WHAT IS TRUE BELONGING?

“True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness. True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are. It requires you to be who you are.” Brene Brown

True belonging is a transformational spiritual practice that inspires an authentic connection with other people and with God. It’s the sensation of being completely at home in your body and in full integrity with your divine self. It naturally evokes a deeply rooted confidence and clarity that bathes the heart in peace. True belonging is the deepest and purest form of healing, a return to your body’s most natural state of being. The peace of true belonging promotes an internal milieu that is essential for sustainable physical health.

The way to vital physical, emotional, and spiritual health starts with cultivating access to peace within. How we feel directly dictates the biochemical state of our internal environment as well as our general quality of life.

Practicing as a holistic doctor over the last 10 years has helped me see how absent this understanding of healing is from our dominant medical model. My purpose as a healer is to help others heal at the deepest levels by connecting with peace and their divine selves.

Today’s world can feel like an increasingly overwhelming and stressful place. The divisive and inflammatory political climate has pulled us even further apart. We are so busy focusing on our differences that we are losing touch with our inherent interconnectedness. This is not natural, and not good for our wellbeing. Our bodies are asking us (through symptoms) to make a change.

True belonging is not a destination, but rather a practice that anyone can choose to engage in. It’s kind of like yoga – the goal is not to get to some physical level of perfection, it is actually to practice cultivating awareness and self-regulation. The most valuable gains are ever-increased agility in tapping into your own expression, contentment, and internal peace. True belonging is an anchor to drop into when the waves are rough, and the more you practice, the more easily you can hook in.

For most people, true belonging is a fleeting feeling they taste at some point, but struggle to root into on a regular basis. They might find themselves oscillating in and out of it, or it may be something they only ever know as a concept. For some, it sounds too magical to be true. It is mystical, and it is very real.

True belonging is a vulnerable practice of getting to know, accept, and love all of yourself, just as you are now, while desiring to grow and share that love with others. It means exploring our relationship with something bigger than ourselves so that we may know in our bones that we are never truly alone. Those divine connections within ourselves and to others are sacred. This is truly a spiritual practice and some of the most important work we do in this life.

Belonging gets confused with “fitting in,” but the two are very different. Caving to the cultural pressure to “fit in” is often the biggest obstacle to true belonging. Fitting in often means conforming to the people or situation rather than standing for our authentic self.

Belonging to ourselves means cultivating the courage to explore all parts of ourselves and release anything that keeps us from expressing from our authentic self. This discernment is also a practice. One of the most powerful ways to catalyze the practice of true belonging is to be witnessed and supported in our process.