All posts tagged: Belonging

Gratitude, Belonging, and Philosophy | Blog of the APA

Gratitude, Belonging, and Philosophy | Blog of the APA

Published by Jenni Sidey

I came to philosophy somewhat by accident. I am from a bureaucratic, military-dominated area of Northern Virginia; almost everyone I went to high school with went into IT, the military, defense R&D, or sales. When I was invited to an after-school seminar club, “The Dead Philosophers’ Society,” by a history-buff friend of mine, I initially resisted (writing this, I now realize I still have never seen Dead Poets’ Society). I had no idea what an after-school seminar discussing ‘philosophy’ entailed; I did not even know what the involved questions would be. I am glad I went, in part because I quickly realized there was something very interesting here, even if the other high schoolers did not know much, either. The initial session was not very organized, but the idea of the group was student-led discussions on various topics. The first day was deciding the future topics, of which “ethics” was chosen. So, I became interested in what “ethics” even was. Exploring online, I found what would be my philosophical starting point: John Stuart Mill. The …

Body Image Is Often About Belonging, Not Just How We Look

Body Image Is Often About Belonging, Not Just How We Look

Published by Jenni Sidey

When people talk about body image, the conversation almost always centers on appearance. The focus tends to be on whether someone likes how they look, feels confident in their skin, or is satisfied with their weight. While those questions are not unimportant, they often miss something more fundamental that shows up in therapy again and again. For many people, body image is not just about appearance. It is about belonging. Body image concerns are often rooted in a quieter, less visible question: Will my body make it harder for me to belong in the spaces I move through? This question tends to surface in subtle but powerful ways. It can show up when someone walks into a room and becomes aware of how their body might be perceived, when they choose clothing based on what will make them less noticeable, or when they feel a sense of relief blending in and discomfort when they feel exposed. These are not simply moments of insecurity. They reflect an awareness that bodies are read, interpreted, and judged within …

Philosophy at the Threshold of Belonging

Philosophy at the Threshold of Belonging

Published by Jenni Sidey

The idea of philosophy conjures images of old books and abstract debates. It tends to also be associated with the educated classes and privileged elites. I grew up in West Baltimore where I experienced homelessness for almost the entirety of high school. For me, philosophy emerged in situations of precarity and uncertainty. Those formative years, spent not so much in a single home as in a patchwork of many, shaped what are now some of my central philosophical concerns: belonging, exclusion, and the status of those at the margins of society, those at the threshold of belonging. What I want to explain here is how philosophy can, for the marginalized of society, be concrete and tactile, woven into gestures, silences, and the gritty details of daily survival; an activity that is bonded to the world, not a conjectural one that is cloistered from it.  I. Exclusion and belonging. Growing up as the family “stray,” I was often the one being dropped off and picked up. Shuffled between relatives, I could feel that my presence was tolerated …

The Tension Between Belonging and Becoming Captured in Music

The Tension Between Belonging and Becoming Captured in Music

Published by Jenni Sidey

Our family recently sat together in a theater-in-the-round, watching a new production of Fiddler on the Roof. It was not the first time we’d seen it, and we hope not the last. That’s the thing about great art; it doesn’t stay still, it grows with you. Each performance meets you where you are in your life, revealing new layers as your own story deepens. This production was especially powerful because the actors moved among the audience, breaking the fourth wall and inviting us directly into the world of Anatevka. The closeness mattered. You could see breath, fingertips, and subtle shifts in expression. When the room fell silent, there was the expected theatrical silence and the shared stillness of people remembering, connecting, and feeling. As the music touched us, we sang quietly along, smiling with memories, wiping tears, and wanting to dance with joy. We weren’t only watching the residents of Anatevka. We were sitting beside them. For those who know the story about Tevye, his daughters, and the tug-of-war between tradition and change, the narrative …

Muslim and Palestinian schoolchildren everywhere deserve safety, dignity and belonging

Muslim and Palestinian schoolchildren everywhere deserve safety, dignity and belonging

