Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: Love and Belonging Needs
The middle section of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is psychological needs. There are two tiers within this section, just as there were with basic needs. After basic needs, both physiological and safety, are met, then comes the need for love and belonging. This category includes friendship, family, intimacy, and a sense of connection.
My family moved several times around the U.S. and abroad when I was growing up. There were two moves where the need for belonging, and friendship was especially salient. My earliest formed memory is of the first day of kindergarten. We had moved back to the U.S. a few months prior. At the time I had a British accent as well as a speech impediment which had not yet been addressed. On this first day of school, I remember sitting at my desk, where I was supposed to be, all by myself, while the rest of my classmates were gathered around another student’s desk. I felt left out and didn’t know or understand what was going on. Fortunately, kindergarten turned out to be a wonderful year and the student whose desk everyone had gathered round became my best friend. I started off with a lack of belonging and friendship and was able to meet this need.
However, there was another move after which it was extremely difficult to meet this need for belonging, if I even ever did. The summer between eighth and ninth grade, between middle school and high school, when I was 13 almost 14 years old, we moved from a culturally diverse and transient suburb of Washington, DC to a small town in central North Carolina. I had never lived in a small town before; I had never lived in the South before. It was a complete culture shock. Moreover, I was the only new student in my grade for months. Most of my classmates had grown up together and known each other all their lives. It took me a year to make friends and form some sense of connection. When I did, it was with students who were a year ahead of me rather than in my own grade. I invited six classmates (who I thought were friends) to a birthday party and only one person came. When we moved again, I only kept in touch with one friend, who was in the grade above me. I never formed a sense of connection and belonging with my peers. I wasn’t bullied, like some high schoolers who don’t fit in; I was just ignored whenever possible. Thankfully, at the start of 11th grade we moved again, this time to suburban North Carolina where I was only the new student in my grade for three weeks and I made long-lasting friendships.
These relationships and sense of connection are important to our mental and emotional well-being. Without them we may feel lonely, depressed, and social anxiety. Humans have a need for a sense of belonging within a social group, whatever that group may look like. We need a space where we feel acceptance and can build trust with other people. Whether that space is school, church, a sports team, or a civic organization, it is key to our overall well-being to feel like we belong somewhere.
Especially on days when you are struggling with feeling like you don’t belong or fit in, this blessing below by Rev. Margaret Ernst is for you:
save this blessing for when you most need it. for loneliness. for fear. save this blessing for exhaustion. for anxiety. for crisis. save this blessing for when you feel torn between worlds between longings for when you’re caught in the crossfire and when you feel you cannot breathe. save this blessing for when the world you are birthing with your bare hands is not coming fast enough. most importantly: save this blessing for when you think the last thing you deserve is a blessing. for when the right words are not coming. for when you want to quit. and when the work feels like it’s never enough and that it will not save you. save it because this blessing refuses to believe the worst things you say about yourself the worst things anyone has ever said to you. and refuses to let either have the final word. this blessing will not try to fix you. or silence you. or make you into something you are not. it will not whisper false hope or have the answers. but it will breathe by your side. here is what this blessing knows: that you are needed that your people need you. and that if you haven’t found your people yet or lose them they can always be regrown in other words, let this blessing be a safe house. let it be a dream let it be laughs that slip through the cracks. let it be dancing. let it be another start. let it be the tap on your shoulder helping you remember you do not have to do anything alone.