Araucaria #1: A Sense of Belonging and the Magic of Being Seen
Published on: July 26, 2024
Summary
Araukaria's first episode explores the profound need for belonging as essential for healing, inspired by the Araucaria tree and stories of acceptance, highlighting the importance of authentic connection for our well-being.Listen
Transcript
You're listening to Araukaria. What story does one need to hear to heal?
There's a saying that innocence is the mother of innovation. This is my inspiration for creating this podcast. I hope it will lead me to an interesting place, because I'm not yet sure what kind of podcast this will be, but I know for certain that I want to share various stories. I want to create them, tell them, invite others to co-create different stories and tales. Together and individually, we can ask ourselves from time to time: What story do I need to hear to heal?
Why Araukaria?
Araukaria was the title of a therapeutic story for women that I wrote a very long time ago. I even wanted to read it here, but I couldn't find it. I thought that maybe this is a good reason to create a new story, a new tale.
Araukaria is a beautiful, in my opinion majestic tree. One of the oldest plants in the world. It grows mainly in the mountainous regions of present-day Chile. It has been there for a very long time. The people who inhabit these areas have always lived in extraordinary symbiosis with these trees and with immense respect. They used the resources of these trees but simultaneously showed extraordinary gratitude. They even, you could say, worshipped these trees as sacred. Trees as sacred. They called the most mature female Araukaria the mother, and the male one the father of the forest. To this day, the Araucanians, who named themselves in honor of this tree, believe that this is a holy pair, the parents of the forest, with their roots connected as proof that we are all connected.
This is a beautiful story. I thought it could be the topic of the first episode of this podcast - the sense of belonging. This is a very important topic, as it turns out, from the perspective of psychology, but probably not only. Because I am a psychologist and therapist, I thought that this context of research on the sense of belonging and how important this need is for our development and for all of us, especially today, deserves some dedicated space.
Because I really like stories and tales, while thinking about this first episode, I came across an extraordinary children's book. I'm a fan of picture books and children's books. This is a story whose protagonist is Rumplegrass. Rumplegrass has five crooked teeth, three strands of hair, green skin, and his left foot is slightly bigger than his right. He is strange. Or rather, he considers himself strange and unworthy of acceptance. What also stands out is that he wears a banana peel on his head. He mostly spends time in his hideout. Until one day. Then everything changes.
This is a beautiful, truly moving story about the enormous need for acceptance. It shows how each of us has something of Rumple in us - something strange that needs acceptance. This is a story about the magic of belonging. The book was recognized as it became book of the year. While becoming a bestseller wasn't perhaps the most important thing, the fact that it resonated so deeply, reaching both children and adults, shows how enormously important this need for belonging is.
It's worth referring to several scientists and psychologists who have taken up this topic and studied it. Where to start? I think it would be worth mentioning the groundbreaking work about the need to belong, "The Need to Belong," which explores not only the sense of belonging but also its connection with motivation and the sense of life's purpose.
Two scientists, Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary, published what could be called breakthrough research in 1995, where they attempted to summarize research and considerations about the sense of belonging. Their discoveries probably don't seem surprising - belonging strengthens psychological resilience, exists independently of culture, age, nationality, experiences, representing a universal need so important for our development that we essentially cannot develop without satisfying it.
This aligns with contemporary research, where neuroimaging shows how authentic, close relationships affect our brain. The focus isn't on acquaintances or the number of friends, nor on small talk. I was never good at small talk - I would even say I really don't like it, but probably not without reason I became a therapist. Deep conversations always drew me in, ones where we truly sense a kind of closeness through self-disclosure.
Research confirms that when we establish and nurture relationships focused on authentic closeness rather than just shared time or entertainment, it affects our brain and nervous system. Social engagement systems activate, which prove crucial for nervous system regulation and emotional regulation. When we feel safe in a relationship, authentically seen and heard, our nervous system enters a state of safety, allowing us to experience trust and calm regulation.
This can be easily verified when someone speaks to us in a calm, warm tone, looks at us with kindness, smiles sincerely when we feel this authenticity. It's not mere courtesy - our experience transforms, our experience of being human changes. In relationship, we suddenly feel at home, able to show parts of ourselves that might not seem attractive or acceptable at first glance, yet this vulnerability creates authentic bonds.
Deb Dana, a psychotherapist and lecturer who explains polyvagal theory accessibly, states that we are programmed to connect with others. It's practically our biological need. She begins one chapter with this quote: "It's quite possible that the most adapted, the strongest, are simultaneously the gentlest, because survival often requires mutual help and cooperation."
