51. The Science of Belonging and Why Community Matters More Than You Think

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: Hi friends, welcome back to the podcast. I want to talk about something that really influences our lives and that's community, the importance of community. I'm bringing this up because what I have started to experience is the sense of healing ⁓ ⁓ people feeling ⁓ more ⁓ in who they are and pulling away from community ⁓ then noticing a sense of isolation and What I know to be true is that for us to live rich whole lives, we need to experience community because community shapes almost every part of who we are. And we hear this word a lot, people talking about building community or finding community, creating community. And I want to just stop and just reflect a little deeper on that. What is what does that really mean? What is community? Why does it matter so much? How do know when you find it? How do you know when you're in a community that's really filling your cup versus one that's toxic? And why does it matter so much? Because if you look at the world right now, something interesting is happening. We are so much more connected at this time than we've been in all of human history. We can message someone across the world instantly. We can join an online group around nearly any topic in the world. we can build these global networks in ways that have been unimaginable even just like 10 or 20 years ago. ⁓ ⁓ though that's true, we are noticing this increasing epidemic of loneliness. ⁓ And in 2023, the US Surgeon General released this national advisory that said that loneliness and social isolation is a major public health crisis. In fact, Loneliness was the sixth vital sign, like community is the sixth vital sign is what we were hearing. Are you surrounded by people who love you? Because if you are, we know that your likelihood to live a long, fulfilling life goes up. So today I want to explore that at a deeper level and really give you the tools that you need to start figuring out, have I found a community for me and how do I do the work to do that for myself? So we're going to talk about what community actually is, what it means to belong and how we know when we're experiencing it. how to build it for ourselves. Let's go ahead and jump in. what is community at its very basic level? Community is a group of people that's connected by something shared. You can have a community with shared values, maybe a church or a group of friends, shared identity. You know, we're a community of people that love to paint, share purpose, share geography, share experiences. I think at an even deeper way to understand it is that community is the environment where ⁓ the longing becomes possible. Belonging, where people know you, where your presence matters, where people, you know, notice when you're absent and when you feel safe enough to be yourself. And for most of human history, survival dependent on being part of a community, being part of a tribe. And that's how we've evolved. Humans are a tribal species. We've evolved in groups. We hunted together. We shared resources. We raised children collectively. We protected one another and being set separated from the group was dangerous. Being in isolation is not good for the human soul. And it can sometimes feel threatening. And if you think about way back during our cave ancestor days, if we were isolated, if we weren't part of a group, if we didn't have a cave to go to at night, we might freeze to death we don't have the body heat that we need, or we might get eaten by a saber-toothed tiger because we have no one there helping us stay alive. And because of that... The concept of belonging is deeply wired not just into our social programming, but also our biological programming. So your brain and your nervous system are consistently still scanning the world around you for belonging and for safety. without even realizing it. So without even realizing it, when we walk into a space, we're asking ourselves subconsciously, do I belong here? ⁓ let's talk a little bit about belonging. Belonging is this experience that you are accepted, that you are valued, that you are included as your most authentic self. So it's not just about inclusion or fitting in. It's feeling safe enough to know that you can not, that you don't have to hide parts of yourself to stay in that group. I really liked the way Brene Brown describes belonging. She says it's being accepted for you, plain and simple, being accepted for you. Not for you, not for who you pretend to be, not for who you need to perform as, but for who you actually are. True belonging happens when we can bring our full humanity into a space. our ideas, our perspectives, our evolving selves and still feel welcome. And I think what's really important about this concept of belonging is that I don't think it's necessarily scientific or theoretical. It's a felt sense in your body. And I want to move it away from just a psychological concept to what we actually feel in our bodies when we belong. So I want you to just pause for a second and ask yourself, is there a place, a group, a group of friends or a community where I actually feel safe, where I actually belong. And if there is, put yourself there for a second and just ask yourself, how does that feel in your body? What happens to your nervous system? Usually what happens is that our nervous system registers safety. So then our bodies are able to relax. And when our bodies relax, our breath deepens, our shoulders soften, we think clearer, we're able to show up as more of ourselves. And I'm going to just share a quick story here. I have been going to this conference. is called the Physician Coaching Summit. So if you're a physician and you're a coach, I highly recommend you check it out. It's the Physician Coaching Summit and you can just Google And... I've been going since, I think, the first conference that was ever created. I think we're on year five now, or year six. And I remember the first or second one I went to, ⁓ I showed up and ⁓ was just a part of me that ⁓ able to speak up in ways that I hadn't