Published by Sam Flores

(RNS) — Last Friday morning (Jan. 16), students at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Maryland, just outside of Washington, arrived for school to be confronted with graffiti spray-painted on a wall. The hateful, violent Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian messages were chilling and explicit: “F*** Muslims.” “Nuke Palestine.” Beside these phrases was a Star of David. More than vandalism, the graffiti was meant to intimidate, dehumanize and cause fear in Muslim and Palestinian students walking into what should be a place where they feel as safe as any other in their lives. That evening, I spoke with the father of a Palestinian American student at the school. “I am a U.S.-born son of a Palestinian father who came to the United States 64 years ago,” he told me. “Tonight, my father is lying in his grave likely thinking, ‘I never thought it’s harder to be a Palestinian American today than it was in 1962.’” This man spoke not as an activist, but as a loving parent deeply worried about his child’s safety, dignity and mental well-being. …

Addressing Identity and Belonging in Cross-Cultural Marriages

Addressing Identity and Belonging in Cross-Cultural Marriages

Published by Jenni Sidey

When two people from different cultural backgrounds choose to build a life together, they are not only blending traditions and families but also continually renegotiating questions such as “Who am I now?” and “Where do I belong?” For cross-cultural marriages, questions of identity and belonging often sit just below the surface of daily life. Choices about language, holidays, child-rearing, faith practices, and even food can evoke powerful feelings of loyalty, loss, pride, or conflict. Over time, these everyday choices shape how each partner may understand themselves and the “we” they are creating together (Popescu & Pudelko, 2024). Recent literature explores the idea that, in cross-cultural marriages, each partner brings a complex, layered identity (Ducu & Hossu, 2025; Nguyen & Benet-Martínez, 2013). Over the course of their marriage, partners may experience identity expansion, a feeling of enrichment from new traditions, languages, and perspectives; identity conflict, when one may feel torn between cultures or pressured to choose one; and identity marginalization, a feeling of not fully belonging in either cultural world (Nguyen & Benet-Martínez, 2013). As practitioners, …

Bob Weir was a troubadour of American myth, spirituality and belonging

Bob Weir was a troubadour of American myth, spirituality and belonging

Published by Sam Flores

(RNS) — There was something mythological about Bob Weir — utterly timeless and almost primeval. An American original troubadour telling stories that felt older than the nation itself, he somehow oriented toward a future just beyond our reach. You could imagine a world before him, but a world after him was unfathomable. Which is why it landed with such force and sadness to learn that Weir died over the weekend at age 78. His story begins like a folk tale. A teenage kid, forever known as “Bobby,” wanders the storefronts of Palo Alto, California, on New Year’s Eve, 1963. He hears banjo music drifting from somewhere nearby — familiar yet mysterious, close enough to follow. Something in that sound feels like truth, or at least a trail toward it. Palo Alto at the time was still a place of apricot orchards and suburban promise, not yet the global nerve center of big tech and artificial intelligence. Bobby follows the music down an alley and meets a fellow traveler: a young man named Jerry Garcia. Instruments …

A Compelling Memoir About Shepherding, Farming, and Belonging

A Compelling Memoir About Shepherding, Farming, and Belonging

Published by José Betancourt

This isn’t just a book about sheep, of course—although, as anyone who’s ever spent time with sheep knows, they are incredible creatures, and Whybrow writes about them with curiosity and insight. It’s a book about shepherding as a way of life. It’s about pastoralism—a way of being in relationship with place that people all over the world have practiced for millennia, and a way of being that is under threat today. Woven among Whybrow’s recollections of learning how to care for the land and its creatures, both wild and domestic, are meditations on being a daughter and being a mother, on the cyclical nature of farming, and on what belonging even means. Whybrow shares stories of hard lambing seasons, encounters with coyotes, meals shared with land stewards from all over the country, the strange wonder of new motherhood, the grief of watching a beloved parent age, long winters, and mundane conversations with neighbors. As the seasons of her life go by, it’s the sheep that teach her about what it truly means to love, care …