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The Creating Belonging Podcast
In the book, Creating Belonging: A Practical Guide to Accelerate Belonging in Organizations and Communities, Justin Reinert describes a model where belonging sits at the intersection of authenticity and acceptance. In The Creating Belonging Podcast, host Justin Reinert will continue the conversation of creating belonging by discussing others' experiences when they've been at various levels of authenticity and acceptance in their communities. Our goal with this podcast will be to help others find new paths to belonging in their communities.
The Creating Belonging Podcast
Blonde Identity | Part 2
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00:00:10 Justin
Hey, Justin. Here, heads up. This is Part 2 of a two-part episode. If you haven't already, listen to the first half. I recommend you go back and listen to it first.
00:00:21 Speaker 1
And now we'll pick back up and hear about how Lauren reconciled her Jewish and gay identities.
00:00:27 Lauren
But yeah, to answer your question from before, you know how, how is my Jewish identity, my gay identity and and and how?
00:00:34 Lauren
How did it intertwine when coming out?
00:00:36 Lauren
It was really tough.
00:00:38 Lauren
It was really tough and you know.
00:00:42 Lauren
I grew up in an Orthodox synagogue in the UK, so the UK doesn't have tons of different strains of Judaism like we have in in America, and it was sort of you're either Orthodox or your reform and we were Orthodox men and women sat separately in the synagogue was only a man was allowed to be a rabbi.
00:01:02 Lauren
It was very, very sort of.
00:01:05 Lauren
Yeah, those, those, those sort of gender roles and and I knew something felt a little off to me.
00:01:13 Lauren
I was like, this doesn't feel like something I really connected with and honestly, it was only until I started spending time in America that I understand that I understood that you could be Jewish and.
00:01:26 Lauren
In many different ways, and it was it was beautiful to to connect with.
00:01:33 Lauren
Conservative Judaism, more reformed Judaism and and those strains of Judaism.
00:01:39 Lauren
Not only do they, like embrace the gay community, there is.
00:01:44 Lauren
Massive that you know there is tons of communities of gay rabbis, of trans rabbis, of people and non binary people who are very, very involved in in those strains of Judaism.
00:01:58 Lauren
I mean it's it's not only accepted, but it's celebrated look not not everywhere in Judaism.
00:02:04 Lauren
It's becoming more so, but it's and and that in my later in in my later years, like I'm sounding like I'm 100, but.
00:02:16 Lauren
But you know in the last sort of 10 years that's been.
00:02:20 Lauren
So healing for me and and I I wasn't.
00:02:24 Lauren
It wasn't a it wasn't a massive repression being Jewish and being gay.
00:02:28 Lauren
There was other nuances for me in particular.
00:02:30 Lauren
Have a gay brother and that really, you know, I thought there could only be 1 gay sibling in each family.
00:02:37 Lauren
And now we know that you know 30% of of gay people have a gay sibling, and and whatever the stats are, but.
00:02:44 Lauren
So there was other things that went into it, but certainly it was very tough coming out in an Orthodox Jewish community, so much so that I.
00:02:52 Lauren
I only really came out publicly when I moved to America, when I physically removed myself from that environment is when within four weeks of moving to America, I was exploring my sexuality and.
00:03:09 Lauren
That's been very interesting to unpack in therapy.
00:03:15 Speaker 1
Well, I mean, I think that, you know, living the American gay experience and growing up in rural Iowa.
00:03:24 Speaker 1
I can identify that you know, in that home environment you it's not something you explore, you push it down, you hide it and it's not until I think for many, I I don't wanna speak for anyone else.
00:03:41 Speaker 1
But I think for many in America, the gay experience is.
00:03:45 Speaker 1
If you're in that kind of repressive environment or conservative environment, you remove yourself from it and go find a new place where you can almost be anonymous to explore.
00:03:57
Right.
00:03:57 Speaker 1
Or like what that is and what that means for you.
00:04:02 Speaker 1
And it's interesting that you found this kind of.
00:04:09 Speaker 1
Freedom. Good Lord, this is like, so American. This freedom guys in the States and #1 being able to express your religion, but also being able to to.
00:04:22 Speaker 1
I come to terms and find your your sexual identity.
00:04:27 Lauren
And the two are very into like I only look at Judaism and being gay in a positive light intertwined together.
00:04:36 Lauren
I don't look at it in any sort of negative way at this point in.
00:04:39 Lauren
My life, and I think it's, I think being accepted by the Jewish community helped.
00:04:46 Lauren
Me, except myself.
00:04:48 Lauren
And again not only accepted like, celebrate it, like pushed to talk about it.