before. I was able to raise my hand and share things that... ⁓ in other circles would have felt incredibly vulnerable. And I came back as a speaker, you know, the second year, and I've been a speaker there every year. And every time I spoke, my way of being was so present. And people would tell me, wow, you're so powerful. And they would say things like that to me. And I just felt like I was being the most authentic version of myself. And last year at this conference, I remember I was in my meditation in the morning. And I had this voice come to me, this little message I got, and it was like, this is what home feels like. This is what belonging feels like. And I thought that was so fascinating. so home for me felt like, or belonging feels like home. Belonging feels like a place where I can say, like, everyone's going to go to the pool and I can be like, no thanks, peace out. I'm going to go do this thing instead without feeling any fear of like, they going to judge me or should I Should I be more present? Can I set this boundary? Or showing up in my robe at that conference. Most of the time I just show up in my robe because when I'm in a space where I can relax, that's how I want to be. And so it's showing up in the spa robe most of the time. I want you to think about what does belonging feel like for you? How do you know when you're in a space where you feel truly safe to belong? ⁓ is possible for you ⁓ that happens? Belonging activates this part of our brain, this part of our body called the social engagement system. It's part of our nervous system and When we have that social engagement system activated, what we feel is safe and connected, humanly connected with others. So our body is able to shift into a state that supports deeper connection, deeper learning and deeper growth. It's like the concept of co-regulating together. When you feel safe and somebody else is around you and their nervous system is calm, you're able to co-regulate. It's similar. So this is part of the Polyvagal Theory by Stephen Porges. hand it's when we feel excluded, when we feel like we don't belong, it activates rejection and rejection turns on the same exact pathway in our brain as if we have a gun to our head. The brain interprets that as a threat and I think that's so fascinating to think about because our threat response or our fear response in our brain is so hypersensitive that it will turn on for anything. It's why the human spirit has been so resilient, why we've been able to survive so much. It's because the same exact thing that turns on when our life is threatened is the same thing that turns on when we're feeling rejected. And so it's important for us to know that that system is so sensitive. And so we have those stress hormones running through our bodies when we don't feel safe, when we feel excluded. So there's been brain imaging studies, so functional MRI and MRI studies that show that social rejection activates the same exact neural pathways as pain, as physical pain in our bodies. So your brain literally processes exclusion as pain, helps explain why belonging matters to us so much. Because if you think about how our brain is wired, again, hashtag biology, biological programming, we are wired to belong. And when we don't belong, it feels painful. So let's talk a little bit more about the science of belonging ⁓ research. And I think I like to dive into the research because it's really compelling. There's a psychologist, Roy. ⁓ I'm going to mess up his name. Baumeister, Roy and Mark. And what they did is they described this need to belong as a fundamental human motivation. The need to belong as a fundamental human motivation, not as a luxury, not as a bonus, not as something that we do on the side or a necessity, but something that we're motivated to do. And one of the most cited studies on social connection analyzed data from over 300,000 people and what they found was incredibly remarkable. They found that when you have a strong social network, a strong social relationship, your lifespan increases by 50%. So having a strong social relationship had a 50 % greater likelihood of survival compared to those with weaker social ties. So social connection significantly increases your lifespan. You've heard of blue zones and there's a bunch of other reasons why people live longer in blue zones, but a big reason is social connection. And on the other side, chronic loneliness increases your risk of heart disease, of depression, dementia, and early death, early mortality. So when you have a tight social connection, you live longer. And when you don't, you're likelier to experience chronic diseases and earlier mortality. some data suggests that the health impact of loneliness is comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes per day. So when we talk about community, we're not talking about something that's out there that's optional. ⁓ talking about something that's essential to human health and well-being. ⁓ fact, there's all this language right now in data around longevity medicine. What do I need to live longer? What do I need to live longer? And one of the things that we know for a fact that's free, that doesn't cost a lot of money, that we know we need to live longer is community. So just remember that. There's another kind of fascinating dimension for community, especially I think for all of you that are listening, because most of you that are listening are high functioning, highly productive individuals, you're leaders, you're entrepreneurs, you're someone that really, you're professional, someone that cares about growth and living. a better version of themselves. And what we have seen is that the community we surround ourselves with, the people that we surround ourselves with, influence us far more than we realize. You've probably heard the phrase that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. while that phrase itself isn't from a specific scientific study, there's a large body of research showing that our behaviors and our beliefs are strongly shaped by the people around us. And you could see this ⁓ when we had the COVID epidemic. COVID, was