The Biology of Belonging

Photo: Bates Lane Photography

My dad moved to Chicago from Mexico at age 23, determined to achieve the elusive American Dream. He had grown up one of many siblings of a poor family with an abusive alcoholic father. Having experienced both the physical and emotional hardships of such a childhood, he was willing to work as hard as he possibly could to assimilate to this land of opportunity. Several months after he arrived, he was deported during an ICE raid on the meat-packing warehouse where he worked. He was dating my mom at the time, and she remembered that he just disappeared one day. He wasn’t able to let her know what happened until weeks later. He made a surprise return several months later, they eloped soon after, and then he returned to Mexico to get his papers, much easier now that he was married to an American. He went on to become a U.S. citizen.

The Benefits of Belonging

According to Cornell University, belonging is the feeling of security and support when there is a sense of acceptance, inclusion, and identity for a member of a certain group. A large body of research confirms that belonging increases life expectancy. In the workplace, a sense of belonging correlates with a 50% increase in productivity, a 50% drop in turnover, and a 75% reduction in sick days.

In 1961, the remote village of Roseto, Pennsylvania, was home to a community of Italian immigrants. They worked together in the stone quarry and blouse factory. Multigenerational homes were the norm, and there would be communal feasts for dinner every night. Everyone attended the local church together. A visiting doctor took note that heart disease was far less prevalent in Roseto than in any of the neighboring communities. The rate in Roseto was less than half the national average, and the death rate was 35% lower than the national average. Upon further investigation, it was discovered that the village had zero suicide, zero alcoholism or drug addiction, no one on welfare, and far less crime on average.

The doctor hired a research team to find out why. They looked at diet, lifestyle, genetics, water, and healthcare. It was found that smoking cigarettes was the norm, many were sedentary, drank wine, and were often obese. They couldn’t afford olive oil so they cooked with lard. Animal fat made up over 40% of their calorie intake, yet seemingly without the typical negative health impacts.

As the children in the community grew up, went to college, married outside of the community, stopped going to church, and bought single-family homes in the suburbs, the disease and death rate in Roseto began to rise, and in the next decade would match the national average.

Although I easily assimilated into white American culture, I knew my family had different expectations of me than my friends’ families. I noticed that in Mexico, Dad was especially hard on us. He seemed embarrassed that his American children lacked that strong sense of respect and obedience so pervasive in his home culture. I felt almost disowned for moving into my own apartment after college. I remember sitting next to him on the couch, asking through tears if he even loved me. He didn’t answer. He didn’t even look at me. I knew I was deeply disappointing my dad but I wasn’t sure why. I have learned that this is a common experience for children of immigrants.

My dad earned a Bachelor’s in accounting, a field he’d never get hired in, he believed, because he was Mexican. He took speech lessons to eliminate his Mexican accent and sometimes even disparaged his paisanos. Belonging was a luxury he wasn’t afforded in his life, and so was not able to extend it to me.

Barriers to Belonging

Unhealed trauma can cause social isolation that leads to loneliness, which in turn leads to poor health. It is said that loneliness is as bad for your health as smoking cigarettes. Lonely people have higher rates of heart disease, breast cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease. Lonely bodies age more rapidly.

Psychologist John Cacioppo believes that curing loneliness isn’t as much about spending more time with people as it is about altering our attitude about people. Traumatized individuals may view other human beings as potentially dangerous. I admit, I’m in this category. Perhaps, my dad passed this on to me. As do so many parents, especially those with marginalized identities. When we have repeatedly felt unsafe around people, being around people can trigger stress hormones, and isolating feels like the safer choice.

As my dad grew older, and I grew up, got married, had kids of my own, and got divorced, our relationship softened, though I never felt that he trusted me to make good decisions. In 2017, he was living in Mexico, and I was planning to bring my kids, then 11 and 7, to Mexico for the first time to visit him. He tried to persuade me not to! I was unclear why and fought feelings of being rejected by him again.

We went to Mexico anyway and made many lovely memories. He spent hours playing with his grandsons in the pool while my mom took me to get a tattoo that I hid from him. They were divorced but still spent time together with us.

