Belonging is essential to human experience but belonging to the world at the cost of not belonging to ourselves is the loneliest place to live in.
How can we belong to the world without losing ourselves in the process?
Before we get into how can we belong to the world without losing ourselves we need to understand the symptoms of false belonging especially in this day and age of technology that I believe that we have probably been the most conditioned we've ever been but then at the same time we have access to a lot of tools to be able to break out of this conditioning.
False belonging shows up in different ways whether we are people-pleasing we're freezing we're conforming to fit into a specific societal construct.
These behaviors might look very different on the surface but at its core is our attempt to belong and to be accepted by our society and oftentimes these behaviors get to shape themselves from our childhood and how we got to belong in our core family and what strategies and dynamics and behaviors and patterns we needed to incorporate to be able to survive in that function or for some of us even harder we needed to find those strategies to be able to create safety.
When we get into these symptoms I want you to have your compassionate lens on because you might see yourself in it you might see some of your family members friends relative in that category what I want you to know that all these patterns and behaviors at some point served us so we need to honor them in the first place so we are actually getting into this conversation fully rooted in honoring the role these behaviors played for us to be in this moment in time.
I'm going to give a little bit more example for you to have your head wrapped up around how these kinds of false belonging could show up.
Pretending to be someone that you're not saying yes to something that you want to say no over identifying with others perception of you or others need rather than your own need.
We might find ourselves being absorbed in other people's emotion that if you're not happy then I can't be happy if you're sad then I must be sad if you are afraid then I must be afraid.
Feeling responsible for other people's happiness and go out of our way manipulating the reality for them to feel okay or being afraid of setting boundaries because we're afraid of being seen as unkind or not nice.
Numbing or freezing could look like dissociating from our feelings and suppressing ourselves so we won't feel them because if they come up if we can actually feel them then that might be in contrast with what our society with our family what our friends might be feeling.
Also you might avoid conflict at all costs.
Sometimes people find conflict the most triggering and I definitely used to be like that because for me when I was a child it was modeled to me that you just suppress it you control yourself because we don't want to have any conflict.
A good family they won't have conflict.
Also people might feel fully paralyzed to express themselves to an extent that they don't know what they truly want.
They become extremely agreeable to everything that the community people around them wants from them.
Conforming or over identifying with the belief system which I find that to be very fascinating because I feel like in the politics we see that a lot people over identify with the group and they believe if they identify with this group then they need to be agreeing with everything that comes with it.
We create these stereotypes around if you support this group then you should be this this this this this this.
But in reality there are a lot of nuances into what we believe in and what we don't believe in.
But what happens is we over identify ourselves with those belief system and if anything outside of that come in we get triggered we get agitated we become this this kind of rigid personalities that we can't allow differences to be present.
Which I feel like our system now is suffering terribly from because we've been conditioned we've been brainwashed that we need to be thinking alike all the time and we have all these DEI trainings but the truth is even a lot of these DEI training are rooted in separation rather than true meaning of inclusion.
Inclusion means increasing our nervous system capacities to hold the dualities,
To hold the paradoxes,
To hold the extremes.
We don't necessarily need to agree with them but can we expand our capacity in a way that we can hold them we can create a space for them and it's a lot of work.
In this moment I want you to think about where are you compromising your truth to fit in.
In other words where are you lying to yourself or others or manipulating reality so you can belong.
One of my favorite books of all time is when the body says no and in this book Gaba Mate draw from a research around the science of suppression which at its core it's a stress response that how we are handling things.
It shares a fascinating study that illustrates the connection between emotional suppression and physical health.
Participants were shown disturbing images while being attached to stress monitors.
Afterwards they were asked how did they feel.
Many responded that I didn't feel anything while on the other hand their body was telling a different story.
There were massive spikes in their stress level.
Here's the critical part.
Those who consistently felt dissociated from what their body truly experienced they're more likely developing serious illnesses including cancer.
This research highlights how deeply our body is impacted when we suppress ourselves.
If you haven't read this book I highly recommend reading it.
It's eye-opening.
Now the question is how can we belong without losing ourselves?
Number one is understanding the lies.
The lies that you tell yourself.
The lies that you tell others.
It doesn't have to be a massive lie.
Sometimes there are little lies that you wonder why do I even do this?
But when you actually spend time understanding it you realize why you're doing this.
The lies that we tell ourselves if I do this if I act this then I would be accepted.
If I conform to these expectations then I would belong.
One of the things that I had is like if I just stay quiet everything is just going to move on.
So we won't have any conflicts.
In other words if I stay quiet I'll be safe.
The other thing is using indirect languages.
Oh I thought you might like this instead of saying what they actually want from you and be okay to be rejected.
Also saying too many sorries is within that category.
I see a lot of people they constantly apologize and oftentimes we do that because we want the other person to validate us.
To give us something that we are not able to give ourselves.
It's very manipulative and a lot of times being extremely nice can be manipulative as well.
Don't confuse niceness with kindness.
There are two different things.
I know this might sound triggering or confronting.
I encourage you to sit down with it through the lens of curiosity and look at your life.
You don't have to be perfect as long as you're aware of these kinds of subtle patterns that are going on behind the scene.
