How do I practice belonging when I feel like an outsider to my own community?

Rabia knew this intimately. She lived on the margins—enslaved, poor, a woman making her own spiritual path. Yet she created belonging not by conforming but by loving so radically that the walls around her dissolved. Belonging isn't about fitting in. It's about finding your people and being undeniably, messily, devotedly *present*. Start small. Show up somewhere—a gathering, a cause, a conversation—not to prove yourself but to genuinely witness and be witnessed. Bring your whole self, not a polished version. The people who recognize you will. The ones who don't, that's information too. Real community isn't built on acceptance; it's built on reciprocal care. You belong to the work, to the people who need what you have, to the places where your love lands and finds ground. That's not something you earn. It's something you practice into being. What community, however small, already feels alive to you? Start there. Tend it. Let it tend you back.