an ER doctor and I was managing our hospitals incident command center ⁓ and our response in San Francisco. ⁓ And one the big questions is how do we get more and more people vaccinated? And what we were seeing in the data is that people's... ⁓ access to vaccines and vaccinations wasn't correlating. So if you had access to it, you weren't necessarily getting vaccines. What we saw is you were being influenced by your zip code. So certain zip codes were getting vaccinated, certain zip codes were not. And it's all about community. So they were highly being influenced by the people around them. I think that that's so fascinating. And there's another famous study that comes from ⁓ Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler who studied social networks using data from the Framingham Heart Study. And what they found was that behavior spread through social networks, kind of like that COVID example I just gave. And the way they spread was really powerful. For example, if one of your close friends becomes obese, your likelihood of becoming obese goes up by 57%, close to 60%. If one of your friends quit smoking, the likelihood of you quitting smoking also increases significantly. They found that happiness, the same thing, can spread through social networks up to three degrees of separation. So if you surround yourself by people that are joyful and happy, you're likely gonna experience joy and happiness. and the people in our lives are always going to shape our behaviors, our beliefs, even our emotional states, is why I think for entrepreneurs, for example, to be around masterminds or people in communities that are doing what ⁓ want to do because it's going to show you what's possible. And of this, we founded a community for physician coaches ⁓ after of our physician coaching summits. We founded a community called the Physician Coaching Collective, PCC. You can Google that too if you're a physician coach and you're interested. And the reason why we founded it was because we would come to the Physician Coaching Summit and we would feel so like deep community, deep belonging. It was such a beautiful space. And then we would leave and couldn't wait to get back. So like, hold on a second. This if this is what we're craving, why don't we try to figure out a way to do this year round? And from there came this collective group of physician coaches that come together to essentially support each other. It feels like this beautiful divine sisterhood of folks who are kind of unicorns. They're physicians, but they're also coaches and they're interested in these bigger things and want to be like the best versions of themselves and make this world a better place. And what that does and what we've seen happen in this collective, and this is exactly what I see in business masterminds that I'm a part of and all the groups that I lead as well, is that one person starts to shift behavior or starts to experience a lot of success, ⁓ pulls up the success of everybody else because we're influenced by what we know is possible. you've never been around anyone that's made X number of dollars in a year and has also created a life that they love where ⁓ schedule feels expansive, you're not going to think it's for you. But if you slowly start to surround yourself with all these people, your brain is like, ⁓ what's possible expands. What feels achievable expands. And this matters enormously for leaders and entrepreneurs. I created another group for physician leaders. It's a coaching group for them. And I bring them together so that they could essentially create community. And what we see is when people start creating the life that they can be proud of and start really like creating what we call, know, for lack of better words, work-life balance, setting reasonable boundaries, other people start to do it too and What happens is that the people that they're leading, their engagement starts to go up. People at their at their practice location start to feel happier as well. That's really tremendous. ⁓ of this really matters because if everyone around you believes that certain things are impossible or unrealistic, that's going to affect your consciousness. That's going to ⁓ what you sense to believe is possible for you. ⁓ when you surround yourself by people who are growing, who are building, who are thinking expansively, ⁓ are supporting people to do bigger things, it's going to expand your sense of possibility. It's one of the biggest reasons why I intentionally surround myself with people who inspire me, with people who motivate me, with people who are doing big, audacious things in the world that others would have said were impossible, because that's what I want to do. And so I surround myself with those people too. Okay, I want to shift the conversation a little bit and talk about virtual versus in-person community because in today's world, much of our community happens online. And virtual communities can be really incredible because they allow people to connect across geography. I am friends with people that I would have never have met because they're in another part of the world, in another country. I'm currently friends with people in different time zones and have really tight community that I've built online. And what we want to do with these online communities is find others who share similar values or experiences with us and build networks that might not exist locally. So you might be in an area, for example, somebody who's in a tight, virtual community with me is a woman who's incredibly progressive. She's a doctor, she's a mom, and she lives in a very rural town in Alabama. And it's super hard for her to be there. She doesn't have a lot of close local friends and people that get her. And so her virtual community is everything for her. And research suggests that online communities can increase our perceived social support and belonging. So there is something unique about those virtual communities that really matters. but there's something really important about in-person connection. So virtual communities really matter. And if that's what you have access to, go