Towards the end of last year I read the book The Way of Integrity by Martha Beck.
It was so confronting.
Every single exercise that I went through I could see myself doing that.
It doesn't mean again we don't need to be perfect.
While I'm sharing these it doesn't mean that I'm perfect.
I remember reading that book and feeling confronted almost every single page.
And I found myself if I were to speak truth like full truth it would be really scary.
And I'm coming from a culture that we are default people pleasers.
You're either a people pleaser or you are a terrible person.
There's nothing in between.
And being able to train ourselves to come out of that conditioning it takes work awareness and a lot of compassion.
Now reflect on how you might try to manipulate the situation through the way you speak,
Avoid conflict,
Or gain validation.
Number two is increasing our ability to hold contrast,
Opposition,
Or conflicts.
What do I mean by that?
In order for you to truly belong you need to be able to have difficult conversation.
You need to be able to say what you mean even when the room have different opinions than you.
And in order for you to be able to do that you need to practice embodiment.
Getting comfortable with the sensation of the body.
For example if someone goes for public speaking at the beginning when they get on the stage they're all scared they're all afraid.
But then slowly they build that capacity to be able to regulate themselves even in that situation.
So the more we train ourselves to be able to hold this discomfort the more we are able to welcome differences.
It doesn't mean that we agree with them but we see that the beauty of this life is to have differences.
We don't need a world that everybody is super cookie cutter exactly the same or we want to hang out with people that they have the exact same belief system as we do.
If they have a different belief system then they can't be our friend.
Obviously you got to choose your own battles and finding the kind of differences you're looking for.
Think about a situation that you've been in maybe in your relationship in your work or anywhere else that you felt like you wanted to say something but you were afraid that you wouldn't belong if you say that.
Or you wanted to say that and you did say that but then after that you felt ashamed you felt guilty you kept telling yourself oh you shouldn't have said that or you should have handled it differently all of that.
So I want you to think about a scenario.
Obviously I don't want you to pick a super challenging scenario because we wouldn't be spending a lot of time.
Find something that is more approachable so we can do a quick exercise around it.
I want you to imagine yourself in that scenario.
Notice the conflict or the contrast or the discomfort that you're feeling and notice what you're thinking about and from that place notice where do you feel that tension in your body.
Now the focus is no longer on the thought or the thought of that experience.
Your attention is fully landing on the sensations that you experienced from that contrast.
Maybe you're feeling this punch in the stomach.
Maybe you feel this anxiety in your belly.
Maybe you feel this sense of constraint in the throat.
What is that sensation in the body?
Maybe soften your gaze or close your eyes and really tune into that feeling.
We've been told that we need to avoid that.
We need to move through that as quickly as possible or in other words bulldoze through it because our emotions are not important.
But your emotions are the gifts that you get to understand yourself better and be in a deeper integrity with yourself as you're belonging to the world.
Now I want you to slowly start breathing into that constraint into that tension that you feel.
And now that you notice that tension I want you to open your eyes and start looking around the room and the space that you're in.
You're reminding your brain.
You're reminding your body that you're safe.
You are here.
And you get to hold this contrast.
Instead of trying to fix it or change it can you allow it to be as if I have sands in my hand and I'm like really squeezing it hard.
But then can you just allow the sand to be on your hand without squeezing it.
So you're allowing that to open up to potentially soften and relax.
If you're new to this work you may not feel a lot of change.
But can you sit there long enough that you notice a slight softening happening.
Maybe a yawn.
Maybe an exhale.
Maybe a sense of peace.
Maybe a reminder that you'll be okay.
And can you allow a sense of softening wash over that part of you that feels tense.
Beautiful work.
I encourage you to incorporate this practice every time you feel that contrast.
Instead of trying to process that only through the mind,
Through the thinking mind,
Can you drop into your body and understand your body.
After all your body keeps the score.
Your body has a lot of answers that we often don't take advantage of.
Our body is the end.
Is the bridge that is well capable of holding paradoxes.
Holding tension.
As long as we allow that to be in the room without making it wrong.
Without trying to bulldoze through it.
The more we practice holding this contrast,
The more equipped we become in our relationships to be able to navigate difficult patches and being able to stay in integrity and belong to ourselves and belong to the world.
The third one is communication.
If you're doing this work and you want to belong as your whole self into the world,
Communication is a key.
But the problem is so many of us haven't been trained in that.
So many of us didn't have good examples of effective communication so we can continue doing that.
For me it's something that I'm still practicing and I'm still doing my best to improve upon.
Nonviolent communication has been extremely helpful for me to really communicate what was on my heart,
What was on my mind to start.
Especially with people who are not super close to me.
They're partners or family members.
There are people that I don't have a lot of emotional tension with.
So I started practice with those.
You can get into the practice of communicating your feelings and your experiences a little bit better.
Especially when it's messy.
Especially when it's difficult.
Especially when you're emotional.
And don't be hard on yourself.
If you're just starting to practice better communication,
Like I said,
It can get messy.
And let messy be in the room so you get to practice and get better at it.
Thank you so much for joining me on the path of unconditioning.
My name is Hedi and I see you in the next experience.
