FAQ

I have often been asked whether belongingness is my version of a new religion, a sect or the like, and the answer is that it is neither of those things. 

Very briefly, belongingness is a person's feeling of being able to belong exactly as they are. 

When you experience belongingness, you feel included, involved, encouraged and supported about speaking up, and you feel that you are being heard. You feel that you take part in creating value with your strengths in the contexts in which you are involved. 

Therefore, belongingness breeds psychologically safe cultures. 

The opposite of belongingness is fitting-in, which is about having to adapt in a way that means that you cannot belong as you are. This means that you do not feel included, involved, encouraged and supported about speaking up. If you speak up, you are not being heard, unless you express what is expected culturally and managerially; and if you express anything other than what is expected, there may be consequences that result in you preferring to stay silent.

Therefore, fitting-in breeds psychologically unsafe cultures. Thus, as you hear on trains: ‘Please keep an eye on your belongings’. You should continually check in on how you are feeling, whether you are able to be you, in order to ensure as much as possible that you have an everyday life where you are thriving and happy.

The authors Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy explain this in the following way: “Diversity is having a seat at the table, inclusion is having a voice, and belonging is having that voice be heard.”(https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/what-is-diversity-inclusion-and-belonging-2019-10-21). 

You could say that diversity and equality constitute having a seat at the table, and inclusion gives a seat at the table where you have a voice. Belongingness means that people also listen actively to what you are saying, as they listen to understand. 

I have met a lot of people, women as well as men, who have told me that they experienced not being heard when speaking out or trying to, and in those cases, diversity, equality and inclusion were simply good branding, possibly with target figures, but not something that created value in practice, as they did not have the feeling of belonging. 

I also see many who are so unconscious that they are not able to listen to understand. They listen instead of speaking. I see a few who are conscious and are able to listen to understand. Often, the people who are not conscious are people under a lot of pressure, who would like to have the peace of mind to be present, but if the peace of mind is not available, the presence and ability to listen actively is absent.

Therefore, belongingness is a chicken and egg situation regarding having success with diversity, equality & inclusion, and it is a precondition for diversity, equality and inclusion having the desired effect. As a female chief executive said to me: “Yes, I am a good case for the target figures, but if I speak up, I am not being heard, and then it doesn't really matter if I have a seat at the table”.

Yes, everyone can experience belongingness, and everyone experiences belongingness. Because, belongingness is the very first sense of belonging that we experience as a foetus in the belly of our mother. We come into being in symbiosis with her, and we belong in symbiosis with her.

We search for the experience of being able to belong as we are, and the safety resulting from being able to belong as we are, throughout our entire lives in various relations and spheres. Therefore, the experience of being able to belong as we are is completely fundamental for our forging of identity, course of life, well-being and life expectancy. 

We are social beings, and we are willing to go to great lengths for a sense of community. Sometimes to such an extent that we lose ourselves. 

Therefore, belongingness can also be misused and take the shape of an invitation to a community where people are lead to believe that this is a place where you can feel welcome as you are. In reality, this community invites people into a camouflaged fitting-in culture, often of a suppressive nature, where freedom is taken away, including freedom of speech.

You become aware of what your fundamental values are, and what lifts your energy. From that point, it is about establishing a daily discipline regarding your own energy as an energy leader, keeping it vibrating as highly as possible and enabling you to act in deliberate accordance with your values. When you become a deliberate energy leader, you can lead a life, privately and professionally, where you feel that you belong as you are. 

You ensure that the functions you need are represented across the value chain, and in connection with recruitment, onboarding and promotions, you ensure that you hire people who have an inner compass that corresponds to the company's cultural set of values. 

This means that before you hire and promote people, you need to assess whether they exhibit actions that support those values, even when under pressure. 

Therefore, you need to be clear about what the right actions look like, and when you are onboarding and promoting, you have to make sure that the results that make people successful correspond directly to the actions that characterise the culture and energy you wish to promote. 

There has to be coherence between speech and action, and there has to be coherence between the ones you describe as cultural role models and the ones you highlight and promote. Otherwise, people will quickly lose trust, and loss of trust can become a breeding ground for low commitment, anarchy and silos where everyone only stick up for themselves. 