00:04:53 Lauren
You know, I remember studying with the rabbi where we specifically studied.
00:04:58 Lauren
Gay sub tones of the Torah and you know and and sort of like, different sexual experiences that are talked about in the Torah that could have like a queer meaning.
00:05:09 Lauren
Like, that's the stuff that that I you know that I do.
00:05:14 Lauren
How the how those two of my identities are intertwined.
00:05:17 Lauren
It's like, so entertained and so celebrated.
00:05:20 Lauren
So I I only have positive views of.
00:05:23 Lauren
Being Jewish and gay in the same sort of breath.
00:05:28 Speaker 1
That's incredible.
00:05:29 Speaker 1
It's incredible because I.
00:05:31 Speaker 1
Have a very different.
00:05:33 Speaker 1
Relationship with many religions.
00:05:35 Speaker 1
Just because I find.
00:05:38 Speaker 1
I find their exclusion of, you know, primarily sexual identity, but secondarily, they're exclusion of so many other things, religion, you know, in the US, being used to oppress groups of people and, you know, and not just in the US.
00:05:58 Speaker 1
Across the Globe, religion being used to oppress and.
00:06:02 Speaker 1
I don't think that that's, I don't know when you go read the words.
00:06:06 Speaker 1
That's not what it's supposed to be about.
00:06:09 Speaker 1
Right.
00:06:11 Speaker 1
And so that's where I've I've always had this like.
00:06:17 Speaker 1
Bristle and and as an adult because what's interesting when you talk about kind of you didn't realize there were multiple ways to be Jewish until moving to the state.
00:06:28 Speaker 1
I actually growing up and I don't talk a lot about kind of my spiritual upbringing, but my family raised me as as Lutheran, and I really respect the way that my mother approached my kind of spiritual upbringing because, you know, in the Lutheran religion, you're kind of considered an.
00:06:48 Speaker 1
Adults, once you are confirmed and go through confirmation and so that was her.
00:06:54 Speaker 1
Kind of like you will.
00:06:55 Speaker 1
Get through confirmation and then from there you are, you know, by the Lutheran religion, spiritually and adults.
00:07:02 Speaker 1
So then you.
00:07:02 Speaker 1
Go figure out.
00:07:04 Speaker 1
Where you go from there and what I respect the most about that is that it it it gave me a foundation that I could work from and then, you know, thankfully my natural curiosity also pulls me in different direction.
00:07:17 Speaker 1
So before I was confirmed at a younger age, my babysitter went to a Baptist Church.
00:07:24 Speaker 1
And so I would attend the Baptist Church with them and at a very young age, remember, you know, accepting Jesus as my personal savior and, you know, being born again.
00:07:36 Speaker 1
And so I can currently attended a Baptist Church in a Lutheran Church.
00:07:40 Speaker 1
And could could kind of you know, while they're both Christian religions.
00:07:46 Speaker 1
Could differentiate what was going on between the two, and I think that's what led to.
00:07:52 Speaker 1
Then you know, once I was 18 and left home, what kind of led to some of my spiritual liberation was understanding some of the hypocrisy.
00:08:06 Speaker 1
That happens within all of that and for me there was a rejection of, you know, my church was emailing me, trying to fundraise as a freshman in college.
00:08:15 Speaker 1
And I'm like, so I don't attend your church anymore.
00:08:18 Speaker 1
And I don't have any money.
00:08:19 Speaker 1
So sorry.
00:08:21 Speaker 1
And started to see it as like this fundraising thing anyway.
00:08:26 Speaker 1
There's my tangent on my my religious and spiritual upbringing.
00:08:30 Speaker 1
But that's why today, like I consider myself spiritual on my own terms, like in my own ways.
00:08:37 Speaker 1
But I don't ascribe to any particular scripture.
00:08:41 Lauren
Yeah, and that's.
00:08:44 Lauren
I've had conversations.
00:08:46 Lauren
It was just Passover and and not to make this, you know, again about me and Judaism.
00:08:52 Lauren
One thing about me is I can make.
00:08:53 Lauren
Everything about me so.
00:08:55 Lauren
Here we are.
00:08:57 Lauren
But it was just Passover last week and I hosted a Seda, a Passover seder's, a dinner where you talked about the story of.
00:09:06 Lauren
Of Jews, the exodus.
00:09:10 Lauren
From Egypt and we had some non Jewish folks around our table and they were sort of blown away by I actually there was a prayer that I found.
00:09:21 Lauren
Thanking non Jewish people for sitting around our Passover table because there's so many people that would not come and attend a Jewish event.
00:09:30 Lauren
You know, they they just wouldn't.