These words deeply resonate with me, especially as Deb Dana continues by describing co-regulation, reciprocity in relationships, and their enormous significance for our well-being and happiness. This represents that feeling and state of being yourself.
Try now to remember a moment, a situation from your life, some event or time when you felt fully yourself. Who was there? What was happening? If you don't have this experience, imagine it. Picture yourself in a place where you can finally relax. You can let go. Imagine being surrounded by people who look at you with kindness, with soft gazes and smiles. Feel the warmth and acceptance emanating from them, knowing it doesn't matter if you have, like Rumplegrass, five crooked teeth, three hairs on your head, or wear a banana peel - you are welcome just as you are, needing no changes whatsoever.
Notice how you feel, how your breathing changes, what you experience in your chest, maybe in your heart, what it feels like to be in a group of people who accept you just as you are. This short exercise helps develop this state within ourselves. Not everyone was lucky enough to experience such a bond in early childhood, but we can imagine it, practice it like meditation, allowing it to become an experience that changes our physiology.
While it sounds magical, it simply reflects the wisdom of the nervous system. Even if we missed this experience in early childhood's secure attachment, which Bowlby or Ainsworth studied, even without that crucial person who would look at us this way, this experience remains possible for us.
We can practice this internally, benefit from therapy, experience complete acceptance through therapeutic co-regulation, discover what it feels like to have a regulated nervous system, explore what changes within us, what we now allow ourselves that we previously denied.
This feeling of belonging represents a basic need - Abraham Maslow placed belonging needs among the fundamental needs in his hierarchy. Taking care of this need can rebuild our sense of self and our relationships with others and the world.
When we lack this experience, functioning in survival mode according to polyvagal theory rather than the social engagement system, we might retreat into isolation or remain stuck in fight-or-flight mode. This survival mode prevents relaxation and full access to our capabilities.
People might experience anxiety, mood disorders, or depression - generally harming our health through this deficit in belonging. By nature, we are social beings who need interactions and relationships with others.
John Cacioppo's research clearly shows the negative effects of isolation and loneliness on both mental and physical health, including immune system dysfunction. People experience various somatic symptoms, depression, and anxiety.
During permanent loneliness, cortisol levels remain elevated, preventing proper self-regulation, relaxation, and connection with ourselves, our environment, others, nature, animals, and fellow humans.
A sense of belonging helps rebuild these connections, helping us emerge from isolation. The movement of reciprocity becomes important - giving and taking creates a natural flow. When someone close experiences illness or weakness, we naturally give more support, allowing them to experience gratitude and potentially return it later to us or others. One action triggers another, creating an important movement. This energy of reciprocity transmits authenticity and goodness.
I often work with adults and children with attachment disorders - people who lacked this sense of belonging, missing that one person who could serve as a reflecting mirror, showing them acceptance and love.
These individuals experience a kind of emptiness, a hole in their heart, a void, a wound, a silent story of unspoken suffering. They often can't name or define what's happening to them. It simply accompanies them constantly, like a persistent pain.
Research shows this pain feels almost as acute as physical pain. Imagine experiencing such a wound permanently. Sometimes, simply being present and accompanying them helps. The goal isn't to suddenly fill the emptiness, plug the hole, or magically heal the wound. It requires a long process.
Sometimes, healing comes through patient presence and accompaniment. Respecting the wound while showing acceptance and love. Simple gestures can help - a kind look, a smile, a warm voice, holding a hand, or placing a hand on their back during difficult moments or times of doubt.
Early wounds tend to resurface like boomerangs. Even after long-term work, certain triggers might return us to that fear, that feeling of rejection, that state of being unwanted, those moments lacking connection, containing only emptiness. These moments prove particularly challenging.
Soothing these feelings becomes crucial. Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary's book describes an experiment where strangers passed a ball, with some participants being ignored. The impact on their well-being proved remarkable - they felt rejected, ignored, unseen, triggering early wounds with surprising intensity.
In our interactions with others, authentic presence and attention matter greatly. We should mutually convey "I see you, I hear you, I understand what you're saying." These shouldn't be empty words but reflect authentic being, contact from a place of genuine presence, inner gentleness, mindfulness.
While maintaining this consistency with everyone all the time proves challenging, the effort matters. Remember our interconnection through common roots and threads, allowing us to share goodness with each other. Despite past experiences or current circumstances, we can strive to emanate from this place of connection, similar to the Araucanians' description of their sacred trees.
I believe I've managed to record this first episode - hopefully, you've listened until the end. Thank you to everyone who stayed throughout. I hope to continue recording. Things went differently than planned or prepared, but I'm experiencing wonderful sensations now - excitement and satisfaction at completing this, sharing something close to my heart.
