I don't know about you, but when I reflect back on my childhood years, it's not thoughts about my educational curriculum that come to mind. It's just not something I paid attention to at the time. I mean, sure, I remember certain lessons like penciling out block letters on lined paper and wondering why my name needed to be so long because Mary Lee had it much easier.
If I really push myself to think about my early childhood education, most of the memories that arise are less about the subject and more about the feeling. I remember quite a few moments where I felt really proud of what I was able to create or accomplish as a result of what I had learned. Writing cursive with a fountain pen without my fingers turning blue comes to mind.
There is one memory, however, that keeps presenting itself recently that doesn't fall into this "things I accomplished" memory bucket. This memory would best be categorized as a very early life lesson -- a socialization of sorts.
This particular memory is, of all things, my class being read a particular story from the picture bible we used. The story described a time after Jesus had died when all of his friends were gathered in a room to mourn him, and then a wind blew through the space, and they all ended up with flames on their heads. I can still picture the drawing: Men dressed in robes sitting on the floor or standing in a room with windows wide open and little tri-colored flames like the old Bic lighter logo dancing atop their heads.
I'm recapping for you here the story of Pentecost, how I remember it being told.
What etched itself into my memory about this story was the magical nature of this event. I imagined how amazing it must have felt to belong to this select group. They were special. Chosen. And they had the flame to prove it.
I was immediately intrigued by this flame. I really, really wanted to see my flame. I wanted some visible gift of a sign that I too belonged. That I was special. Chosen. I was determined to "earn" my flame. But no matter how hard I worked at it, the flame didn't appear.
What I recognize now, but didn't as a 7-year-old child at the time, is that this is when I first learned the idea of "belonging." This is when I learned that it was something that was granted to you by a force outside of your control. And most importantly, that you had to earn it.
And while the lesson may have initially been intended to teach about the Christian version of the Holy Spirit, it quite naturally transmuted to inform all of my ideas on belonging.
Which left me with the lifelong quest so many of us share: What do I have to do to be chosen? How might I belong? Because that feeling of being wanted must feel really, really good.
And so began the process of attempts at modifying my true self in pursuit of belonging. Of being worthy. If I was told I was too silly, I became serious. Too opinionated, I stopped talking. Trying to be helpful? You're bossy. Curious? Disprespectful. Honest? Too direct. So much shapeshifting. So much fracturing of my sense-of-self. So much dimming of my flame.
Add to that the problem that those "rules" I learned I then put as an expectation on others. For example, my first boyfriend after I divorced constantly told me no one would ever want to marry me because I was divorced. I had proven I didn't make good decisions. Awful, right? Even more awful was that I believed him. So it was very confusing when I saw other divorced women finding love again. That had to mean there was something even more wrong with me that I needed to fix.
After many decades of trying (and many, many times failing) to do the "right" things to "deserve" this elusive chosen status, I finally hit the point where I realized that this whole idea is a big, exhausting, pointless trick.
You do not need to justify your worthiness. You belong because you exist.
Belonging is not something you have to earn, it's just a feeling you need to learn (or in many cases unlearn) to recognize.
The truth is we are all born chosen with our own unique flames -- our own way of expressing the universally common human traits. And it's that unique expression that makes us the magical beings that we are. How wonderful would it be if that was all there was to it? If we were just allowed to nourish our beings and peacefully be who we are.
But for some reason we're taught that parts of us are wrong, bad, undesirable, or ugly. We learn that if we show that aspect, we'll experience rejection. And it's exactly this process that leads to the slow denying, shrinking, and silencing of traits that erodes and fractures our very beings. And it's our fractured selves that then walk out into the world and perpetuate this reality by (with the best of intentions, right?) denying the worthiness of others.
I think that early bible story memory has come to my mind recently because of how horribly divided we have become as a nation, with all sides digging in that they are on the "right" side of this equation.
This problematic perception is a very real example of how toxic things become when individuals dim their flame and abdicate power to others to define for them what human expression is "right," and then justify very inhumane actions in the subconscious pursuit of feeding that elusive sense of belonging.
This tells me it's time to unlearn everything we were led to believe about belonging.
Because unless we begin the process of healing the fractures that have taken root inside ourselves, we can't expect to heal the fractures taking root outside ourselves. Or put another way:
Until we each learn to embrace the worthiness of our entirety, our world will remain a fractured entity.
In my years of working with new leaders, I spent many hours peeling back the layers of what drives human behaviors. The most revealing and impactful work, by far, has been in exploring those traits one might label as "wrong" or "bad" and then discovering ways that suppressing those traits has (always negatively) impacted relationships and performance.
In much the same way, the time now calls for us each to spend some time exploring how we are personally defining the traits of these problematic "others" -- those who we now perceive as standing on the opposite side of this painfully growing divide, and then finding where and how that trait plays out in our own lives. And then healing it.
For the record, racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia and the like are not traits. Noone is born racist. These are instead examples of what happens when traits like self-righteous, entitled, and judgemental are overexpressed. But it's worth noting here that any trait overexpressed can be harmful. Even the "good" ones. For example overexpressed generosity could lead to having no boundaries. Make sense?
If you want support in working through this process, I would be happy to explore doing that with you via one of my support services.
But in the meantime, you can start here: Since the sense of belonging is the root issue and the feeling we are chasing, it can help to begin to tune in to what a healthy sensation of belonging feels like to you. For example,
Belonging feels good, not bad.
Belonging feels loving, not judgmental.
Belonging feels generous, not stingy.
Belonging feels welcoming, not exclusive.
Please feel free to share what comes up for you. I'd love to grow this list so everyone can learn to tap into the feeling of belonging within themselves and stop shapeshifting to try and find it outside themselves.
This power of unconditional belonging might be the biggest lesson we are here to learn right now.
So take the time to do the work to accept yourself first, and fully heal and embrace your flame. Learn to recognize where and how this gift lives in you so you can grow in it, and then let down the velvet rope and share it with others.
Hold the faith that the someday, once again the winds will blow ,and you will find your life filled with joy, wonderment and all the magic that comes from creating a world fueled by the Spirit of belonging.
Beautiful post! Let's catch up sometime soon!