00:09:31 Lauren
And they couldn't.
00:09:33 Lauren
They still couldn't believe it.
00:09:34 Lauren
They were like, thank you for thanking us.
00:09:35 Lauren
Like what?
00:09:36 Lauren
The, you know, the the the Christian religion soul would I don't think would ever you.
00:09:40 Lauren
Know do that or or or.
00:09:42 Lauren
You know, whatever it might be.
00:09:43 Lauren
So it was just, it's really interesting and we were having a conversation about being gay.
00:09:49 Lauren
We're we're all.
00:09:50 Lauren
We're all gay at the table and be being gay and being Christian, being gay and being Jewish.
00:09:55 Lauren
And your sentiment, you know what you just said and how you grapple with it.
00:09:58 Lauren
But the spirituality side of it helped grow.
00:10:01 Lauren
Your identity is pretty much exactly what our friends were saying at the table, so.
00:10:07 Lauren
I I hear that when I talk about being Jewish and being gay.
00:10:12 Lauren
I hear your side of it a.
00:10:13 Lauren
Lot from from the Christian standpoint.
00:10:18 Speaker 1
The other thing that comes up for me said when you're talking about Passover is that you know, we also Easter was this past weekend Christian religion, Passover and there's other holidays, other religious holidays around this time.
00:10:32 Speaker 1
And I saw someone post on Facebook, you know, Sunday and Monday, something like that.
00:10:38 Speaker 1
And it was like, you know, however, you celebrate, this is a time of rebirth and renewal and blah blah blah something.
00:10:46 Speaker 1
And that hit me.
00:10:48 Speaker 1
And I was like.
00:10:49 Speaker 1
I was like ohh wow.
00:10:50 Speaker 1
Like there are.
00:10:51 Speaker 1
That's where when I tap into spirituality, it's like ohh well, there's actually, you know, you look across all of the religions.
00:10:58 Speaker 1
And interestingly enough, there are holidays and the types of holidays that align around the calendar.
00:11:05 Speaker 1
So whether you call it Christian or Jewish or you know any other religion.
00:11:10 Speaker 1
There's something energy wise, spirituality wise, that's happening for us collectively.
00:11:16 Lauren
I think as humans we we need it, we need something bigger than ourselves to look to.
00:11:21 Lauren
You know we we need.
00:11:23 Lauren
We need, like higher power, the universe, whatever you might call it, it's so essential to be able to look out just outside of our own brains and our own worlds and have something.
00:11:36 Lauren
You know, tied to spiritually, I think.
00:11:39 Lauren
I will always.
00:11:41 Lauren
I would always appreciate that in myself and and in other people was that spiritual side of it.
00:11:47 Lauren
So I think it's so grounding and so helpful.
00:11:51 Lauren
OK, not everyone cares about what you're saying.
00:11:53 Lauren
You know, like we are a chain of a bigger events and and things happening outside of us.
00:12:02 Speaker 1
And I think you know, for me, bringing it back to creating belonging and the creating belonging model is when we can shift to that perspective that you know kind of like lifting up to more of that when it comes to religion and how religion can impact someones belonging.
00:12:23 Speaker 1
You know, going back to the core of love.
00:12:27 Speaker 1
Going back to the core of, you know, including people and community and that, you know, whatever it is, we all may have some higher being that we're looking to and getting out of those repressive components of what people in pulpits.
00:12:47 Speaker 1
We're telling us.
00:12:49 Lauren
Right, right.
00:12:50 Lauren
And that's thinking for yourselves, but you know ourselves being individuals and and doing, you know, I was saying this to you before, but doing the work individually on ourselves like we gotta understand ourselves before we're able to anchor our identities and other things.
00:13:07 Lauren
It's like.
00:13:09 Lauren
I've seen people anchor their identities in the wrong things because they were looking outside of themselves, and so doing, you know, along with doing the inner work, you'll find your identities.
00:13:21 Lauren
You'll find things that are lying beneath the surface.
00:13:25 Lauren
That you really can or.
00:13:27 Lauren
You you do anchor yourselves in, even if we're not labeling them as identities like they are like, you know, values.
00:13:33 Lauren
And what's your purpose?
00:13:34 Lauren
And I remember you led us through a workshop like understanding our own individual purpose, and it still sticks with me.
00:13:41 Lauren
I still use it, you know, three companies on so I still.
00:13:47 Lauren
I I think even even that as an identity is is important.
00:13:53 Speaker 1
Yeah, I love that.
00:13:57 Speaker 1
I think is the one thing that I wanna pull out of that and to kind of put the punctuation point on the conversation is, is that idea of self-awareness and doing the internal work because for me that is the if well two things that I want creating belonging to do.