Thank you once again. Thanks. Until we hear each other again.
There's a saying that innocence is the mother of innovation. This is my inspiration for creating this podcast. I hope it will lead me to an interesting place, because I'm not yet sure what kind of podcast this will be, but I know for certain that I want to share various stories. I want to create them, tell them, invite others to co-create different stories and tales. Together and individually, we can ask ourselves from time to time: What story do I need to hear to heal?
Why Araukaria?
Araukaria was the title of a therapeutic story for women that I wrote a very long time ago. I even wanted to read it here, but I couldn't find it. I thought that maybe this is a good reason to create a new story, a new tale.
Araukaria is a beautiful, in my opinion majestic tree. One of the oldest plants in the world. It grows mainly in the mountainous regions of present-day Chile. It has been there for a very long time. The people who inhabit these areas have always lived in extraordinary symbiosis with these trees and with immense respect. They used the resources of these trees but simultaneously showed extraordinary gratitude. They even, you could say, worshipped these trees as sacred. Trees as sacred. They called the most mature female Araukaria the mother, and the male one the father of the forest. To this day, the Araucanians, who named themselves in honor of this tree, believe that this is a holy pair, the parents of the forest, with their roots connected as proof that we are all connected.
This is a beautiful story. I thought it could be the topic of the first episode of this podcast - the sense of belonging. This is a very important topic, as it turns out, from the perspective of psychology, but probably not only. Because I am a psychologist and therapist, I thought that this context of research on the sense of belonging and how important this need is for our development and for all of us, especially today, deserves some dedicated space.
Because I really like stories and tales, while thinking about this first episode, I came across an extraordinary children's book. I'm a fan of picture books and children's books. This is a story whose protagonist is Rumplegrass. Rumplegrass has five crooked teeth, three strands of hair, green skin, and his left foot is slightly bigger than his right. He is strange. Or rather, he considers himself strange and unworthy of acceptance. What also stands out is that he wears a banana peel on his head. He mostly spends time in his hideout. Until one day. Then everything changes.
This is a beautiful, truly moving story about the enormous need for acceptance. It shows how each of us has something of Rumple in us - something strange that needs acceptance. This is a story about the magic of belonging. The book was recognized as it became book of the year. While becoming a bestseller wasn't perhaps the most important thing, the fact that it resonated so deeply, reaching both children and adults, shows how enormously important this need for belonging is.
It's worth referring to several scientists and psychologists who have taken up this topic and studied it. Where to start? I think it would be worth mentioning the groundbreaking work about the need to belong, "The Need to Belong," which explores not only the sense of belonging but also its connection with motivation and the sense of life's purpose.
Two scientists, Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary, published what could be called breakthrough research in 1995, where they attempted to summarize research and considerations about the sense of belonging. Their discoveries probably don't seem surprising - belonging strengthens psychological resilience, exists independently of culture, age, nationality, experiences, representing a universal need so important for our development that we essentially cannot develop without satisfying it.
This aligns with contemporary research, where neuroimaging shows how authentic, close relationships affect our brain. The focus isn't on acquaintances or the number of friends, nor on small talk. I was never good at small talk - I would even say I really don't like it, but probably not without reason I became a therapist. Deep conversations always drew me in, ones where we truly sense a kind of closeness through self-disclosure.
Research confirms that when we establish and nurture relationships focused on authentic closeness rather than just shared time or entertainment, it affects our brain and nervous system. Social engagement systems activate, which prove crucial for nervous system regulation and emotional regulation. When we feel safe in a relationship, authentically seen and heard, our nervous system enters a state of safety, allowing us to experience trust and calm regulation.
This can be easily verified when someone speaks to us in a calm, warm tone, looks at us with kindness, smiles sincerely when we feel this authenticity. It's not mere courtesy - our experience transforms, our experience of being human changes. In relationship, we suddenly feel at home, able to show parts of ourselves that might not seem attractive or acceptable at first glance, yet this vulnerability creates authentic bonds.
Deb Dana, a psychotherapist and lecturer who explains polyvagal theory accessibly, states that we are programmed to connect with others. It's practically our biological need. She begins one chapter with this quote: "It's quite possible that the most adapted, the strongest, are simultaneously the gentlest, because survival often requires mutual help and cooperation."
These words deeply resonate with me, especially as Deb Dana continues by describing co-regulation, reciprocity in relationships, and their enormous significance for our well-being and happiness. This represents that feeling and state of being yourself.
