You Belong Here.
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Hello friends,
This week, I'm back with a a topic close and dear to my heart (and many others): the sense of belonging.
Not just "I don't feel belonged in this city" or "I haven't found my tribe", but a much deeper question of "Do I feel like I belong to this life?"
The latter question is, surprisingly enough, asked by two kinds of people.
One is the naturally philosophical and introspective like me.
The other is someone who has done the work to craft her own work and social life to feel the sense of belonging and yet still feel some sorts of existential groundlessness.
What surprises me the most is how this two kinds of people are ultimately connected. While the philosopher like me goes straight to the deeper question, he often misses out the particularities (a nice comfy home, a rewarding job, a group of friends who love him etc...) that reveals what belonging means to him, day to day. He needs to get into the work and get his hands dirty, not just his mind (heh)
For the practical one, even though she has all the comfy stuff, the deeper longing to belong will continue grawing at her unless she spends the time going inwards to uncover her deepest rootedness of life.
Which type do you find yourself? And what might you learn from the other?
In this post, I share my journey in traversing both ends. Enjoy and please do share your reflection.
You Belong Here
A meditation on belonging, place and the question of purpose.
April Snow — Canada Geese by Larry Fanning
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
“Belonging” is in the rage right now.
The poem Wild Geese by the late Mary Oliver has saved many lives who don’t feel belonged. Brene Brown wrote about it in one of her latest books. More and more people are asking themselves these questions as modern globalization is uprooting traditional communities and forms of belonging. Especially for those who live in multiple countries and cultures, the question of belonging burns even deeper. In the workplace, if you don’t have a conversation about it, you’ll surely lose your best people.
Searching for that place to be rooted in, finding your own tribe, crafting the work that you love.. all of that are different expressions by the modern humans of the same need for belonging.
Belonging, revisited.
The question of belonging is deeply personal. I’m thinking of a dear loving friend who has created her own lovely nest in a foreign country. She brings people together, build her own company of highly loyal employees
What surprises me is that she often still doesn’t feel that sense of belonging, even though people here love and care for her. I don’t see it as much of a psychological wound “I don’t feel loved” which psychotherapist will trace back to childhood relationship with parents.
Rather, it’s a much deeper, more existential yearning to truly belong to the world of human and more-than-human alike.
I’ve asked people and pondered myself on this question of belonging for a long long time. Most people tell me that when they belong to a place, they feel at home, safe, welcome and free. I’d like to invite a different perspective.
“Be-longing” means “be longed for”, as in someone, or something, longs for you. A longing is a desire stretched towards the horizon, perhaps with less intensity but certainly more persistence. The weird thing is that it may never be fulfilled.
“It doesn’t matter what you long for. What matters is that you long for something, and you see such longing as an invitation to begin the journey of homecoming.” — Reginald Ray.
Unlike wants or desires, with their burning pressure of “if you don’t have that, you’ll be miserable”, longing is quieter but sustaining. Indeed, it implies something far away just enough to keep us on the path, always approachable but never fully approached. It’s the eternal itch of the soul.
After certain point in our developmental journey, a sense of belonging is not so much a problem to be solved (in the Maslow sense of “need to belong”) but a mystery to be experienced.
Like many people in transition, I have asked myself “Where do I belong? How can I find a sense of belonging where I am?”
I’ve come to realize that “belonging” is such a relational concept that you can’t “do” much about it. Yes, you can set up a nice, comfy room that you can call yours or try to get involved in different kinds of work that make a difference in people’s lives so that they miss you when you are gone. Both are important, but a sense of belonging is much more primal than that.
Let me tell you my story.
“You belong Here”
I remember the first night coming back to Vietnam early last year after almost 3 years of staying in Boston. I wasn’t fully ready to leave the US, so coming to Vietnam felt like a mix of reluctance and disbelief.