00:14:18 Speaker 1
I want it to number one, get us to dig into ourselves and understand more about ourselves, dig into self-awareness every I think you know, Carl Jung said. Every advance of human kind only happened through self aware.
00:14:34 Speaker 1
And so if we can dig into our self-awareness and then secondly, embrace and accept others and choose love over anything else. So I think.
00:14:44 Lauren
Yeah, but I have a.
00:14:46 Lauren
Question I have a question for.
00:14:47 Lauren
You on that.
00:14:47
Yeah, yeah.
00:14:49 Lauren
Why do you think it's so hard for people to accept other people?
00:14:53 Lauren
You know, if I'm just out here living my life and someone really disagree, it's like why they?
00:14:57 Lauren
Why is it so hard for them to just accept that?
00:15:03 Speaker 1
Well, so I I think if we look biologically, we are wired.
00:15:11 Speaker 1
So in our in our need to be a part of a community in our need to be a part of a tribe.
00:15:17 Speaker 1
We also sort for likeness.
00:15:20 Speaker 1
And so this is where I I I talk a lot about the prehistoric parts of our brain that get in the way of modern life. Because, yeah, 2000 years ago, when we were living in tribes.
00:15:34 Speaker 1
You know and where we live 2000 years ago? Yeah, we.
00:15:36 Speaker 1
Were when we were living.
00:15:37 Speaker 1
Living in tribes and and you know absolutely.
00:15:43 Speaker 1
We needed to quickly understand who was in and who was out for our own safety, for our own survival.
00:15:51 Speaker 1
But today the threats are not the same.
00:15:53 Speaker 1
But we still have the same prehistoric bro.
00:15:56 Speaker 1
Thing, and it's that prehistoric brain that is saying they're different from us.
00:16:01 Lauren
Right.
00:16:02 Speaker 1
So we need to push them away.
00:16:04 Speaker 1
They're a threat, and that's where I think we have to do a lot of work to override that pre.
00:16:12 Speaker 1
The prehistoric parts of our brain to understand.
00:16:15 Speaker 1
No, no, that's not a threat anymore.
00:16:16 Speaker 1
That individual is not a threat anymore.
00:16:18 Speaker 1
You know, whatever it is isn't actually a threat.
00:16:22 Speaker 1
But it's it's.
00:16:23 Speaker 1
Hard because it's a part of our brain that also keeps us alive every day, right?
00:16:27 Speaker 1
It does also get us to jump out of the.
00:16:29 Speaker 1
Way of danger.
00:16:32 Speaker 1
And that's why that's why I think we we push people away and it's but it's it's like you said when we're not digging into self-awareness.
00:16:42 Speaker 1
And we're only paying attention to what's outside.
00:16:46 Speaker 1
Yeah, it's very easy then to quickly sort likeness versus not likeness and then just push those that are not like us away.
00:16:59 Lauren
That that makes so much sense.
00:17:01 Lauren
Because I find myself doing it as well, you know, and I think that's where it go.
00:17:04 Lauren
That's where we go into overbearing.
00:17:08 Lauren
And I think the, I think overbearing is 1 the.
00:17:12 Lauren
Is one of the quadrants in the model that.
00:17:16 Lauren
We we can't, we we might not be able to see in the moment as much.
00:17:20 Lauren
As other people can see it in US.
00:17:23 Lauren
So you know I I think that's a really interesting one.
00:17:29 Lauren
The one that I think that's the quadrant where the self, if we're living in that quadrant or I guess I'll talk to myself.
00:17:35 Lauren
When I was living in that quadrant, that's when I needed to do a lot of inner work.
00:17:40 Lauren
So I'm not saying like being there and it's like, always terrible.
00:17:44 Lauren
But there's probably, yeah, there's probably things knocking at the door that we're not answering.
00:17:50 Speaker 1
Yeah, yes.
00:17:51 Speaker 1
The thing with overbearing is that we may not realize it when we're there, but it is very likely that we're doing others.
00:17:58 Speaker 1
Harm while we're there.
00:18:00 Lauren
Yeah, yeah.
00:18:01 Speaker 1
And it's actually why so early on in the creation of creating belonging and building this work, I created an assessment because I wanted people to have a tool that they could use to self to quickly identify, you know, through a series of questions.
00:18:17 Speaker 1
Where do I sit on the?
00:18:18 Speaker 1
Model and I found that it was doing the work to service because we are really good at overestimating ourselves.
00:18:27 Speaker 1
You know what's the stat I used recently that not, you know, actually, I think Al said it on an earlier episode, 93% of the population thinks that they're above average drivers, right?