Try now to remember a moment, a situation from your life, some event or time when you felt fully yourself. Who was there? What was happening? If you don't have this experience, imagine it. Picture yourself in a place where you can finally relax. You can let go. Imagine being surrounded by people who look at you with kindness, with soft gazes and smiles. Feel the warmth and acceptance emanating from them, knowing it doesn't matter if you have, like Rumplegrass, five crooked teeth, three hairs on your head, or wear a banana peel - you are welcome just as you are, needing no changes whatsoever.
Notice how you feel, how your breathing changes, what you experience in your chest, maybe in your heart, what it feels like to be in a group of people who accept you just as you are. This short exercise helps develop this state within ourselves. Not everyone was lucky enough to experience such a bond in early childhood, but we can imagine it, practice it like meditation, allowing it to become an experience that changes our physiology.
While it sounds magical, it simply reflects the wisdom of the nervous system. Even if we missed this experience in early childhood's secure attachment, which Bowlby or Ainsworth studied, even without that crucial person who would look at us this way, this experience remains possible for us.
We can practice this internally, benefit from therapy, experience complete acceptance through therapeutic co-regulation, discover what it feels like to have a regulated nervous system, explore what changes within us, what we now allow ourselves that we previously denied.
This feeling of belonging represents a basic need - Abraham Maslow placed belonging needs among the fundamental needs in his hierarchy. Taking care of this need can rebuild our sense of self and our relationships with others and the world.
When we lack this experience, functioning in survival mode according to polyvagal theory rather than the social engagement system, we might retreat into isolation or remain stuck in fight-or-flight mode. This survival mode prevents relaxation and full access to our capabilities.
People might experience anxiety, mood disorders, or depression - generally harming our health through this deficit in belonging. By nature, we are social beings who need interactions and relationships with others.
John Cacioppo's research clearly shows the negative effects of isolation and loneliness on both mental and physical health, including immune system dysfunction. People experience various somatic symptoms, depression, and anxiety.
During permanent loneliness, cortisol levels remain elevated, preventing proper self-regulation, relaxation, and connection with ourselves, our environment, others, nature, animals, and fellow humans.
A sense of belonging helps rebuild these connections, helping us emerge from isolation. The movement of reciprocity becomes important - giving and taking creates a natural flow. When someone close experiences illness or weakness, we naturally give more support, allowing them to experience gratitude and potentially return it later to us or others. One action triggers another, creating an important movement. This energy of reciprocity transmits authenticity and goodness.
I often work with adults and children with attachment disorders - people who lacked this sense of belonging, missing that one person who could serve as a reflecting mirror, showing them acceptance and love.
These individuals experience a kind of emptiness, a hole in their heart, a void, a wound, a silent story of unspoken suffering. They often can't name or define what's happening to them. It simply accompanies them constantly, like a persistent pain.
Research shows this pain feels almost as acute as physical pain. Imagine experiencing such a wound permanently. Sometimes, simply being present and accompanying them helps. The goal isn't to suddenly fill the emptiness, plug the hole, or magically heal the wound. It requires a long process.
Sometimes, healing comes through patient presence and accompaniment. Respecting the wound while showing acceptance and love. Simple gestures can help - a kind look, a smile, a warm voice, holding a hand, or placing a hand on their back during difficult moments or times of doubt.
Early wounds tend to resurface like boomerangs. Even after long-term work, certain triggers might return us to that fear, that feeling of rejection, that state of being unwanted, those moments lacking connection, containing only emptiness. These moments prove particularly challenging.
Soothing these feelings becomes crucial. Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary's book describes an experiment where strangers passed a ball, with some participants being ignored. The impact on their well-being proved remarkable - they felt rejected, ignored, unseen, triggering early wounds with surprising intensity.
In our interactions with others, authentic presence and attention matter greatly. We should mutually convey "I see you, I hear you, I understand what you're saying." These shouldn't be empty words but reflect authentic being, contact from a place of genuine presence, inner gentleness, mindfulness.
While maintaining this consistency with everyone all the time proves challenging, the effort matters. Remember our interconnection through common roots and threads, allowing us to share goodness with each other. Despite past experiences or current circumstances, we can strive to emanate from this place of connection, similar to the Araucanians' description of their sacred trees.
I believe I've managed to record this first episode - hopefully, you've listened until the end. Thank you to everyone who stayed throughout. I hope to continue recording. Things went differently than planned or prepared, but I'm experiencing wonderful sensations now - excitement and satisfaction at completing this, sharing something close to my heart.
Thank you once again. Thanks. Until we hear each other again.