That night at dinner, I told my dad about the book “Mind Over Medicine” by Lissa Rankin, M.D., specifically the chapter entitled “Loneliness Poisons the Body,” where I learned about the Roseto study and the other research cited in this article. I meant to encourage him to move to a condo community where he could see people every day. He was alone often and admittedly depressed.

One month after our visit, he was found dead in the lounge chair in front of his TV, by a realtor and prospective buyers. He’d had a heart attack 3 days earlier. None of us knew he was sick. I believe that his loneliness had at least a small part to play. Somewhat of a loner myself, it was a wake-up call for me.

Getting to Belonging

If like me you’re ready to access the amazing health benefits associated with belonging, here are a few proven practices.

Go to a good church. I don’t! However, multiple studies show a strong correlation between attendance at religious services and longer life expectancy, 7 ½ years longer on average. One study even found that heart surgery patients who received support from their religious community were 3 times as likely to be alive 6 months later.

Get spiritual. You don’t have to affiliate with a religion to enjoy the benefits of a spiritual community. Practicing mindfulness in meditation, yoga, walking, or playing music alone and with others can optimize your health too.

Cohabitate. Studies have shown that people who live alone have higher levels of stress hormones than their partnered counterparts. However, being single is better for your health than being in an unhealthy or unbalanced relationship. Hence the fact that single women in general live longer than married women, but married men live longer than single men.

Having said all that, none of that is good for you if it isn’t healthy. If you attend a church that judges and shames you, and you feel like you have to mask your authentic self, you’re better off isolated because fitting in is the opposite of belonging.

Be authentic. In her book “Braving the Wilderness,” Brene Brown asserts that fitting in is the opposite of belonging.

“Fitting in is about assessing a situation and figuring out who you need to be to be accepted. Belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are.”

Heal trauma. Spending time in nature, learning to set healthy boundaries, searching out communities where it’s safe to be authentic, and showing up as ourselves in these spaces are all essential steps toward the benefits of belonging. Like every good thing, belonging begins within. Accepting ourselves with compassion is a precursor to showing up authentically with others. Bravely walking ourselves out of shame and fear cycles creates a safety net that will serve us well in our quest for belonging.

A Love is Love Story

By Teresa Cruz Foley

When we see members of the trans community in the news, it’s often about them being attacked, murdered, or attempting to read books to children in libraries, which seems to be as controversial.

This piece is not about the trans right to exist. It’s not about the danger they face every day. It’s not even about the legislation that perpetuates and protects the hate and violence against them.

This is a thank you letter.

I grew up in the Evangelical “Born Again” Christian Church. I was imbued with the belief that having premarital sex was the surest way to ruin your life and that being gay was the surest way to lose your salvation. Identifying as a gender you weren’t assigned at birth could not even be considered. These were a people to be feared.

As a teenager in the 1980s, I attended a multi-media event with my church’s youth group. The purpose of the event was to describe how deplorable it was to be homosexual. We learned that golden showers (peeing on each other) was a common practice among the lgbtq+ community to emphasize how depraved the lifestyle was. I later learned this wasn’t necessarily true or exclusive to the LGBTQ+ community. I don’t remember where I first learned the idea that AIDS was God’s punishment for homosexuality. I believed all of it, though. A dutiful Christian girl, I accepted the teachings to condemn all who identified as anything other than monogamous heterosexual. We didn’t call it hate, but I felt hatred and disgust in my heart for an entire community of people who had the courage to come out.

Years later, at our weekly group at their house, our college church leader very carefully, very strategically invited us to question the teaching that the LGBTQ+ community didn’t belong in the kingdom of heaven. I remember the absolute venomous pushback he received. People stopped coming, others continued coming to heckle his every word, no matter the topic. Eventually, the group stopped meeting. I am so grateful for this man’s courage to speak on the topic. He gave me permission to expand the beliefs I’d been given.