00:18:38 Lauren
I heard that, yeah.
00:18:38 Speaker 1
Well, that's so.
00:18:42 Speaker 1
So we overestimate ourselves. And so we're like, oh, I'm in belonging. Everything's great. Like, I'm really accepting of others, but.
00:18:50 Speaker 1
There's so many blind spots that we have and we don't realize it.
00:18:53 Speaker 1
And So what I found it I burned the assessment because I didn't ever want it to do a disservice of the work of it.
00:19:01 Speaker 1
Allowing people to not go into deep reflection.
00:19:04 Lauren
Right, right.
00:19:05 Lauren
You don't want to, like, force people into a box just because they have to.
00:19:08 Lauren
If that's not, you know, if that's different for them.
00:19:12 Lauren
Yeah, that makes sense.
00:19:15 Speaker 1
So there is, you know, I think we can be in overbearing and not realizing it not realize it.
00:19:20 Speaker 1
So we do need to again go into self reflection and also ask others. I love how all this is coming back together because there's Al talked about, you know, the idea of internal self-awareness and external self-awareness so.
00:19:35 Speaker 1
What we know about ourselves and then what we learn from other people and how other people see us and how we show up in the world and so we.
00:19:41 Speaker 1
Need both of those things to balance.
00:19:44 Lauren
Right.
00:19:44 Lauren
Yeah, no, I listened to that episode with Alan.
00:19:46 Lauren
It was incredible.
00:19:48 Lauren
It was really eye opening and.
00:19:51 Lauren
It's it. Yeah, it may. It made me think about social signals. And, you know, when someone's talking to me about a topic, I literally could not care less about. You can tell in my face.
00:20:00 Lauren
And I'm like.
00:20:02 Lauren
Like I need to change, you know, like I need to.
00:20:04 Lauren
That's a social signal for me that I.
00:20:06 Lauren
Need to tweak.
00:20:08 Lauren
And it's I think we have, we have a lot of those.
00:20:12 Lauren
We don't realize our social signal signalling all the time.
00:20:15 Lauren
Like I've probably been sat here on this video like not smiling and like looking disinterest is my natural face.
00:20:22 Lauren
And that's again, that's also social signaling, like internal external so it.
00:20:26 Lauren
Is very interesting.
00:20:28 Lauren
I promise we'll stop.
00:20:29 Lauren
We can stop now.
00:20:31 Lauren
I'm just.
00:20:31 Speaker 1
I know you're.
00:20:32 Lauren
A conversation I not.
00:20:34 Speaker 1
You're making me think, uh, how much I am.
00:20:37 Speaker 1
I'm conscious of that and it's so weird in this new environment because I'm literally.
00:20:41 Speaker 1
Like staring at a camera and I'm so used to staring at a camera and smiling and and, you know, giving these signals that I'm interested because that's what I'm, you know, trying to portray over cameras.
00:20:54 Speaker 1
We're on all of these zoom calls and I'm constantly communicating over over zoom, but anyway Lauren, this is incredible.
00:21:02 Speaker 1
And I'm we're, I'm probably.
00:21:04 Speaker 1
I'm probably we're just gonna do the whole this whole conversation because it was an amazing conversation and I hope you all stuck around with us and found it as engaging as I've found it.
00:21:13 Speaker 1
Aging Lauren and I could probably continue talking and we probably will, but I want to thank you all for for joining us in this episode of the Creating Belonging podcast.
00:21:27 Speaker 1
Lauren, I always want to make sure that I'm giving my guests an opportunity to shout out anything that they want to shout out self.
00:21:34 Speaker 1
Promotion, whatever it is.
00:21:36 Speaker 1
So here's your opportunity.
00:21:37 Speaker 1
What would you like to share or invite people to?
00:21:40 Speaker 1
Connect with you.
00:21:47 Lauren
That's the hardest question you've asked me.
00:21:48 Lauren
Yeah, just just follow me because I like ego boosts, you know, so my.
00:21:53 Lauren
I'm Lauren Glazin on Instagram and LinkedIn.
00:21:58 Lauren
Connect with me.
00:21:59 Lauren
Ask me any of the any other questions that you have and I love this model, Justin, and I appreciate you so much for inviting me and.
00:22:07 Lauren
And you know, giving me a space to talk about some of the stuff.
00:22:11 Speaker 1
Thank you for joining me, Lauren.
00:22:13 Speaker 1
Thank you so much.
00:22:14 Speaker 1
And uh, we'll see you all again on another version of the creating blogging podcast.
00:22:20
Thank you.