Feeling secure is promoted through predictability and continuity. As soon as people can be exactly as they are and express themselves openly and honestly, while they are being listened to with interest, only strengths are promoted. These strengths solve most problems that would otherwise become weaknesses and psychological insecurity in fitting-in cultures, as they breed timidity or complete reticence.

First and foremost, you should make sure to protect your daily discipline as an energy leader in order to mainly be nourished by a high vibrational energy. This comes from your sleep, healthy food, vitamins, plenty of water, exercise, loving relationships, personal development and training of your intuition in order to keep that muscle consistently strong. Your intuition is your inner GPS, and it is directly connected to your heart, your inner compass and your values. 

If you strengthen this inner navigator, and ensure daily time management, so you are able to perceive and listen to it, you will be able to make many deliberate choices, which will again lead to actions that give you a feeling of leading your own life and belonging with all your strengths and talents.

I do this by being focused on opting for everything that gives me a feeling of belonging in and with myself. Because, in this way, I remain connected to my own unique power, and from that place, I will be able to be involved in contexts where I connect with other people and their power. Together, we complete each other through a high joint vibrational force, because everyone contributes and nourishes each other. The opposite is a lack of energy, which divides and results in everyone only fending for themselves. 

When I can no longer feel myself. When I have started doubting myself and delude myself into thinking that I am not strong enough compared to others. There may be a sign that I have surrendered my power to others, which is thus a sign that I should quickly re-nourish myself with exactly what provides me with renewed energy, resulting in my strength and energy coming back.

I can establish this by either directly experiencing being gagged or excluded or feeling that I have to change myself in order to be accepted. Manipulation tools such as silent treatment and gaslighting can be tactical methods to make people fall into line, because they reduce people's power or remove it entirely

This can also be more subtle. For example, I can gradually become less committed, the atmosphere I am a part of can become a war zone and feel oppressive, and I can feel insecure when I go to bed, and heavy instead of light when I wake up.

It is best to talk to people about what I am experiencing and keep the energy high or as high as possible. 

It is a strength to write down your observations and thus relate to your sensory experiences based on what you see, feel and notice, which keeps you from becoming deceived or gaslighted. 

Often, we as people can be deceived, because we take the blame or part of the blame when it is projected or manipulated onto us, after which we analyse it in our heads, where all the racing thoughts accelerate, instead of staying in our hearts and trusting our inner compass and intuition and what they are telling us.

If you do not have a manager that you trust, you can use the whistleblower option. You can also adopt a wait-and-see attitude to see whether management will handle the cultural challenges. Basically, you always have to choose how far you are willing to go. 

Often, you just end up going to far, and the possible resulting burnout reduces your power so much that you do not have the strength to act any more. 

The consequence of this is that you can no longer feel yourself, and this keeps you in a helpless state. 

Therefore, it is recommended that if you can no longer keep your energy high with the daily discipline—and feel free to ask people close to you, as they can often see better than you how you are feeling—you have to decide on a deadline and move on, making sure that you move on while you still have the energy to act. 

The consciousness model is a tool to promote the global development of consciousness towards more insight, enabling people to make more conscious actions and thus build a life that is lived in freedom for them and their fellow human beings.

The model can be used for self assessments, onboarding, assessments in connection with succession planning and promotions, for screening of candidates in case of new hires, strengthening of group dynamics and cross-disciplinary collaborations, etc. It is a tool for conversations as well as the subsequent reflection.

The consciousness model provides you with increased knowledge of how to act, the significance of conscious and unconscious actions as well as how to act differently towards yourself and others. The model is dynamic and not static, and we move in and out of the four phases depending on how skilled we are at managing ourselves.

You have to go through one circle in order to go through the next one. However, you can easily go quickly through one circle in order to land faster in the next one. If we were not encumbered by our brains, our ego and all its convictions, and thus subjective analyses, our development towards more consciousness would be less complicated and not necessarily linear.

However, our convictions are reduced as we become more conscious and get closer to what is genuine and real, which is masked and therefore concealed by the unconscious.

The more frequently we live our lives as unfree and unconscious individuals or as free and conscious individuals, the more we will attract circumstances/networks/opportunities that are either in the low vibrational energy sphere or the high vibrational energy sphere. 

