Belonging…

Do you ever feel like you don’t belong?

It’s so painful to believe that we don’t belong, that somehow we have been left out, or that we are not wanted. And it’s a feeling that we have all had over our lives in different ways.

It can trigger anger, hatred, sadness, anxiety and fear… it can make us want to withdraw into a little shell and disappear, or lash out and attack in some way.

An opportunity to explore the feeling of not belonging for me came along a couple of days ago.

My dear mum was showing me some photos of her garden, and as she scrolled through them I caught sight of a photo of my family all together at a recent impromptu BBQ (looking like they were having a great time, of course!).

“Why wasn’t I there?”

“Why did they meet up without me?” I heard myself thinking…

I felt my heckles go up, a sinking feeling in by belly and a tightening in my throat.

I recognized I'd been triggered so I made a brief excuse and took myself off to sit for a moment.

I sat and paused – opening my awareness to what was arising within myself. I listened and felt the tightness in my throat, the heat, the tension in my solar plexus, I noticed the part of me that felt left out, rejected, hurt, unwanted.

I gave the whole experience a bit of room, some space to BE.

I breathed a while and suffused the feelings with some kindness and warmth.

I saw the old familiar beliefs that had surfaced ‘I don’t matter’ ‘No one cares about me’.

And as I witnessed this whole constellation of thoughts, feelings and emotions more clearly, I started to feel a more spacious, as though a dense fog were clearing, I could begin to see that these fear-beliefs were not in fact the truth.

I began to feel a softening and a settling back into my own inherent value. Into a field of presence that could hold all of this… and within a few minutes, I felt myself back home in belonging.

This is the MAGIC of pausing.

We can wake-up out of these ‘spells’ and come back into conscious awareness, back into the present moment.

By making a commitment to pause and turn towards a moment of suffering within, with a loving mindful presence, we can find our way back home to belonging.

And it really does change everything in the moment.

Like a fork in the road we get to walk down a different path.

And each time we look into our own hearts and minds it isn’t just ourselves that we are discovering and healing - we’re actually learning about every human heart and mind. And how to meet these tender places with care and compassion.