#4 Identity and Belonging

Life has some big questions.  What is the meaning of life and is there a purpose?  Why am I here?  Is there a God and is He involved? These are just a few.  I think the big questions in life can be answered by knowing our identity.  All of the big questions become Who am I?  The answers to this question are a key to our identity.  The best way I can illustrate this is to encourage you to take a notepad, write at the top I am... and start itemizing your responses.  Then expand this by itemizing I am a person who...

Identity is shaped by our developmental sense of belonging and where we experience recognition and acceptance.  We initially gain this from birth in our families.  After their basic survival and instinctive needs are met, children move to the all important emotional development of being loved and belonging. Then we look for belonging in public places like school and activities, and then with our involvement in social or cultural groups where we experiment with where we feel like we fit. If this development of identity is arrested, flawed, dysfunctional, or traumatic, then issues of identity are to be expected. It becomes a sense of being dislocated (or lost). We don’t have a secure sense of belonging, the most critical issue of emotional development and a link to understanding addiction.

In summary, this developmental process begins as an infant, is shaped initially through parenting, expands into the local community and ultimately expands to be influenced by the world and universe.

But even if we grow up with the healthiest development and sense of psychosocial identity, there is still a larger issue of spiritual identity. Sadly this is one that is often ignored. If this is not resolved then one will form attachments to individuals and groups that are poor imitations. What is my identity in terms of the universe? It is a primary perception. One of my favorite passages in the Old Testament is when God told Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, Moses asked who he should tell the people has sent him?  God answered "I AM WHO I AM" (Exodus 3:14).  Another is found in the New Testament  where it states I am a "new creation" in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). 

On your I Am list you might modify the title to I am a person who believes... and list your faith beliefs, your value system. Then on your list modify the next title to I am a person who desires to...  to itemize where you feel your identity is leading to in the future.

“Each of us needs to belong, not just to one person, but to a family, friends, a group and a culture. It is only through belonging that we can break out of the shell of individualism and self-centeredness that both protects and isolates us."                            Jean Vanier: Becoming Human.   
                   
The next post will explore the formation of identity in more detail and its relationship to addiction. Thanks so much for those who have been writing in response to this recent series of posts on addiction. I have enjoyed the interaction with questions and comments, allowing me to be in touch more personally.

Ross