The Extraordinary Power of Belonging (feat. Gaelin Elmore)
“Despite all the bad circumstances that I dealt with and navigated, there were people who were meeting my belonging needs in a way that allowed me to continue to grow, learn, and thrive in spite of the things I was experiencing.”
Children in foster care are often deeply longing for connection, intimacy, and relationships. How can we offer children the support necessary to help them flourish and shift from surviving to actively living? How does their need for belonging affect the decisions we make in showing up for them?
Our guest today has experienced this personally. Gaelin Elmore is a dynamic and nationally sought-after keynote speaker, trainer, and thought leader. Motivated by his own traumatic childhood and lack of belonging after over 10 years in the foster care system, he now works with organizations and people to become “belonging-informed” in order to help children overcome trauma and unleash their potential.
In this episode, you’ll hear the difference belonging made in Gaelin’s life, his personal story of finding hope in impossible circumstances, walking away from a professional career in the NFL, and why belonging is a crucial consideration for every decision when supporting children in foster care.
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Key Takeaways
- Belonging is experienced when we have community, safety, and intimacy. In order for children in foster care to experience belonging, we have to be intentional about creating environments and relationships that contain these elements. When they are not present, we see children who are starved for connection and belonging.
- Show up in a supportive role. You don’t have to be the person who “breaks down the wall” to play an important role. You may not be the person to open their home to a child in your community. But what you can do is offer what is uniquely available to you to make a difference. Consider what you can do to create a sense of belonging now that may allow someone else down the road to break through.
- Consider what belonging means for you first. If belonging doesn’t matter in your own life, you can’t offer it to others. Before we can externally offer and cultivate belonging for others, we have to identify what belonging did or what the lack of belonging did for us. It’s only once we understand the role of belonging in our lives that we can then begin to bring it to our workplace, community, homes, and to others.
Resources
Meet the Guest
Gaelin Elmore is a dynamic and nationally sought-after keynote speaker, trainer, and thought leader. After spending over 10 years in the foster care system as well as experiencing physical, mental, and emotional abuse, he went to live with his high school coach which led to a scholarship to play football at the University of Minnesota and then in the NFL with the Cincinnati Bengals. Gaelin attributes this life-changing turnaround to deeply experiencing belonging. Today he lives in Minnesota with his wife, Micaela, and their three children.
