Recently, I had an interesting conversation with my older brother. Beyond the age gap and the male/female gender difference, my brother and I have many things in common. He is the first male sibling, and I am the first female sibling to earn a college degree. He is the first male sibling, and I am the first female sibling licensed to minister. We both have been the first and sometimes the only Black person in many professional settings. Educated and accomplished, we have both been at the top of our professions and have hit bottom. My brother and I share a broad perspective of the connectivity of humanity, yet we struggle with a sense of belonging.
Early one morning, a week before speaking with my brother, I awakened, wrote down three words- guilt, pride, and shame- then went back to sleep. From my intellectual hubris, it was my intent to blog on the relational profundity of these words. Conceptualizing guilt, pride, and shame as first cousins, I would bring scholarship to enlighten the reader's understanding. After all, who would know more about the intersectionality and interconnectivity of guilt, pride, and shame than someone who has been made to believe that she is strong and resilient, accomplished and inspiring, honest and generous? Someone like...me?
My brother, 15 years my senior, had faced the immoderate self-perception which I was coming to understand. On the first day of our conversation, I asked him a reflectively insensitive question, for which I apologized. We spoke in depth about servant leadership. We talked about service to humanity as a reflection of responsibility to a higher purpose. We discussed the challenges in our sibling communication, transcendent the age gap and distance. We spoke about purpose, timing, and the higher calling versus personal ambition or desire. Finally, he asked me one question, "What are you running from?"
What I am, my brother was, and humanity is running from are guilt and shame. The root of guilt and shame is trauma. The veils of guilt and shame are pride and prejudice. Defined, shame- the painful feeling that arises from the consciousness of trauma, is what we are attempting to hide; guilt- the sense of remorse or responsibility for some offense, is the attempt to bring reconciliation, justice, or mercy. Pride, the inordinate perception of superiority, and prejudice, the inordinate perception of inferiority, prevent belonging. Guilt and shame are disguised behind the veil of pride and prejudice.
Belonging is achieved by removing the veils of pride and prejudice, healing from trauma, and overcoming inappropriate expressions of guilt and shame. You cannot earn, give, educate, or accomplish your way to belonging. Belonging is a matter of letting go of things, people, situations, and ego. Relationships may be lost on the journey to belonging; they will be replaced. In the end, self-awareness and acceptance are the cornerstones of belonging.
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