“Let us remember why we are here. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love.” – Cheryl Strayed

We all seek belonging it turns out.  We are hard wired (or soft wired – whatever that means exactly) to find our people.  To see and be seen.  The act of recognition  - of another’s pain, joy, and just humanness creates a literal resonance in us, and we are changed by it, and thus, the dynamic between us is changed. 

Consider the opposite.  When we feel we do not belong.  When we feel unseen, unrecognized, unloved.  Removing the special sauce of the harmonic resonance between us triggers perhaps the fight or flight response in our survival brains.  That is, if I do not belong, then “fuck you, I didn’t need you anyway”.  Or, perhaps we tear apart or are critical of the very thing or people we were longing to connect with.  Our defenses go up, we stop seeing, resonating with others.  And, in a vicious cycle, we become rather unlovable and more difficult to connect with. 

When we see others who are prickly, angry, critical – can we summon our own humanity and open-heartedness, open-mindedness and embrace this person?  What can we shift in ourselves to create gracious space of welcome and being, that might allow others to flourish?

Consider this invitation: to embrace our human need for socialability, attunement, connection in this season of new beginnings (new academic year, harvest, fall, new phases of life, etc.).  Find your people.  They are in fact essential to your well-being.  Gather together.  This may mean leaning in, taking risks, exploring a bit.  It requires an open-heartedness to put you at that harmonic wavelength to discover resonance of connection.  And in that act of vulnerability, everything else becomes possible.  This is indeed why we are here.

“The life within you nourishes the life within me.” – Joseph Burley’s translation of Namaste

Conversational Credit: Holly Yang, Anthony Back, Bob Arnold, James Tulsky, Gordon Wood, Lisa Ravenel (the people of vitaltalk.org), and all the active explorers and practitioners in this space of belonging and connection. 




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