Discovering My Connection to True Belonging
I have had a long and difficult relationship with my desire to belong. For most of my life, I had a deep longing to simply feel at home with people and also to feel that I belong here on this earth.
I often felt like an outsider, feared being judged, and wanted to find my true community.
This past winter, I was in a couple of different workshops exploring ideas around self worth and personal success when I realized that my sense of “success” really meant “belonging”.
For me, a feeling of success is accessible when I am in reciprocal relationship with community that sees and values me, which gives me a place to share my gifts and give connection in return.
But how could I anchor in a feeling of success before that community has actually arrived??
I had an insight that I didn’t have to rely on my outer experience to validate my worth, my success, and my true belonging. That was something I could create and claim internally. Super empowering!
To do this, I did a meditation just like the one I share below. When I located this core wound of belonging in my body, I found it in my back right behind my heart center. It was this heavy lead ball covered in long spikes, one of which was piercing my heart. It wanted to be called Teary, as in “I’m here to tear you apart.” Wowza.
I asked why it came and it shared that it arose in response to my particular unmet needs and the ways I felt unseen when I was young.
It told me it came as a reminder to never stop searching for true, deep, fulfilling belonging. The heavy barb piercing my heart was meant to remind me that there was more to be discovered beyond my early experience and to never give up on seeking a true sense of belonging.
I’m always surprised by the innocence and tenderness behind why these parts arise.
Its intention was to not allow me to become complacent in my quest for community, true community that could hold all of me. This heavy and sharp ball showed up to prod me until I found my unique place on this vibrant planet.
I could feel my resentment of the heaviness and pain it caused shift towards gratitude as a sense of understanding the purpose of this part washed over me.
Though I now understood its purpose, I explained that its presence in this painful expression was no longer propelling my search, but instead was oppressing my sense of belonging.
It was ready and willing to support a new expression. It morphed from a heavy, dark, and pronged lead ball into a glowing golden orb that radiated warmth and light. It had a substantial mass that created its own magnetic field. The orb returned to that same space behind my heart.
Its new name arose as Be Longing. This new name meant for this part to be the longing of my soul, acting as a magnetic beacon that calls forth the life that wants to live through me.
It’s new reason for being reminded me of when Rumi once wrote “What you seek is seeking you.”
As it settled back into place, this soul quenching inner knowing came over me that I am the only one who has any say on if or where I belong.
And the truth is I belong to myself and I belong wherever I am.
In this moment, a decades long search for belonging and the cause of my feelings of alienation, confusion, feeling small and alone began to come to a close.
That which had been my wound became the source of my felt sense of wholeness, my source of unshakable grounding and stability. That meditation completely shifted the trajectory of my year.
