Belonging

                                                                        Belonging 

Ever since I was four years old and sent away from home with my two-year-old brother to a strange family up north, I was longing for Belonging. My continual longing for a home created sorrow-filled sobbing and withdrawal. I yearned for intimate contact with my parents which was not to be had. I was searching for it in the seemingly most obvious places: My parents. Family. But coming from a very dysfunctional family in the middle of a harsh, violent divorce, and a disappearing father; I had nothing to hold on to that felt enveloping and gave me support. After realizing I won’t find it in the family nest, I shifted my attention to friends and later lovers. I felt the craving to belong and hoped I’ll find it with the right partner. It didn’t take long in my matrimony to unveil that finding this deep sense of belonging continually over time was an illusion not to be had in a relationship. It was another fantasy. We all are just fallible humans, and it is rare to have but moments of true unconditional love, true joining in a relationship. A relationship is not able to offer that continual true belonging I was searching. But I was not willing to give up. I knew it must be part of life and must be found if I explored further or deeper. The yearning kept haunting me till I started searching for it in spirituality. There was the right door to enter resting in full presence. The entry into the non-dual existence that is beyond good and bad right and wrong is the nectar that allows the joy of belonging to flourish whether sitting alone in silence, with an intimate friend or in a group. I derived a sense of grounding that emanates from within and contains a deep restfulness that needs no other, knowing you are a part of the whole existence, always in any mood or state. There is no way to behave in order to fit in, no requirements We are always welcome. A friend just called me this morning to share a “strange” experience she had last night. She was lying in her loft in the darkness feeling so deeply lonely, existential loneliness she called it, she felt into her sadness and then looked at the moon through the sunroof in her ceiling, she finally felt more relaxed, regulated and surrendered to the whole. Moments later she received two very unexpected and precious texts from friends she longed to connect to and hasn’t seen in eons. ” Wow,” she thought” How unbelievable, a feat of grace to let me know I am not alone” she said. When we are connected and surrendered into what is, miracles happen, grace appears. That is where I belong, forever more. To me that is the real thing. That lesson took me a long while to learn. In the process I learned a lot about other ways we human pretend, sometimes for life, that we are belonging. Oh, how sad! All that journey and finding my way home are explored in my memoir: From Mud to Lotus: I meant to behave but there were too many other options. Check it out if you too have or had this longing. For those of you who have yearned to belong this book is a deep journey of exploration. As you’ll read, being willing to give up the tangible sense of a person being there to the spiritual took both courage, letting go of self-deception, and desperation.