13/12/2025
“𝕎𝕙𝕖𝕟 ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕥𝕤 𝔸𝕣𝕖 𝕃𝕖𝕗𝕥 𝕆𝕦𝕥”
A reflective piece on inclusion
“Love and belonging are
irreducible needs of all women,
men, and children. We are
biologically, cognitively, physically,and spiritually wired
to love, to be loved, and to belong” ~Breńe Brown
There was a know guiding principle in early childhood education that had always stayed with me while I was preparing our environment each year…….
‘When you walk into an early childhood centre, you should be able to sense the identities of the children using the space before you ever meet a child, so that the environment truly belongs to them’
From my own years in the field, I understood deeply how preparing the environment in this way carefully, intentionally, and with warmth allowed children to feel that they belonged, and that their identity was recognised and valued.
For many years, as I worked in early childhood education, I would often return to the understanding that identity and belonging just as Brene brown quotes are irreversible human needs and that identity and belonging are not optional extras for children, nor privileges to be earned, but the foundational needs of all women, men, and children.
Because of this, I learned to prepare environments with great care. The physical space mattered, yes but just as important was the emotional climate. The warmth of the educators. The tone of voice. The way a child was greeted by name. The way their work was displayed, their stories listened to, their presence expected. All of these quietly whispered the same message: You belong here. And from that belonging, identity could safely grow.
Belonging is not a soft concept. It is not sentimental. It is structural. It is spiritual. When belonging is present, a person stands more fully in themselves. When it is absent, something essential begins to fracture.
Of all the human wounds, exclusion is one of the quietest and one of the most devastating.
It rarely announces itself loudly. It arrives instead in the small silences like the invitation not sent, the chair left empty, the gathering that happens without you. It shows up when a child waits at the school gate knowing the party is happening elsewhere and they haven’t been invited. Or when a colleague realises the staff Christmas celebration went ahead without them, when an adult discovers they are no longer welcome in a course, a team, a circle or community they once belonged to. It shows up when someone is asked without words to sit on the sideline of life.
Exclusion is not simply the absence of inclusion.
It is a message.
And the message it carries is very heavy ‘You do not belong’
For a child, exclusion strikes at the very formation of self. Children do not yet have the language or distance to contextualise loss and they experience it personally. To be excluded from a birthday party or a Christmas celebration is not understood as circumstance it is felt as identity. There must be something wrong with me. That thought can quietly lodge in a young heart and echo far beyond childhood.
For adults, exclusion often reopens places we believed were healed. To be left out of a team, a workplace gathering, a course you signed up for and had participated in, or a communal ritual, can awaken a deep and ancient fear - the fear of being unnecessary, invisible, or easily discarded. Adults may carry it more silently, but the body remembers.
The nervous system remembers. The soul remembers.
Even those we encounter every day on the street, The homeless person we pass, the one we see tucked into a corner or holding a sign they are living testimonies of exclusion. They all began somewhere in life, with hopes, names, and belonging. And yet, society’s neglect, circumstance, and invisibility often teach them, day after day, that they do not belong. How transformative it would be, even in the smallest gesture this Christmas, to include them if only in our glance, our smile, our acknowledgment that they too are seen, remembered, and worthy.
From the lowest rung to the highest position, exclusion destabilises. It erodes trust. It fractures dignity. It can send a person into a deep inner experience of rejection and disposal and not because of anything they have done, but simply because of who they are, how they are perceived, or how inconvenient their presence has become.
There is a particular pain in being excluded by those we believed loved us. When exclusion comes from strangers, it wounds. When it comes from friends, colleagues, families, or communities we trusted, it cuts far deeper. It dismantles the sense of safety that belonging once provided.
Spiritually, exclusion is a form of erasure. It contradicts the sacred truth that every person carries inherent worth.
The mystics knew this well. Meister Eckhart wrote,
“The soul grows by subtraction, not addition.”
Yet exclusion is not the holy subtraction that leads to freedom it is in actual fact the violent removal of a person from the place where their very soul was unfolding.
Julian of Norwich offers a quieter, truer vision when she says:
“In the sight of God, no soul is forgotten, no life is unregarded.”
And yet, here on earth, forgetting happens every day.
This Christmas, and today there are people sitting at home who should be somewhere else. People who assumed they would be included. People who dressed their hearts for belonging only to discover there was no seat for them. Some will blame themselves. Some will grow silent. Some will carry shame that was never theirs to hold.
Exclusion teaches people to shrink. To stop expecting. To stop hoping. Over time, it narrows a person’s sense of worth and welcome in the world. And this is its deepest harm not the single moment of being left out, but the long, slow erosion of belonging.
And so the invitation before us all today is both simple and profound.
To include is not merely a social courtesy. It is a sacred act.
To widen the circle is to reflect the divine heart and isn’t that what Christmas is really about.
This Christmas, may we notice who is missing.
May we ask who might assume they are not wanted unless told otherwise.
May we remember that for someone, a single invitation can undo a lifetime of exclusion.
And may we remember those who live on the margins, whose lives are daily reminders of exclusion, and offer them inclusion in even the smallest, most human ways—a smile, a glance, a greeting that says: I see you. You belong.
Because there is no harder feeling than being excluded.
And no greater gift than being remembered.
Belonging, after all, is holy ground.
Images taken in my Early Childhood Centre where I spent almost 20 years nurturing little souls.
Jenny
