Belonging for Misfits: A Guided Journey to Belonging
Belonging is crucial to our well-being. So often we mistake conditional acceptance and a demand for conformity as the price of our belonging. But what if changing ourselves so that we belong isn't belonging at all? And if that's not belonging, what is? And where does it come from? And how do we know?
To begin, I want to suggest that our belonging here on this planet is not conditional. Like the trees and flowers we belong because we are. But most of our social training tells us that the only belonging that is "real" is with other humans, and that interferes with our ability to sense the inherent belonging that simply being alive offers.
So this gathering will be an exploration of how we locate our inherent belonging, interrogating the beliefs we have about what belonging means and what it costs, and choosing a new way to be with the idea and practice of belonging. This is not a practice we can cultivate alone, it is better together.
To begin, I want to suggest that our belonging here on this planet is not conditional. Like the trees and flowers we belong because we are. But most of our social training tells us that the only belonging that is "real" is with other humans, and that interferes with our ability to sense the inherent belonging that simply being alive offers.
So this gathering will be an exploration of how we locate our inherent belonging, interrogating the beliefs we have about what belonging means and what it costs, and choosing a new way to be with the idea and practice of belonging. This is not a practice we can cultivate alone, it is better together.