Bound Together: weaving individuals into a tapestry of connection
Bound Together: weaving individuals into a tapestry of connection
by Anne Marie Vivienne
Why do we bind ourselves together in community? Communities of family, friends, colleagues, peers, teammates, neighbors, believers?
Interbeing & Quantum Physics
In his book The Other Shore, buddhist monk and scholar Thich Nhat Hanh uses quantum physics to talk about interbeing––the idea that “nothing can exist by itself alone, that each thing exists only in relation to everything else.” He believes that it is impossible to divide things up into small elements that exist independently, and he further explains
“With the advent of quantum mechanics, many scientists no longer see matter in this way. They agree that things are composed of atoms, which are themselves composed of subatomic particles, but they now say that these particles do not exist as independent entities––they can only exist as a part of the whole. According to this principle, an electron is made only of non-electron elements. Without its electromagnetic field, an electron is not an electron. The same thing is true of protons and neutrons. They are not separate objects. A neutron is made of non-neutron elements. A proton is made of non-proton elements, and it has a relationship with everything else in the cosmos. Not only that, but subatomic particles cannot be characterized as solid entities––they are dynamic and always fluctuating.”
This scientific analogy can help explain how we as individuals exist within a community. Yes, we are individuals, but we are made up of everything and everyone we come into contact with. As we understand the nature of our existence, we can define the boundaries, connections, and limits that contribute to a healthy and bounded community.
Communities are Composed of Individuals
Community: a group of people who interact with each other, often bound within a geographical region, and share beliefs, values, or behaviors.
At some point in child development, humans begin to separate from their mothers––what Margaret Mahler identified as Separation–Individuation theory when an infant begins to develop a mental separation from the mother and grasp a sense of self. As we grow, we become aware of our own skills, proclivities, and interests. Physically, mentally, and spiritually we define what it means to be me, myself, an individual and what our role within the community will be.
We ask ourselves: what can I contribute to the community and how will that be valued? Truly, we cannot exist on our own and did not evolve to live in isolation. We evolved to interact, to contribute, to receive, to connect.
As an individual, I am constantly coming into contact with other individuals within my community. Our interactions literally keep us alive––I could not survive this world on my own, nor would I want to. As parents teach their children to become independent individuals, they are also teaching them how to play the rules of the game within a community: you have to share; be nice; say thank you; work hard; tell the truth; to say sorry.
We Evolved to Belong: We’re Connection Addicts
Of course there is separation from parents as we learn to feed ourselves, dress ourselves, drive ourselves around, and become capable adults. However, we never lose our attachment system that we were born with. Professor of Psychology, Psychiatry, and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA, Matthew D. Lieberman writes
“Each of us is born with an attachment system responsible for monitoring our proximity to a caregiver and that this attachment system sounds an alarm when we lose that proximity. Internally, that alarm manifests itself as painful distress, which quickly becomes loud crying, a separation distress call that serves to alert the caregiver to retrieve the infant.
...If babies were born with attachment systems that faded away in adulthood, then the cries of babies might fall on emotionally deaf ears. Fortunately, the same attachment system that causes us to cry as infants when we are separated from our caregiver also causes us to respond to our own baby’s cries once we are grown. We all inherited an attachment system that lasts a lifetime, which means we never get past the pain of social rejection, just as we never get past the pain of hunger.
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We are wired to be attached to others––it’s how we secure the survival and health of our human species. So when you feel hurt or rejected, it’s because you know on a biological level that you need people. But some relationships can become overwhelming or toxic. We’ve all experienced burnout and hurt from the wrong kind of connection or community.
Over a lifetime, some attachments evolve together and stay with us for decades; other attachments have their day in the sun, but as you evolve along different paths, the resonance that once bound you together is no longer necessary––and can even cause harm. Mindful cultivation of our attachment needs can be managed with healthy boundaries.
Boundaries not Barriers
Because we are fundamentally and biologically wired to connect, we crave belonging and acceptance like we crave sugar, fats, and salt. We say and do things in hopes that people will like us and welcome us into their community. Indeed, highly developed and practiced social intelligence is the way to success and survival in society. The more people like you, the more you’ll be supported and find the resources you need.
