I am re-reading my favorite book, The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown, and there's just a treasure-trove of wisdom to be found within its pages.
In one chapter Brown talks about the differences between belonging and fitting in. She points out that fitting in requires you to change who you are for acceptance. Belonging, on the other hand, is about being who you are.
There's a tremendous amount of relevance to prisoners in the subject of belonging versus fitting in. Many prisoners, myself included, are quick to point out what makes us unique from others. We like to celebrate our differences. We somehow believe that being different, however that is defined, is a way to separate ourselves from the obvious dysfunction around us. It's easier to look at others as somehow messed up in the head--that's why they committed their crimes--but to explain our own actions as "mistakes." We don't like to think of ourselves as broken.
Even in the midst of celebrating our differences though, when you look around yourself in prison you see a lot of desperate attempts to fit in. There is rampant gang or religious group affiliation for identification and the feeling of belonging. You also see similar body art (tattoos), and hear the same stories told thousands of times from hundreds of different people, each trying to one-up the other. Granted, there are a lot of similarities among most prisoners: histories of drug or alcohol abuse, poverty, low education, family histories of abuse or neglect, and poor modeling from the influential adults in their lives.
There's already a sense of kinship among many prisoners. But rather than accepting these similarities and using them as a springboard to changing the behaviors that led to incarceration, we tend to look for ways to separate ourselves from the masses, all the while adapting to fit in whatever group we've chose to identify with.
Perhaps this is why so many released prisoners return to prison. Rather than addressing the behaviors that led to prison, and the faulty thinking that led to those behaviors, most prisoners spend their energies adapting to fit into groups already filled with other dysfunctional people.
I've talked several times before about authenticity and I think that authenticity is the key difference between belonging and fitting in. Work on changing what you need to change in your life, but do it for yourself, not for someone else's acceptance. Make the changes necessary to be a healthier you: Spirit, soul, and body. Then you can bring a more whole person to whatever relationships that you're in. Being the real you is so freeing and it will lead you to belong to those who love you, without them first requiring you to change.
