🫂 Session 15: From Inclusion to Belonging — What We Really Need

🌿 Transformative Education for Neurodivergent Liberation

“I spent years chasing belonging in spaces that asked me to edit myself. Now, I root in who I am—unmasked, unfiltered, unbecoming the version others preferred. Belonging starts here.”

“Belonging isn’t being let in. It’s being safe enough to stay.”

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📌 If you’re just joining us, I recommend reading [Session 1 – Why I’m Leading This Workshop (My Positionality)] for shared agreements and to understand how this space is held.

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🧭 I’ve Been Chasing Belonging My Whole Life

If I’m honest, I don’t remember a time I wasn’t looking for it.

That feeling—of being met, mirrored, held without having to contort—has always felt just out of reach. I’ve entered friend groups, workplaces, communities, even families, hoping that this time it might be different. That I could exhale. That I could just be.

But something always felt… conditional. Fragile. Dependent on who I could appear to be, not who I actually am.

When I began grad school, belonging was the very first theme I wrote about. I didn’t know then how much it would become a thread running through everything—my research, my relationships, my recovery. And I didn’t know how profoundly I would learn from people I’d never even spoken to.

Brian Stout’s work on “Bridging Toward Belonging” shaped me. He may never know how much his words helped me reflect, heal, and reimagine what belonging could mean—but they did. That parasocial connection was real. And it taught me that even imagined belonging can be a spark. A mirror. A teacher.

As Stout eloquently puts it:

“Belonging is a felt sense in our bodies of safety, power, wholeness, and welcome. It is a relational quality that can be cultivated and practiced.”

For many Autistic people, belonging isn’t just a social longing—it’s a survival need. We’ve spent our lives adapting to environments that weren’t made with us in mind. We’ve studied the room. Translated our language. Softened our edges. Masked our needs. All for a taste of inclusion that often comes without the nourishment of safety.

We become so good at being “included” that we forget we’ve never really belonged.

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🔍 Inclusion as Invitation, Not Transformation

Inclusion is often framed as the goal.

But inclusion, as it's usually practiced, is about access to existing spaces—not about reshaping the culture of those spaces to hold difference with dignity.

It says, “Come in”—but quietly.
“Bring your voice”—but don’t be too loud.
“Be yourself”—but only the parts that don’t disrupt the flow.

We’re let in, but not held.
We’re seen, but not fully met.
We’re asked to “show up authentically,” but punished when our authenticity doesn’t match the tone.

This is the paradox:

Inclusion can invite us into a space that still runs on extraction and transaction.
And you cannot belong in a space that mines your labor, your insight, your identity—for someone else’s gain.

I’ve felt this. I’ve lived this.
And maybe you have, too.

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🧱 The Limits of Institutional Inclusion

I’ve been “included” in a lot of spaces.
Advisory boards. Equity teams. Planning committees.
Places that were quick to spotlight my perspective—but slow to restructure anything to actually hold it.

In one role, I was brought in specifically for my lived experience. My insights were welcomed—at first. But when I spoke from the center of my truth, when I named how the systems themselves were extractive, the air changed. My clarity was seen as confrontation. My advocacy became “a tone issue.” My difference, once praised, became “hard to manage.”

This is the reality of institutional inclusion:
You are wanted until you’re disruptive.
You’re uplifted until your voice no longer serves the narrative.
You’re spotlighted until your presence demands something deeper than optics.

That’s not belonging.
That’s containment.

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🌱 Belonging Begins Where Extraction Ends

You cannot belong in a space where your story is mined but your needs are minimized.

Belonging isn’t just about being welcomed—it’s about being woven in.
It’s about being part of a living, breathing structure that values reciprocity over performance, relational depth over social currency, and truth over politeness.

And let’s be real:

Belonging cannot happen in spaces still shaped by urgency, productivity, or unspoken power hierarchies.

It cannot be built atop systems that ask us to prove our worth before granting us care.

In my last role, you couldn’t take a personal day until you’d been with the company for six months. Six months of showing up, pushing through, staying regulated—even when your body said stop. Belonging doesn’t grow in environments like that. It withers. Because belonging without built-in care isn’t belonging at all—it’s performance.

So when we talk about belonging, we’re not just talking about feelings—we’re talking about infrastructure.

Belonging is material. Structural. Cultural.

It shows up in:

• The way decisions are made

• Who is allowed to speak without being edited

• How accessibility is treated (as standard, not a special request)

• Whether grief, rage, and contradiction are allowed in the room

• And whether access is relational—not transactional

Disability justice organizer Mia Mingus coined the term access intimacy to describe “that elusive, hard to describe feeling when someone else ‘gets’ your access needs.” It’s not just compliance—it’s connection. It’s not just accommodation—it’s care.

