Hello,
Dear one.
Our conditioned world has us thinking that we have to do things in order to belong.
That belonging happens through external things,
Like being part of a club or fitting in.
So we're habituated to look to these external things for feedback about whether we belong.
Can you relate to that felt sense of,
Well,
They say I do,
So I do,
Or they say I don't,
So I don't.
It can be so exhausting referencing this framework.
And I call it a framework because it's constructed.
There's nothing real about it.
It's just a bunch of thought forms stuck together that we reference as if it's truth.
A bunch of beliefs we turn to so that we can determine what's real.
But what if something else was more real than all of that?
Today we'll be exploring the belonging that has nothing to do with external things.
The belonging that actually gets overlooked when our minds are busy,
Caught up in the framework.
The conditioned standards of do I or don't I belong.
Consider now for a moment a time in your life in which the question of do I belong was completely irrelevant.
Maybe you're on a hike.
Just looking at the leaves.
Feeling the earth below your feet as you move.
A moment in which there are no thought forms distracting you from the beauty of the natural world.
Yammering on about whether you belong or don't belong.
Pick a time that feels relevant for you.
For many of us,
A time in the natural world can be most fruitful.
But if you don't have access to the natural world or something else arises for you,
That's completely okay too.
This experience of belonging isn't dependent on being able to get outside by a creek or stream,
For example.
What's important about the image is finding a time where you just were.
It might be as simple as waking up in the morning before the download of what you need to do or how you need to show up for things.
Start settling in.
What we're exploring here is a belonging that's not the opposite of not belonging.
What we're exploring here is a belonging that's prior to being in or out of the club.
One way you might like to think of it is belonging to yourself.
But when I say self,
I'm talking about the largest view of who you are that you can access.
Self with a capital S.
Not a limited,
Small self that feels cut off from the world or life.
Free yourself from the conditioned belief that you have to do something in order to belong.
The tree doesn't have to do something to belong to the forest.
In the same way that the creek doesn't have to strive to head toward the sea.
Your belonging is like this.
Your actual primary belonging.
You naturally belong to you.
And this you is unbreakable.
Unbreakable.
Vast.
Boundless.
Inherently open.
Also inherently accepting.
One of the things that makes us strive for belonging is the belief that we're not enough.
So we have to try to become enough in order to belong.
But it's like a vicious cycle.
And all of it overlooks inherent belonging.
Audre Lorde once said,
Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish me.
When we rest in our inherent belonging,
Naturally everything about us is fully embraced and accepted.
Exactly as it is.
You are embraced in your own inherent and natural belonging.
Even as you move around in the world,
You don't have to leave here.
You don't have to leave what's fundamentally you.
Nothing that happens in the world of external things can take you away from you.
You might temporarily forget about the vastness of your own being or your inherent belonging to yourself.
But in the same way that the sun never goes anywhere,
Even if clouds pass over,
You are always you.
And you always belong.
