A RAPPORT TO BUILD🤝🤝
We all like to connect with others in the society we live in. That is how the system works. As the connect instils a sense of belonging to us. In this blog I have penned a few lines about the same .
Where Does Belonging Truly Come From—A Place or a Person?
We all like to connect with others. That is how human dynamics works. These connections are what give us a sense of belonging, anchoring us in the vastness of our everyday lives. In this blog, I’ve penned a few reflections on that very idea.
A few days ago, while scrolling through Substack, I stumbled upon an interesting challenge by Liora. The task was simple: pick one of three prompts and write 500 words on it. I decided to give it a try.
The prompt I chose was:
“Where do you feel a sense of belonging in a place, or with a specific person?”
This question intrigued me, because the idea of “belonging” was never something people consciously analyzed in the years gone by. Life back then moved at a gentler pace. You studied, found a job, got married, raised a family, and carried on. When I say “peaceful,” I don’t mean life was without challenges or worries far from it. Every household had its share of struggles. But there was a quiet acceptance, a determination to balance the tides while keeping the home warm, stable, and loving.
Belonging can emerge in many forms. You might feel it when you leave home for college, when you move abroad for higher studies, or when a daughter marries and gently adapts to her new family. The list goes on, because belonging is a deeply human need one that shows up at every stage of life.
Before the smartphone era, relationships and understanding between people felt stronger and more grounded. When a son or daughter moved to a new city for work, PGs were not the first option, nor were endless hostel hunts. The natural instinct was to stay with a relative until life found its rhythm. Those days truly created a “home away from home.”
A new job didn’t just teach professional skills. It taught the art of adjusting to routines, to habits, and to the people you lived with. These slow, steady accommodations laid the foundation for real bonding. Over time, those small adaptations created a strong sense of belonging. To feel “at home” in a completely new home is no small achievement yet, a few decades ago, this was a way of life that most people accepted and embraced.
As for me, my answer to the prompt is simple and comes straight from the heart:
I feel a sense of belonging because of a person.
For me, the place becomes secondary. It gently fades into the background when the company I keep brings comfort, warmth, and ease.
I may get the chance to stay in a beautiful penthouse, a picturesque location, or a perfectly designed home but if the space lacks genuine hospitality, it feels empty. The stay becomes mechanical, almost like performing a routine without emotion. It might look perfect from the outside, but without warmth, it loses its soul.
To me, belonging comes from people, not the walls that surround us. A place can be modest, even small, yet feel beautifully complete when the person beside you makes you feel seen, heard, and understood.
In the end, the place may be small
but the person matters the most.
Belonging isn’t about where you are. it’s about who holds your heart while you’re there.”
What is your take on this prompt?. Your views are welcome in the comments section.
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Thank you for expressing such a heartfelt perspective on connection and the places and people that shape our inner world. Your thoughts remind us how deeply we humans seek warmth, safety, and emotional presence, our emotional needs that are timeless, as it has always been in the past and as they will be in the future. Regardless of era or lifestyle. I’d like to add another angle to the idea of belonging, one that honours human dignity, freedom, and shared love.
When we speak of “belonging,” it can sometimes sound as though one person becomes the possession of another, whereby, if any of the two, one cannot live without the other. Yet human beings are communal, we do need human contact as we were never meant to be without human interaction; in saying that, we are not objects to be owned, claimed, or controlled as that would diminish the essence of what it means to be a free, feeling, or evolving into our soul agency. Just as humanity exists as part of the Earth, and the Earth exists as part of the vast universe, belonging is found within the greater space we form together, not in the control of one over the other. Just as trees, rivers, and animals are part of nature, they too are not owned by it; it is a part of it. Likewise, the heart is part of the human body, and it is not taken hostage by it. When there is a universal understanding of belonging, we can be rid of coercive control and narcissistic control.
I believe that in relationships, whether they are romantic, familial, or chosen through life’s pathways, two individuals remain whole within themselves. The bond they build becomes a shared emotional home, and it begins and forms into something new, like a living container where truth, respect, and tenderness are held. Instead of saying, “I am yours” or “You are mine,” we might say, “We place what is precious between us, and together we protect it in something new.”
It is not one heart inside another’s hands, but it is both hearts resting safely in the care of the “Relationship” they patiently, courageously, and lovingly created and continue to nurture.
When connection grows in this way, learning through giving and accepting consent, compassion, shared efforts for common goals, and mutual understanding that even the simplest surroundings can feel rich, warm, and meaningful. What matters most is not the walls around us, nor the grandeur of the setting, but the quality of the bond we choose to build when we build connections, and a belonging to something far greater than ourselves or to another person.
As a psychotherapist and teaching about “Developing Relationships and Genuine Connections’, real belonging is not about ownership, dependence, or surrendering identity. It is about being met, being truly loved, being valued, and being free to stay in the relationship.
Try to unbelong…sometime!
Just me and my solitude…no sense of belonging! 👸