Access intimacy reminds us that true belonging is not about fitting in—it’s about being held in. Not just allowed, but anticipated. Not just tolerated, but trusted.

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💠 What Real Belonging Could Feel Like

Real belonging is not about being accepted after proving your worth.
It’s about knowing you never had to prove anything to begin with.

It’s the opposite of performance.
It’s the antidote to extraction.
It’s when your full complexity—your rhythm, your sensory needs, your directness, your depth—is not just tolerated, but expected. Welcomed. Made room for.

In spaces of real belonging:

• You don’t have to translate your truth into palatable language.

• You don’t have to downplay your sensitivities to protect other people’s comfort.

• You don’t have to fight to be believed or beg to be included.

You get to show up in your full frequency.
You get to move at your own pace.
You get to say no—and still be held with care.

And when rupture happens—as it always does in real relationships—there’s repair. Not removal.

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🌀 A Personal Truth: I’ve Been Chasing Belonging My Whole Life

This part is personal.
Because I think I’ve been chasing belonging my whole life.

As an autistic person, I learned early that fitting in meant hiding parts of myself.
Masking my intensity. Filtering my communication. Shrinking my instincts.
Sometimes I’d get close—I’d be included, invited, even celebrated—but never quite gotten. Never truly met.

It left a hollow feeling. Like being in a room full of people and still not being anywhere.

And for a long time, I internalized that as a personal failure.
But I see it differently now.

Belonging was never mine to find.
It was ours to build.

Because in transactional spaces—where care is conditional and truth is inconvenient—belonging will always be out of reach.

But in liberatory spaces, where power is shared and needs are sacred, something else becomes possible:

We stop performing for proximity. We start weaving for resonance.

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🛠️ What It Takes to Build Belonging (For Real)

Belonging doesn’t just happen. It’s not a vibe. It’s a structure.

It’s not built on vibes or values alone—but on agreements, power-sharing, and sustained practices of attunement.

That’s something I’ve had to learn over and over again—both from the ache of being outside, and from the responsibility of building something new.

I didn’t create The Compassion Collective because I had it all figured out.
I created it because I didn’t see it anywhere else.
I needed a space where people like me—people who had been excluded, erased, or misnamed—could show up as full-spectrum selves.

Not perfectly healed.
Not endlessly accommodating.
Not “inspiring” because we survived.

But real.
And respected.

To be honest, I didn’t even know what belonging felt like when I started.
But I knew what didn’t feel like it:

• The corporate “wellness” teams that told me to self-care harder while ignoring systemic harm

• The DEI workshops that centered optics but not voice

• The community circles that claimed to welcome all—but flinched when I spoke plainly

So we built something different.

At the Compassion Collective, we don’t just talk about care—we structure it.
We don’t tokenize lived experience—we center it.
We don’t flatten truth for the sake of cohesion—we make room for contradiction, for grief, for righteous anger, and for quiet.

And it’s not perfect.
We mess up. We revisit. We learn.
But we do it together—with consent, with clarity, and with a refusal to sacrifice integrity for inclusion.

Because here’s what I know now:

Belonging without power-sharing is just permission.
Belonging without boundary is just performance.
And belonging without repair isn’t belonging—it’s branding.

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🔍 Closing Reflection: What Are You Building?

Take a breath.

Place your hands on your chest—or wherever you feel your center.

Ask gently:

• Where have I been included but not felt safe?

• Where have I felt like I had to shrink in order to belong?

• Where have I experienced real belonging—not because I was agreeable, but because I was trusted?

Now ask:

• What kind of table am I building?

• Whose voice is missing?

• What needs to be unlearned, unspoken, or undone for belonging to truly grow here?

Let your body answer before your mind.
Then write, sketch, pace, or cry—whatever helps you process the truth.

Belonging begins in the places where we choose to show up without performing.

And it grows when others meet us there.

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💫 New Sessions Every Monday & Wednesday

This 12-week journey unfolds twice a week—every Monday and Wednesday—with each session building on the last.

You can view the full session lineup [here], and here’s what’s coming next:

✨ Session 16 – Medical Model vs. Neurodiversity vs. Cognitive Ecology
We’ll examine how different frameworks shape the way we understand neurodivergence. From pathologizing models to affirming paradigms to emergent, relational lenses—what happens when we stop asking “what’s wrong?” and start asking “what’s here, and what’s needed?”

💬 Share your reflections, questions, or experiences in the comments. This space is co-created through all of us.

💖 A Note on Support
This series is shared freely and will never live behind a paywall.

If you’re in a position to support this work financially, a paid subscription helps keep the space open for others who can’t afford to pay. It also sustains the labor behind The Compassion Collective—a community grounded in mutual care, justice, and collective liberation.

Every share, every reflection, every contribution is part of the ecosystem that makes this possible.

Thank you for being here.

🌿
Shamani of The Compassion Collective