It was coming to the final hours of the first day in this series and I was drawing a blank on what to write about. Not because I don’t always have tons to say but because I was trying to fit myself into the parameters of the question and the challenge I mentioned I’m undertaking over this 21-day series called Belonging: A 21-day Adventure Home To Myself.
Today’s prompt seemed easy enough and I feel is one we would all be well served to answer: what’s your first memory you have of being aware of belonging?
While blessed to be born into a strong immediate and extended family, the memories that kept emerging for me were memories of feeling like I didn’t fit in, the first of which was the vague image of me sitting on the school yard of my first school, watching the older brother of one of my classmates thinking how cute he was. For a kindergardener, a crush on a grade 6 boy was pretty inappropriate but somewhere inside I just felt more drawn to him than boys my own age.
I don’t know whether we even ever spoke, but I knew what I liked and I also knew it wasn’t what the other girls my age were into. It’s almost as if, in trying to answer this question when I first read it yesterday morning, my first awareness of belonging was based around not fitting in.
Throughout the day I tried to think of something better, that could be built on with greater effect but everything else seemed forced and not flowing, fuzzy and unclear compared to that initial hit of my four year old self feeling my feelings could get me in trouble. I vaguely remember returning to class with this feeling that I couldn’t trust myself to choose a good boyfriend and ironically I’ve heard myself say the same for many years since leaving my last, whilst I’ve been maneuvering my path as a single, at times broken hearted, but still fabulous independent woman.
Evidently this was the story that stood out because it’s connected to an originating idea I wasn’t aware of until this very moment. A story I never understood the source of, but now it makes so much sense.
What I’ve discovered over the past few months whilst I’ve dug deep into my own psyche and discovered parts of myself I’d never been fully aware of is that my inner child has played a very active role in creating the life I’m now leading.
In my car, each day as I’ve driven to work these past couple weeks since re-entering the workforce so my creative baby doesn’t have so much pressure on it whilst I’ve been reordering my inner realm, I’ve been listening to Caroline Myss’s Energy Anatomy programs and much of her work relates back to the four survival archetypes of which the child is one.
Last year when I got well acquainted with my shadow, I discovered my child was dominating the throne of my inner kingdom and the results were humbling but necessary for me to reach the place I have now as a spiritual teacher. I suspect that today’s revelation, over the coming days and weeks while I play with this idea more, will be invaluable for helping me attract the loving relationship I’ve been half-heartedly desiring for a while.
Half-heartedly because as much as this whole singles game has gotten old long ago, part of me has wanted to find a partner I can share my life with and yet another, bigger, part of me has been actively resisting the mere thought of it, realizing that when the time is right I’ll know and until then I’ll just be getting more of the players who are in it largely for one reason or a short season. Maybe I’m wrong but my inner guidance system speaks to me pretty clearly when it’s time to listen and I haven’t been hearing it or realize it hasn’t yet been time.
You can imagine how exciting this is to me to be seeing through the veils which have been feeling pretty lonely for a while, and yet Alessia Cara’s song “I’ve gotta trust my lonely” has been a theme song that’s popped into my head on several occasions when thinking of a beau I was hoping would become more. I see now that I’ve been wanting him to join me under the veils (in the shadows) when the guy who’ll want to share his life with me will finally see me when I’ve finally removed those veils all together… how perfect, and liberating to have this realization now.
While I had no intention of taking this message in this particular direction, what I thought today’s message would be about is that sometimes we struggle to understand what something is until we feel what it is not.
All my chosen memories of belonging centred around not-belonging because that has been the sense I’ve had most of my life. Not because I haven’t always had a tribe that loved and valued me, but possibly because I always did and thus was searching for the validation of others, outside of them, to verify that I deserved the love they’d always done their best to give me.
Not trusting my feelings meant looking to others to confirm or clarify what I already knew.
I guess in a roundabout way, both my initial memory and the subsequent ones I considered writing about today, all come down to placing my power in others instead of trusting my present self, and the journey I’ve been on to substitute my inner child for the Queen as the sovereign ruler of my inner kingdom. It’s a process I’m developing so I can offer it to private clients and the people I’ve used it with so far are loving its transformative effect. I’ll have more to share soon, I’m just not yet sure when.
In the mean time, consider your own first memory of being aware of belonging or not belonging and what part of you is sitting on the throne of your inner kingdom when you do. I’d wager whatever version of you comes to mind is playing Prince(ss) a lot more of the time than you’ve previously noticed.
Would you agree? Message me back to let me know what this all means to and for you because as much as it’s my story, you’ve read this far for a reason only you can speak to.
Much love,
Laura JeH – Namaste
PS. Right before I came downstairs to write, still unsure of exactly what I would say I told my Grandma about this challenge and asked her for her first memory. Her answer liberated me to go where this message has went because she spoke her truth right away and didn’t judge herself for it, as I realized I was doing to myself. It was a gift to us all so thank you Papa for being her first memory of feeling she belonged, and for both always being the tribal members I could trust to love me.
How beautifully unexpected for her answer to be “when I married your Grandpa.” Swoon <3
