Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone

BRAVING is a set of strategies Brown recommends individuals use in concordance with a true belonging practice. These strategies include: 1) respecting Boundaries, 2) Reliably maintaining commitments, 3) being Accountable for mistakes, 4) maintaining a Vault of privacy and confidentiality, 5) acting with Integrity, 6) responding and acting Nonjudgmentally, and 7) extending Generosity of intentions.

When individuals find themselves either standing alone “in a hypercritical environment” or standing together “in the midst of difference,” these seven strategies will help them to develop the trust required to “brave the wilderness and become the wilderness” (37). The BRAVING strategies support each of the four elements of true belonging because the courage to act requires trust—trust that acts are committed and received in good faith, trust in the integrity of self and others, and trust that presenting “authentic, imperfect selves” is a thing of universal value (32).

Humans share a need for belonging and are biologically oriented towards a collective need to “plan, communicate, and work together” (53). On the other hand, inextricable human connection is a belief that while humanity is a multiplicity of difference—different experiences, orientations, preferences, and beliefs—underlying that difference, we remain deeply connected. It is a belief that there is a greater power than the self at work and that “our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and compassion” (45).