As I stepped down from the airplane and walked to the car ride, I looked up to the shining moon. A faint yet distinct voice whispered inside: “It’s still the sky. You are still walking on Earth. You belong Here.”
The next year was challenging as I tried to look for a sense of belonging to this land that was supposedly “my root”. The job opportunities here didn’t suit me, this group of friends didn’t share my language or this town didn’t fit my vibe. Even the family house where I grew up didn’t feel like my place.
Inside, I was growing restless. For those who have lived the nomadic lifestyle at least for once, you know that transient feeling of being unsure whether you will establish a base in a particular place. It gnaws your vitality.
Yet sometimes I still recalled that moment when that inner voice whispered, “you belong Here”. That voice has sustained me in times of frustration as I try to integrate with the new social world. Tarzan must have had it hundred times more difficult when he left the jungle.
I was lucky, and somehow I also knew my hunch was right. There must be a more fundamental expression of belonging, one that goes beyond finding the right circles of friends or a comfortable home. One that is right in our bones and marrows if we look closely enough.
Ironically enough, this knowing was kindled not from a trip in nature but rather from several books on eco-psychology, especially by Bill Plotkin & David Abram. I remember the burning sensation as I read “Nature of the Human Soul” and “Spell of the Sensuous”. No shame though, for one can reach many ways to reach Rome via many roads. Just like reading erotica can physically turn you on, being intellectually aroused is a full-body experience.
Too often when people look for belonging, they look horizontally to their friends, their homes or their towns. But belonging can be vertical too.
The sky longs to protect you under her vast wings. The earth longs to uplift you onto his soiled back. The body longs to reunite with your mind, the conscious attention that often wanders elsewhere except for moments where the body screams out of utmost pain or pleasure.
If you agree with the scientific explanation and think of this as wishful horse crap, watch this video by the inventor Tom Chi. Even the stardust from the Big Bang has been longing for you for a long long time.
Spiritual circles often use the metaphor of “becoming a vessel” or “channeling as a conduit” where we connect divine “sky” inspiration and “earthy” support and transform them into human form. They have a point. We are longed for, but we have to learn to listen to it.
For better or worse, most people don’t get it until a primal experience happens to them such as getting lost in the wood or soaked under unexpected rain. Yet when it does, you won’t forget it.
As such, next time when you are struggling to find your tribe or the dream company you like to work in, remember: you still belong Here.
You belong to the sky, to the earth, to the body. As above, as below, everywhere. These are the places of true belonging, although it may include going through some wildness at first.
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Read the full post here on Medium.
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Quotes I'm contemplating this week
"Angels fly because they take themselves lightly." - C.K Charleston.
A cheeky quote to make a point, but really is a very very challenging discipline. Otherwise we will all be flying.
Actually, as aerodynamics has taught us, being feather light alone won't make you fly. You've got to have at least a minimal concrete structure (like a bird, with bones and wings that can provide uplifting force)
Bringing this metaphor to our life, especially for those transient nomad or "sky people" (which I was told to be many times in a recent past), we'll need to develop some concrete structures in our life - work, relationships, places - so that we can fly when we need to :-)
"The spiritual journey is like entering the mouth of a crocodile - its teeth pointing backwards. Once you get inside the jaw of reality, that's it. There is no way back. Worse, oftentimes you don't realize that you are in it until half way there. As your identity (whoever you think you are) is being eaten by reality, you get to see unsustainable it is to hold on to a fixed sense of self." - Reginald Ray.
What a metaphor! It highlights an intuition I had in my own life and the people I know: once you are on the path, there is no way back. Even if everyone is on some sorts of journey, not many people have a sense of what it is, let alone wanting to take it.
Listen for the full 15' recording here.
Lastly..
I finally moved into a new apartment! Cheers to adult-in-Vietnam life :-) Feeling dat new sense of belongin'
Khuyen
P/s: Do reach out for the Inner Critic Assessment or general conversations about life. I'd love to be helpful.