The feelings of homesickness and longing for a sense of belonging touch upon some
of our deepest human needs and vulnerabilities. At our core, we all have an innate
yearning to feel safe, comforted and accepted just as we were unconditionally loved
as infants.
When we are separated from the familiarity of our home environment, it can trigger
profound insecurities that have their roots in our earliest childhood experiences.
Homesickness makes us emotionally regress and long to return to that cocooning
space where we first knew security and had our basic needs met. It’s an ache to go
back to the warm embrace of our domestic origins.
We shouldn’t be too hard on ourselves for these painful feelings of dislocation. They
tap into our most primal fears of abandonment and not having our fundamental
human needs met. Just as infants become intensely distressed when separated from
their mothers, adults can experience anxiety, sadness and emptiness when
disconnected from their native land.
The longing for belonging emerges from that same tender place within us – the need
to feel part of a greater whole that transcends our individuality. We all have an
unconscious drive to bond within a group that provides that sense of being truly
seen, valued and emotionally held in a shared identity.
Without those connections, we can feel painfully adrift, fragmented and question our
place in the world. The fear of standing alone without our protective social tribe cuts
to the core of our basic human insecurities.
Even something as simple as moving cities or changing jobs can make us
unconsciously regress and grieve the loss of those comforting rituals, hierarchies
and cultural traditions that rooted us in feelings of lasting continuity and collective
identity.
If you are struggling with these raw feelings of uprootedness and isolation, please
have compassion for the vulnerable place they come from within you. These
longings make us exquisitely human. While not easy, finding ways to recreate
communities, relationships and symbolic familiars can help relieve the ache by
forging new roots.
The ebb and flow of belonging and separating from our core connections is all part of
the great cycle of life we all undergo as we grow. By honouring these bittersweet
longings, we honour the profound human need for rootedness.
