BELONGING
To feel and know a continued sense of belonging as children allows maturity to blossom later in life. Our parents or primary people nurture this vital sense in us each time they attune to us, seeing our nuances and uniquenesses - the origins of our frustrations and sadnesses and welcoming them in these inner states over and over as they grow and develop.
But wounds in parents often show up as kinds of absences in their kids, even abuses. Those kids end up with a sense of not feeling part of things - people or places. We learn to compensate and try harder to ‘be better’ so we’ll belong or we rebel and seek isolation to stave off the sting of feeling rejection or subtle, continued absences in our parents and families. If we leave childhood and own a frail or absent sense of belonging to our people or our land - we enter into a kind of inward roving exile likely yearning deeper down to find a kind of home in the world.
One Native American perspective says put your children onto the earth early on. Let them stumble and fall, get bumped and bruised; let them lay in the grass, feel the sun’s warmth and feel the cool water. This is so they can be nurtured by the Earth and develop a deep connection with Her. On this connection they can learn to rely. They can feel they belong to her when their parents - whom Natives say are humans and all humans are fools - betray or wound them.
The path to heal; to feel deep belonging again can be tough. Wounding or Trauma, likely happened in relationship and therefore needs relationship in order to heal. But many of us go to people to find that sense of belonging only to get mired in old patterns of relating; re-opening the wound and often causing more pain, hurt and the need to defend ourselves through isolation.
So how do we heal our wounded belonging when human relationships feel so overwhelming? We go to the Earth. We learn how to slow down on the land. We take time to sit, to walk, to notice the inner and outer experience while being on the land. The more we bring bodies and attention to her, the more gifts and curiosities grow; and the more our nervous system can find the sense of home, calm and continuity, which we deeply need.
Jared Anderson