The Speed of Belonging (Part 3 of 4)

Cultivating Belonging in our Communities

Before we dive into Principles 5–8 (please catch up on Part 1 & Part 2 if you haven’t), I want to quickly introduce the concept of micro acts of othering and belonging.

First we have Microaggressions. These are small actions, often reflexes from implicit biases, that make someone feel like they shouldn’t be a part of this group or space — those little bitty acts that say to someone, “you don’t belong, you can’t be trusted, you’re less-than”.

On the other side, we have Microinclusions. These are tiny moments and actions that make some feel more belonging. A hello walking by someone. As Caesar McDowell states, it is a symbolic action that forces us to recall the humanity of others.

Culture is created in these micro-moments. They can be either the beautiful butterfly flaps that can change how an individual feels accepted in a group, or they end up being a pebble that leads to a spiral not of someone not being able to bring feel safe, comfortable and bring their whole selves to a group.

In the transformative times that we are living in, I hope that everyone can start to really move beyond our subconscious (and conscious) tendencies that perpetuate the acts of othering, and turn them into acts of belonging.

Now, onto our second four Principles to move at The Speed of Belonging.

Principle 5: Slow Down and Check In. Reflect and Learn. Adapt and Emerge.

Intentionally and organically provide regular opportunities to pause, take a breath, and see where everyone is at the moment. Always being fluid and flexible as we give everyone a voice — an opportunity to share and dictate what is needed next as a collective. We are all coming together with our own identities, pasts, and traumas. Some are noticeable, some aren’t, but we all have them and express them differently. It is essential to move slowly, empower agency, and gain consent as groups move through agendas.

To create an ever-evolving and emergent community full of trusting relationships, it is essential to create habitual stopping points for deep reflection and learning to occur. This not only intentionally guides flexible and resilient adaptation, but it also fosters agency and responsibility as the community makes it a priority to listen to everyone and encourage a constant sharing and flowing of ideas. Use a platform like FunRetro to get community verified feedback on your different decisions, programs, groups, etc.

“Many of us have been socialized to understand that constant growth, violent competition, and critical mass are the ways to create change. But emergence shows us that adaptation and evolution depend more upon critical, deep, and authentic connections, a thread that can be tugged for support and resilience. The quality of connection between the patterns. Dare I say love.” — Adrienne Maree Brown

Principle 6: Name It. Acknowledge It. Nurture It.

It is inevitable that challenges will come up and harm will be done in a community. First and foremost, recognize that there is real power in the act of naming. Encourage people to bring forth emotions, feelings, and inner conceptual thoughts to the surface, to first find the language (an internal transformation towards understanding and recognition), and then bring it to life by saying it outloud (an external transformation of the collective) with a goal of establishing relational trust. As Peggy Holman writes, “Naming is…a moment of coming together. Difference coalesces, forming a novel whole.”

Journaling is a personal individual practice that has embodied this concept for me. Thoughts, pains, and fears cycle and circle back, often leading to internal ruminating and not being able to understand where emotions and feelings are coming from. To get those out of my mind and body, I let them flow out in my writing as a means to process, understand, and nurture.

I think of a community as something similar to a body and mind in that way. It is essential to create a culture that brings those tensions, honestly and transparently, to the surface, so a real conversation around feelings and needs can be openly discussed and trust can be built. A group can’t move forward with trust or belonging until those inner “cringes” or “uumms” or “eehhhs” get verbalized, acknowledged, and welcomed into the space fully. And in my experience, if one person says it, many more are thinking it.

When harm is done by an individual, create spaces for the harm to be repaired and grown from, on both sides of it — transforming the hurt and the subsequent justice, into a bridging and bonding moment, not a breaking one. (For more, check out: Mia Mingus. Tada Hozumi, Kinship Protocol. Nora Samaran, Turn This World Inside Out. Mariame Kaba and Shira Hassan, Fumbling Towards Repair.