However, if we feel we have to go deep with everyone all the time and become BFF’s with everyone we feel connected to, we’re going to get in trouble as we spread ourselves too thin and start to neglect the relationships that really matter to us. There is a time and a season for quantity of friends––eventually and naturally it’s more meaningful to cultivate fewer but quality relationships.
Just as you spend your teenage years, college days, and most of your 20’s and 30’s dating lots of people to discover how you want to relate to a lifetime partner, you also spend those years finding your people––you go to every party, say yes to every dinner date, and invite nice people to your house for drinks. Everyone is welcome and you want to go to everything. It’s part of our human development to explore how you resonate with others. It’s also natural, as you get older, to begin to make boundaries around what role you want people to play in your life so you can nurture the most meaningful relationships into old age at a sustainable rate.
You learn to meet interesting people without having to collect them; you learn to make your closest family and friends your priority no matter what shiny sparkly person crosses your path; you learn to enjoy work relationships at work; you learn to let an interesting and engaging conversation end and you part ways with gratitude for the other person for showing up for a brief moment in your life to inspire you––you don’t have to start weekly coffee dates with everyone; and you learn to let people come in and out of your life in a natural ebb and flow.
You stop grasping for the security of attaching to everyone who’s nice. Because there’s a whole ton of nice, intelligent, good people out there in this globalized world. You don’t have to shut people out, but be careful that you don’t try to bring everyone in––it’s humanly impossible to be everyone’s bestie.
“The way of the Essentialist means living by design, not by default. Instead of making choices reactively, the Essentialist deliberately distinguishes the vital few from the trivial many, eliminates the nonessentials, and then removes obstacles so the essential things have clear, smooth passage. In other words, Essentialism is a disciplined, systematic approach for determining where our highest point of contribution lies, then making execution of those things almost effortless.”
What do you think?
Can you apply the idea of
Essentialism
to the way you approach
relationships and community?
Belonging vs. Fitting In
I’ve found that making boundaries begins with recognizing my own needs and intentions around my efforts to belong (a universal and biological need) versus fitting in (a grasping anxiety based in lack of self-acceptance). This differentiation came to my knowledge via Queen of Vulnerability, Brene Brown, and has helped me approach and create clean relationships with clear boundaries:
“Belonging is not fitting in. In fact, fitting in is the greatest barrier to belonging. Fitting in, I’ve discovered during the past decade of research, is assessing situations and groups of people, then twisting yourself into a human pretzel in order to get them to let you hang out with them. Belonging is something else entirely—it’s showing up and letting yourself be seen and known as you really are—love of gourd painting, intense fear of public speaking and all.
The truth is: Belonging starts with self-acceptance. Your level of belonging, in fact, can never be greater than your level of self-acceptance, because believing that you’re enough is what gives you the courage to be authentic, vulnerable and imperfect. When we don’t have that, we shape-shift and turn into chameleons; we hustle for the worthiness we already possess.
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In our need to be bound to others, to feel a sense of belonging, beware fitting in. It will come back to bite you when people’s expectations are based in your chameleon, inauthentic ways.
The “R” Word that Binds Us
Most of us can approach and even embrace our spirituality––we’re spiritual beings who experience so many meaningful moments and feelings that cannot be explained. This life is a beautiful mystery that we accept, and, most of us, want to be living a spiritually healthy life though it doesn’t always come easy.
We are living in a post-religious world––at least from a traditional definition and understanding of religion. What’s worth pointing out is the etymology of the word that so many of us have come to cringe upon hearing. Religion’s etymological roots can be traced back to a Latin word religare which means to bind. There is a reason that religions came into being so many thousands of years ago––it’s our biological nature to want to bind ourselves together in community.
We still want to be bound together. Our social boundedness is at the heart of our humanity, and we’re finding new ways based on variations of old traditional themes to keep us together: we still want to sing together; we still want to talk together; we still want to tell stories with each other; we still want to hear each other talk about the earth, the sky, the seasons.
The hope is that as we evolve, compassion, kindness, and goodwill lead the way. We, as Thich Nhat Hanh and other scholars remind us, are interbeings––connected at a quantum physical level. Our boundedness is complex and deep and real. Belonging is our genetic inheritance. We are woven together––and we can choose what story we tell on this tapestry of life.