2 points on “Belonging.” 

• 1. In our shared human experience, it can be a beautiful thing to accept and support one another, which creates a feeling of belonging. This experience of belonging can be incredibly helpful for human beings as they navigate their human journey. Yet, at the same time, this shared experience of belonging can also create a conditioned dependency that becomes a ‘need’ that is impossible to fulfill.
• 2. Spiritually speaking, there is the pointer/truth that You inherently belong as you are and where you are, and our anxious quest of trying to belong to others and the world will never be ultimately satisfied. The dilemma arises in the identification with our character, our ego, that looks for validation in the world; which is a completely understandable human thing to do. Compassionately though, as it relates to Waking Up to more of what’s real and true, the painful experience of feeling like you don’t belong, can be incredibly helpful as well.

Yes, it’s an enjoyable human experience to feel like you belong, and it’s also an enjoyable experience when someone compliments you. However, an enjoyable human experience doesn’t always speak to what’s true about the human experience.

We can be complimented and feel good, and then, through confusion… assume that in order to feel good we must be complimented. This misunderstanding can lead to an exaggerated pain when compliments are not present, and an even deeper pain when someone appears to insult.

The pain can ‘seem’ to validate a need for compliments. Similarly, the pain of feeling like you don’t belong, can ‘seem’ to validate a need to belong.

When the pain is misunderstood, it sets up an anxious quest to get what we think is missing. In the context of getting compliments or a sense of belonging, we often see ourselves as less than until we get what we want from others or the world.

It can really seem like a need, and again, that’s fine. However, and gently, is it really true?  Is it true that you need compliments in order to feel joyful, loved, or worthy to be alive? Is it true that you ‘need’ other people to be how you want them to be?

The confusion (conditioning) says yes.  And again, that’s totally understandable, given the conditioning, given the misunderstanding.

The more we investigate the conditioning, the more we uncover that the misunderstanding has come to the conclusion that your worth and value are determined by other people or the world. This assumes that Love is conditional, it assumes that your worth and value are conditional, and… Yes, that’s how the world moves.

However, when Love is conditional, it’s not REALLY Love.  Sure, it might seem like love, it might look like love, but it’s not real. It will eventually show itself as a facade, as a tool of manipulation; it will eventually break, showing itself as just another painful illusion.

And… I’m sorry, I know how much that can hurt. Yet, the hurt is a doorway to see beyond the illusion. Beyond the illusion that says you’re less than, that says you’re not enough, that says… you’re unworthy of love, or unworthy of what you soulfully crave.

Also, what I find to be so curious about this and so many other things we think we need… 

When you let go of them, which is seeing you don’t really “NEED” them, then they seem to come around more often.  Or… we are simply less affected by their apparent absence.

When I see that I don’t need other people to like me, I naturally become a more likable person; I let go of them and allow them to be them, with less or no judgment.

When I see that I don’t need to belong to others or the world, I see that I belong where I already am, which also makes me more enjoyable to be around for the types of people I enjoy being around.

Sure, I have my moments of human struggle where I get confused and painfully think I’m missing these things, and the pain forces/invites me to stop and question what it is I think is happening or going on. In that space of openness, I see that I already have what I’m looking for.

Sure, again, I might not have what my ego thinks I want, but, clearly, I have what I truly need.

You belong, I belong, we all belong, and I’m sorry if it feels like you don’t.  You do, though, you belong in the miracle of Life, the miracle of what you really are. And, possibly, maybe the eyes of your heart just can’t see that right now.

Love you

— Tiger