all the way. But I'm going to invite you to look to also balance that with human connection, with in-person human connection. Because human connection is an embodied experience that we can't get virtually. When we are physically present with somebody else, our nervous system co-regulates and we communicate through our tone of voice, through our posture, through subtle cues, through eye contact, through joy, through smiles and that physical presence increases oxytocin. Oxytocin is the hormone that is released when a mother has a baby that increases bonding. Bonding trust but it's also cardio protective. It protects the heart. So the more oxytocin the better. It's the same hormone that gets released when you're giving a loved one a hug or even when you just put your hand over your heart for about 20 seconds, it secretes oxytocin and that's also secreted when we're in physical presence with others, which is why in-person experiences will sometimes feel deeper, they'll feel more nourishing. And of course, the most powerful communities today often combine both. It's a space where we can meet virtually because it might be more convenient, but we also come together in person. ⁓ about digital spaces as a way to keep connected ⁓ in-person experiences as a way to really deepen those relationships. So one other thing that I think is important to think about in community is that a community is not something that you just receive. It's something that you get to co-create. You have to be a good community member. You know, I was recently having a conversation with a girlfriend and we talked about the importance of a village, like having a village. And What we've come to understand is that everybody wants a village and very few people want to be a villager. They don't want to be part of the village or co-create the village. But to be a good community member... You get to co-create the community. Every community operates with its own set of norms. Norms are going to be the guidelines that shape how people interact. And so the more you can be present to that and help co-create those norms, whether they're explicit norms, they're implicit norms, whether they're stated clearly or not, but the more you can be present to the norms and really respect the norms of the community, the better community member you're going to be. Respect the norms, participate in the community. and One of the things that's important is that the cultural expectations that you are going to learn by being a good community member, by just observing how people behave with each other. Healthy communities tend to make many of their norms explicit because clarity builds trust, it builds psychological safety. And being a good community member means contributing to that culture, showing up, listening, supporting other people and respecting their boundaries. And remembering that community thrives not just when people participate, but when people co-create, not just when they consume and take, but when they show up to give, that's when a community is at its best. And one thing I want to just name is ⁓ this concept of a toxic community, just want to say this clearly, not every community is going to be the community for you. And it might not feel healthy for you to try to fit yourself into a community that doesn't serve you. ⁓ Some can be toxic. There can be pressure to conform or punishment if you don't agree. will violate your boundaries, unrealistic expectations of what they expect of you, or using shame as a tool for control. can be communities where you get made fun of if you're not wearing the right thing ⁓ ⁓ the right water bottle or driving the same car as everybody else. ⁓ I know all of that sounds really petty. I just want to name it because ⁓ you're finding that ⁓ ⁓ yourself to fit into something, ⁓ Maybe that's not the community for you. And that's okay. It doesn't have to be right or wrong. It doesn't mean anything about you or about them. mean that you're not good enough. It doesn't mean that ⁓ you're lovable. It doesn't mean anything about you. It just means that that community is not for you. ⁓ And can offer that community the love that it needs and part ways with it ⁓ and do our best. Life is too short to be trying to force ourselves to fit into somewhere where we just don't fit. Go find the community that's right for you. ⁓ That's the most important thing. And that actually was a way to show unconditional self-love to ourselves. This community doesn't work for me and that's okay. It doesn't mean anything about me or about them but I don't want to waste my time trying to fit Sometimes when people struggle with community, again the real issue is that ⁓ not that they lack community, is that they're trying to fit in somewhere where they're just not the right fit. It's just not a good values match. And so do ⁓ best to notice that and create space ⁓ be open to creating the community that is for you. right, sweet friends, as we close today's conversation, I'm going to ask you a few questions to consider. Number one, ⁓ where your life do you experience true belonging and how does that feel in your body? What's possible for you when you really feel like you belong? How do you show up in those spaces? How do you feel in those spaces? How do you talk in those spaces? How are you in service in those spaces? How do you allow yourself to receive in those spaces? How do you feel seen and supported? And who are the people around you right now shaping what you believe is possible for your life? Because again, community is not just about connection, though that's incredibly important. It's also about expansion and the right community doesn't just support you, it also helps you grow into the fullest version of who you're meant to become. And that is something I want for all of you listening. Again, we're not meant to do life on our own. Life is hard, especially modern life. There's just a ton of stuff we have to do. The more we can do it together, the more we can validate our experiences, the more we can be in community, the easier it all gets. All right, sweet friends, I will talk to you next week. Adios.