So how does one make it through the wilderness alone? From the author’s point of view, true belonging means belonging to yourself and no-one else, and this truly is something that we all have the power to control. You don’t have what it takes to survive the wilderness.’ This is when you reach deep into your heart and remind yourself, ‘I am the wilderness.’” Someone, somewhere, will say, ‘Don’t do it. She notes: “There will be times when standing along feels too hard, too scary, and we’ll doubt our ability to make our way through the uncertainly. To help us counter this, Brown encourages us to look within and ask ourselves some very difficult questions to find peace and understand our place in the world. No one wants to feel alone or isolated, so forming groups or factions becomes our primary need, but this doesn’t solve our feeling of loneliness but further intensifies it. It is easier to find people who agree with our pocket worldview which makes conflict resolution a lot more difficult.įrom childhood to adulthood, we are all searching for a sense of belonging which is not only a desire, but a primary need. Rather than uniting us in a global community that forms around common goals, our societies are only dividing more and more towards hate and ‘othering’. In a time where social media has connected us all, we are only connected to those we agree with and link feelings of unbelonging to feelings of anger and unrest. This book has been described as an important and timely piece of work that challenges everything we know about cultivating true belonging in our communities.

To help us get to grips with balancing work with the rest of life, we recommend the book “Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone” by Brené Brown to support Chapter 4 “Know Thyself” of the Diplomatic Planner. And that brings about a whole load of challenges to diplomacy. Because if all we ever do is seek out like-minded people who want or think in the same way we do, for whatever reason, our world doesn’t becomes very small and closed off. We are all after something and we are bound to find others who want just the same thing as us.Īs a result, however, this can lead to jealousy and a very skewed view of the world. Your thought isn’t unique nor is your desire for success, belonging, wanting to feel safe and loved. Even if your ‘belonging’ means wanting to be left alone and forage in the forest, the likelihood of finding other people who think just like you is high. A sense of belonging is something that is inherently important to us.

Into the wilderness brene brown