Week's Discovery #16
We Belong to Something Bigger
How connection with nature and community can expand our sense of belonging.
Every week, The Happiness Lab explores one science-backed idea that can make everyday life a little happier. Read it. Try it. Experience it.
Think about a moment when you suddenly felt part of something larger than yourself.
- Maybe you were walking through a forest.
- Standing beneath an enormous tree.
- Helping at a community event.
- Sharing food around a long table.
- Working alongside other people toward something that mattered.
Or simply looking around and thinking: I belong here.
For a moment, the boundaries of our individual world become a little wider. We are no longer only me. We become part of an us. Part of a place. Part of a community. Part of the living world around us.
This week, we're exploring a different kind of connection:
The connection that reminds us we belong to something bigger.
🔬What Science Discovered
🌳 We can belong to the natural world
In 2009, psychologists F. Stephan Mayer, Cynthia McPherson Frantz, Emma Bruehlman-Senecal and Kyffin Dolliver investigated an intriguing question: Why is nature beneficial?
Their study was appropriately titled: “Why Is Nature Beneficial? The Role of Connectedness to Nature.”
Across three studies, participants experienced either natural or urban environments, through real-world exposure or video.
The researchers found that exposure to nature was associated with increases in connectedness to nature, positive emotions, attentional capacity and ability to reflect on a life problem.
Importantly, their analyses suggested that increased connectedness to nature helped explain some of nature's beneficial effects.
That distinction matters. Nature may not benefit us only because it is beautiful or relaxing. Part of its power may come from something deeper:
Nature can remind us that we are part of the living world around us.
The tree isn't simply scenery. The forest isn't merely somewhere we visit. For a moment, the separation between “me” and “nature” can become a little less pronounced. And that sense of connection matters.
🏘 We can belong to a community
Connection can expand in another direction too. Beyond individual relationships lies something larger: community.
A 2020 study by Christina A. Michalski and colleagues, titled “Relationship between sense of community belonging and self-rated health across life stages”, examined the relationship between people's sense of community belonging and their perceived health using Canadian population data across different stages of life.
The researchers found that a weaker sense of community belonging was associated with poorer self-rated general health and, particularly, poorer self-rated mental health.
This doesn't mean that belonging alone determines our health. But it adds an important piece to the wellbeing puzzle:
Feeling that we belong somewhere matters.
Community isn't simply having people around us. It's the feeling:
- I am part of this place.
- I matter here.
- I can contribute.
- There is an “us” that includes me.
🌍What This Means in Everyday Life
During September we've explored connection one step at a time. We reached out. We gave someone our full attention. We noticed tiny moments of connection. Now we widen the circle.
Because belonging doesn't end with the people closest to us. It can extend outward: ME → YOU → US → WORLD
- We can belong to a friendship.
- A family.
- A neighbourhood.
- A group.
- A community.
- A landscape.
- A forest.
- The living world.
And perhaps this is one reason some experiences feel unexpectedly meaningful.
- Planting something with other people.
- Joining a neighbourhood activity.
- Walking through a forest with a friend.
- Helping at a local event.
- Sharing food.
- Caring for a place.
We are doing something simple. But underneath that action is another experience: I am participating.
I am not merely observing life from the outside. I am part of it.