As the two energy spheres do not resonate with each other, it takes a dedicated and disciplined effort to convert a low vibrational energy sphere to a high vibrational energy sphere due to the resulting changes, so that you do not re-anchor yourself in a low vibrational energy sphere.

Among other things, this includes the life changes at different planes and levels that people are currently experiencing on a macro and micro level.

The model consists of four consciousness phases, which can be grouped into two unconscious and two conscious phases.

The first two consciousness phases generate a low vibrational energy, which is fed by the ego's need for power and breeds unfree, fitting-in actions and unfree fitting-in cultures.
 

This is reflected in the choice of actions being primarily based on what serves your own interests. Thus, the perspective is reduced significantly through absent compassion in the shape of either/or approaches when interacting with others or co-operating, one size fits all perspectives and therefore my way or the highway communication.
 

The consequence is timidness or complete silence from the surrounding people.

In the first consciousness step, you are unfree and ‘unconsciously unrestricted’: Here, you live on quick fixes as continuous fuel. You sub-optimise, manipulate and are illusorily spellbound. You are not able to acknowledge or have realisations, which creates a dependency on quick satisfaction.
 

From the outside, you may seem powerful, in control and impressive, but on the inside, you are unfree, trapped in the unconscious and doing everything not to feel.

Therefore, you are drawn to and experience constant noise and racing thoughts, and you are drawn to and attract people who act in the same way. You impress at a distance in different ways and thus ensure that you have a strong story and brand that you can tell yourself and get others to tell, keeping and consolidating you in the unconscious.

In the second consciousness step, you are unfree and ‘unconsciously restricted’: Here, you live on quick fixes as continuous fuel. You sub-optimise and manipulate, but the illusion gradually loses its grip on your reality, as you start seeing more clearly, corresponding to getting stronger lenses in your glasses.
 

You start waking up from being closed off spiritually, as realisations start continuously flowing in. This will gradually give you a feeling of being unfree and restricted, rather than the original perception of being free and unrestricted, as you start experiencing the restriction of not being connected to the power of your heart and the consequence of your heartless actions.

You will typically have an increased sense of frustration and illusion, and the stimulants that used to be soothing no longer have the same effect.

The next two consciousness steps generate a high vibrational energy, which is fed by the need for power and being powerfilled in order to enter into meaningful relations. Here, you experience being free, because you can belong exactly as you are.
 

You are conscious of what fills you with power, making you powerfilled, and if you are powerful without being powerfilled, because you are working at reduced force, you will consciously lead yourself towards more power, enabling you to come back to yourself and a feeling of belongingness within yourself and towards others.
 

People who represent these two consciousness steps are driven by the energy across a well-functioning value chain and reflect a both/and approach when co-operating.
 

They are driven by connectedness and therefore promote belongingness, knowing that being powerfilled makes you positively powerful.
 

Therefore, the responsibility to maintain balance is considered mutual. This means that these talents do not sub-optimise through fitting-in, as they know that the power should be distributed equally, and that it starts in themselves and their own well-being.

In the third consciousness step, you are free and ‘consciously restricted’: Here, you no longer thrive being energetically or brain-chemically malnourished through quick fixes, which are instead perceived as destructive to your personal balance, and therefore, you search for completely new types of nourishment. This is all driven by the restriction, increasing your hunger for being set free.

You start loosening up, you have become ‘open to power’, and clearly see as well as sense the difference between being powerful on the outside and being powerfilled on the inside, and you can feel the difference in your surroundings as well. 

Your intuition is expanding, and you therefore gain access to a lot of information through your senses that has always been available to you, but which you could not access due to not being conscious and being closed off.

You will typically feel changed, look back and wonder, while your life and existence are being converted and rebuilt.

There will be people who think that they are now done growing, as they experience the upgrade through increased intuition etc. as an enormous boost and a major change in energy. This can result in you quickly reverting to phase 2, where you become unconsciously restricted, but soon, you can feel that you are no longer being nourished and therefore do not thrive at this level of low vibrational energy.