I attended the very conservative and academic Wheaton College in Illinois in the 90’s. It was known as the Harvard of Christian Schools. We were often reminded that we were the cream of the crop. I remember having lunch in the cafe with a new friend from English class. She confided in me that she and her roommate were attracted to each other. She told me that they were trying to resist their urges, because at least partly, they believed it was wrong, and because they would have been kicked out of school if the administration found out. I remember her telling me they were trying to stop at “grandma kisses.” I’m very relieved to tell you that my overwhelming feeling when she confided in me, was honored. She felt safe to share her story with me.

Little by little, I began to question more and more of the church’s indoctrination so deeply planted in my early conditioning. I began to notice those teachings of the church that were in direct opposition to the teachings of Jesus. I slowly began to extricate these teachings from my worldview. I still struggle with some of those old beliefs and how they play out in my view of myself and my role on this planet. Eventually, I left the church because it began to feel more like a patriarchal institution than a safe spiritual community. Among other specific reasons, I did not want to be where the LGBTQ+ community were not welcomed.

A decade later, in a multi-cultural psychology course for grad school, I chose LGBTQ+ youth as the population to learn about for my cornerstone project. I attended the Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Youth (BAGLY) meetings, where teens squeezed together on a couch and shared their stories with me. Most of them had come out to their parents by age 15. These kids had done so much introspection, so much tuning in and aligning with themselves. They bravely chose authenticity over fitting in. It was a profound lesson for me. I was in love with them, in awe of them—maybe a little envious. I wanted to know what it felt like to be aligned like that. I wondered what thoughts I would have about myself if my brain hadn’t developed inside the configns of the Christianity I was taught. I wonder how differently our world would look if more people chose authenticity and alignment like these kids. These masters of a practice I knew little about.  they influenced me to find my way to align with myself more deeply.

To the LGBTQ+ community: You are still my soul’s teacher. I appreciate you for existing. I think about Nex Benedict, the nonbinary 16-year-old who died early this year after a beating by classmates in their school bathroom in Oklahoma. Nex should be alive. Their death was a senseless, avoidable tragedy.

My precious trans friends and family, you are heroes to me. I’m so grateful for your courage and I am blessed by your existence. I appreciate you for getting up every day. You are a gift to me and to this planet.

Trans people, in my opinion, represent the highest form of alignment with true self. To me, this makes them the best humanity has to offer. Their existence inspires me and encourages me to be my most unapologetic self. Their influence frees me to be the fullest expression of myself.

There is so much value in the perspective of someone with lived experience as both genders. These souls have something precious to offer our culture. I want to hear about your experiences and perspective. I have so much to learn from you.

A few years ago, I started an LGBTQ+ Pride group in my town on the South Shore. As a cisgender (someone who identifies as the same gender they were assigned at birth; someone who is not transgender) and a woman who has only had cishet (both cisgender and heterosexual) partners, I’m sure people wondered why I started the group. For one reason, I started it because our town needed it. In a community listening session, I heard from LGBTQ+ youth in our town about their treatment in school. The unrelenting harassment, the threats that were carried out, and the school administrators who turned a blind eye. LGBTQ+ kids are not safe anywhere in our country.

I was an activist before organizing Bridgewater Pride. That work is important and necessary. My hope for Bridgewater Pride is to build a community for myself as much as for others. I want a community that affirms each other’s unique identities. I want a community of people who’ve done the heroic work of aligning with themselves, come what may. I want a community that supports, protects, and celebrates all expressions of gender and love. One of my favorite friends in the group often says, “I got your back.” Those words bring a comfort to me that’s hard to describe.

And as far as my own identity goes, as someone who’s only experienced cishet partnerships, and been disappointed every time, I would like to try something else. I claim the freedom to explore attraction wherever it lands for me. Maybe in what I think of as more evolved generations, pansexuality (attraction to people of all gender expressions) will be the norm. It makes more sense to me than compulsory heterosexuality.

I have so much to learn from people who dare to be their truest selves in a world that condemns this form of authenticity to death.

Precious community, thank you for being here. Thank you for your impossible courage. Thank you for your hard-won wisdom and your priceless perspective.

Love,

Your student, your fan, your people.

Tess