“If we become collectively willing to grow until we recognize even the most hidden kinds of ongoing systemic harms, and become able to support one another even as we challenge each other and struggle together, we will have found one part of the path to a healthy community that can handle these kinds of harms, both internal and external, without continual fracturing.” — Nora Samaran

Principle 7: Cultivate Dyads and Self-Organizing Crews.

Humans connect deepest and most vulnerably in one-on-ones and small groups. These pairings and crews are where trusting and supportive relationships can take shape, individuals can feel an intimate sense of belonging to a grander whole, and diverse perspectives can connect and collaborate without structural rules. In short, this is where the transformational magic happens. As Margaret Mead eloquently stated, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

First, one feels belonging in the self, which feels belonging in a partnership, which feels belonging in a small group, which feels belonging in a community, which feels belonging in a city, etc, etc, until we reach belonging in the world. Put your energy into curating, modeling, and empowering the self-organization of these small fractals — everything else will stem from that. “What we practice at the small scale sets the patterns for the whole system”. (For more on forming small groups: Richard Bartlett, Crewing, Microsolidarity.)

One implementable strategy for this is to host monthly or quarterly Open Space-style gatherings with the goal being for members of the community to offer up questions, suggestions, and invitations for small groups to form around. These themes could be anything from a book club or an accountability group to a volunteering team or a business endeavor. Whatever a convener calls a group around, other members join the invitation that calls to their heart. The small groups, then self-organize autonomously and create their own plans and timelines to meet regularly over the coming month or quarter to fulfill their co-created purpose (although it’s not a bad idea to offer a rough framework to bond, align, and co-design, similar to the “Community Co-Designer Team” outline in the second principle). As small groups begin to take both form and function, work to instill processes and habits that weave together these small groups so they can bridge to one another, learn from each other, and practice emergence together.

“A Crew is a group that is small enough to fit around a single dinner table, around 3–8 people. This is about the same size as a nuclear family, but without the parent-child power dynamics. This is a long-term set of relationships with singular purpose, like a co-op, shared house, or affinity group. The size is important, because it is small enough to stay highly coordinated with minimal explicit rules & roles, and large enough that your enhanced impact is worth the cost of collaborating. If you observe many interactions in a Crew, you get many opportunities to learn about different ways of being a Self and being in a Partnership.” — Richard Bartlett

Principle 8: Foster Transformative, Vulnerable, Real Conversations.

Intentionally create space for groups to engage in “emergent collective sense-making” or “collective insighting”. Break through the small talk and engage around identities and feelings, ideas and dreams, and the questions that are deeply alive in us. These conversations are where fears and pains and difference can turn into relationships, where vague questions can lead to profound insights, and where vulnerabilities can be nurtured into supportive community.

These are conversations that are never about what is right or wrong or combative as in a debate with logic masking deep ripples of emotions, they are about listening and learning, sharing stories and ideas, and accepting that we all are making sense of the world differently.

I’ve noticed three characteristics involved in bringing these transformative conversations to life. 1) There are diverse, often conflicting, perspectives and viewpoints at the table. 2) The pair or group subscribes to shared values around curiosity, compassionate listening, being present, and radical honesty (oftentimes this is best done with strangers so we don’t tailor our sharings and offerings based on how we think others see us). 3) Everyone is open to welcoming multiple conflicting perspectives and worldviews, allowing them to be present and valid at the same time, and open to the possibility that their perspective and worldview could completely change as a result of the present conversation.

There is amazing transformational innovation and rediscovery happening in this space. Please check out: Ria Baeck, Collective Presencing. Guy Sengstock, The Circling Institute. Bonitta Roy. Authentic Relating. Braver Angels. Art of Hosting. Liberating Structures. The Circle Way.

“There are three ways to approach the mystery of the divine. The first is prayer. The second is meditation. And the third, and most important, is conversation”. — Rumi

To continue on with The Speed of Belonging, you can find Part 4 here.