In the fourth consciousness step, you are free and ‘consciously unrestricted’: Here, you ensure your own self management from the inside out without doing it from the outside in at the expense of the energy and freedom of other people.

You will be liberated in your own power and strengths, and you understand the difference between being powerfilled and powerful. You also understand your responsibility and co-responsibility, and you live unselfishly. You do not see yourself as separate from others, as you experience connectedness and mutual love in continuation hereof. You experience how to complete each other like pieces of a puzzle.

It is vital to emphasize that you are not done because you feel liberated, as you may mistake being humble regarding your own development and continuous learning for reaching your goal. Because, you may end up back at unconsciously unrestricted, as the unconscious has simply acquired a new camouflage in the shape of a martyr or someone who knows everything and more than others and who feeds directly from the ego.

You have to keep your ego in check all your life, and therefore, we will never be done growing. Being aware of this, and the humility that should come from this knowledge and acceptance, should contribute to the daily discipline, which breeds skilled self management, being the guiding principle in a free life with more conscious actions. A life without this daily discipline and humility regarding your own learning is an unconscious life.

Coherence without power = no cohesiveness. 

Belongingness that arises in the conscious phases with a high vibrational energy is created through the team's cohesiveness, as people are working for connectedness through their respective strengths. Fitting-in is created in the unconscious phases with a low vibrational energy. 

The higher the energy in a team, the greater the cohesiveness and the energy that promotes a joint consciousness. The lower the energy in a team, the more basis there is for the unconscious to triumph. In that case, the individuals mainly stick up for themselves, which reduces cohesiveness.

So, ‘the Future is WE’, as the team's connectedness and mutual completion of each other is vital to the individual's development of consciousness and ability to become and remain conscious. 

Generally, you can differentiate between the actions associated with a ME versus WE and a WE versus ME.

You can do this by exploring the data set in our senses, and use this to observe with focus on: Actions & cohesiveness: 

1) Which ME actions drain the power of the cohesiveness and make people heavy and low-vibrating energetically as well as more unconscious?

Phase 1: Angela is really bright and says all the right things, but she speaks down to people, has no empathy, spreads distrust, and people in her path lose faith in themselves and their colleagues.

Phase 2: Angela is starting to realise, not understand, but realise that she has a hand in the conflicts that increase in her presence. She is starting to be more cautious, but she is still not sure what she is specifically doing. 

2) Which WE actions fuel the power of the cohesiveness and make people high-vibrating energetically as well as more conscious?

Phase 3: Magnus is part of a merger that is not going well. The new culture after the merger does not feel safe, and it breeds ‘survival of the fittest’ actions and a fitting-in culture. Magnus knows that he has knowledge that insecure colleagues in management can make use of, and that he can coordinate internally. Thus, he will activate them in a cross-disciplinary cooperation by reaching out and helping them one by one.

Phase 4: Magnus gathers all managers for weekly meetings and propels the process of each of them succeeding in their work and avoiding silos between the departments. Thus, Magnus prevents the increase of internal power struggles and puts his colleagues into action in the best possible way.

Phase 1: Victor is the viper who strikes without any subsequent insight. Victor says exactly what he is thinking, without reflection and empathy regarding the consequences for the recipient.

Phase 2: Victor is starting to realise more and can now apologize for the negative effect on his consciously restricted colleague Cathrine. Victor is feeling his restrictions more and more in line with more and more realisations, but he consolidates even more unconsciously, as unconsciously unrestricted, in order to avoid feeling. Because, Victor does not want to change his habits and develop character. This puts additional pressure on Cathrine's consciousness development in their daily cooperation.

Phase 3: Cathrine is losing her energy, and her otherwise conscious actions become unconscious when Victor intimidates her. Cathrine strikes back, and then, it is a battle of egos. Common sense and compassion energy are in the chemistry of the brain replaced with fighting energy. The energies switch places in the unconscious as Cathrine surrenders her power to Victor, and the lack of energy increases.

Phase 4: As long as management does not intervene towards Victor and Cathrine, often because it is difficult to see how to make the unconscious mechanisms and power struggles conscious, it will be difficult to assess what is the chicken and the egg in the conflict, and thus, what the solution is. This can result in burnout and a matter of who crashes first.