Handling the stress of possible failure. Dealing with financial pressures, perhaps for the first time. Sitting with loneliness. Walking into a club meeting where everyone already seems to know each other. Speaking in a seminar while your heart pounds."

"We've long known that if students can develop a sense of belonging, college is much more likely to be a good experience. Without that sense, you can be sitting in a classroom, walking across a campus amidst people who seem to be having the time of their lives, and feel as if there is a sheet of glass between you and the world. Everyone else seems to know the rules. Everyone else seems to have found their people. Everyone else seems to have gotten the memo."

"You are the odd one out. You don't belong. Even if you aren't a student, doesn't that sound familiar? And then the mind starts doing what minds do: "What's wrong with me?" "They don't want me here." "I'm behind." "I'm too different." I've spent a lifetime studying how human beings get trapped inside painful thoughts and feelings like that, and how we can learn to carry them differently."

"Students who were higher in psychological flexibility reported a much greater sense of belonging. The difference was not tiny. Students in the highest quartile of psychological flexibility were more than a full standard"

Read at Psychology Today