the risk of the self

There's a difference between fitting in and belonging. When we fit in, we're who others expect us to be. When we belong, we're who we really are.

While this distinction may feel clear to our minds, in our bodies it’s not always so straightforward.

For our Black and brown ancestors, fitting in, or at least trying not to get noticed by eyes that could break our bodies, meant survival.

This wisdom got passed down to us. Today, our bodies know how to contort to appease the expectations of the colonialist, imperialist, white supremacist, patriarchy.

We know how to be good listeners, to ask the right questions, say the correct things, laugh at the appropriate times and keep quiet at others. We know how to help, be dependable and not "act a fool." Our bodies go through the motions of "fitting in" automatically.

At the same time, many of us are aching to be more of who we really are under this performance. We're hungry not to fit in but to belong.

Our bodies aren't as practiced at belonging. Longing to belong, they do what they’ve been taught to do. We perform the role of fitting in hoping it will bring us belonging. Some part of us thinks if we do it just right, maybe one day our full selves will be accepted. It's easy to see the problem here.

If fitting in is a rigid performance, belonging is a wild improvisation.

And it’s an improvisation that most of us are out of practice with.

Belonging requires us to do the opposite of what we're shaped to think we should do to belong. It requires allowing the parts of ourselves we've been trained to never expose (our messiness, our grief, our uncertainties, our insecurities, our anxieties, our depression, our fears) to be seen.

Risking belonging means reclaiming what our ancestors learned to bury to protect their bodies. It means contradicting the expectations of the oppressive systems we’re all shaped by.

This risk begins not by parading our vulnerability before a room. Let's face it, in many situations this is still unsafe. Rather, because history and environment have taught us to fear our wildness, finding belonging begins within.

We start by asking, what are the places I have banished? What are the truths I'm afraid to allow? With kindness, we slowly begin to welcome ourselves home. In learning to belong to ourselves first, we equip ourselves to risk belonging in our world.

Wilding alongside you,
Kelsey