We Belong (just like Pat Benatar said)

 What does belonging mean to you?

As a definition, it's an affinity for a place or a situation. It can be a feeling that you can be yourself that you're loved welcomed. That you'd be missed if you were away.  

It's also a feeling of security and support we feel when there a sense of acceptance, inclusion, and identity for a member of a certain group. It is when an individual can bring their authentic self to the table and feel like themselves. 

Ladies Like Us was created as a  place where feel that sense of belonging.

But here's the thing,,, belonging is a two way street and an inside job. 
How?

Otherhood, or childless not by choice individuals often feel uninvited to the table by society at large. But more often than not, it's the internal "otherness" we are bringing into the room that makes us feel "other",  rather than the majority actually pointing at us and telling us we are other. There are plenty of groups you don't want to belong to. When you aren't invited to these groups, you literally don't give an F. Why? It holds no heat for you because the values of that group don't matter to you. 

Others--It makes total sense to get triggered by this and have belonging become a difficult subject... But it doesn't have to stay that way. 

The biggest shift you can experience, is to become clear on where and when you feel a sense of belonging. And bring that back to yourself. How are you creating belonging inside yourself? What is the sense of belonging you can take with you anywhere? You can literally create the experience of belonging. 

Learn a quick exercise to bring you back to yourself. 
Coming back to yourself helps unhook you from outside influences which are constantly fluctuating and distorting you from your true belonging and wholeness. 

You belong. You are whole. You are perfect, just as you are. 

XOXO
Linda

Transcript

Hi, Linda here. How's everybody doing? Yeah. Good I hope . 

Today's topic is BELONGING.

What does belonging mean to you? It's something we would call a value, like, we value honesty. We value community. You think about the value of belonging. Like what's the value of belonging, right?

So as a definition, it's an affinity for a place or a situation. It can be a feeling that you can be yourself that you're loved welcomed. That you'd be missed if you were away. Those are some of the things that come to mind. One of the reasons I created ladies like us was to build a place where people could belong, feel that sense of belonging.

needless to say it's an important value for me, but even as I knew that that was one of the reasons I created it. my deepening ,relationship with that word is, um, well unfolding for me actually right now.  So there was a quote, from the Emerald tablet, an ancient hermetic text having to do with alchemy and it goes something like this as above, so below as within so without. I don't know if you've encountered that before. Most likely you have but, this philosophy, is a kind of poetic way of explaining like the nature of reality and it lays a certain foundation for even, physics. But here's why it's significant in this conversation.

you know, I've spent a lot of time in childless not by choice communities. And one of the overarching themes is that sense of alienation. Of not belonging. Of feeling like the rest of the world is one way and that you are outside of it, excluded from it, precluded from it. I can't help, but notice that there's a spectrum of feeling around it, but at worst people truly feel.

Less than for not being mothers for not being parents for not, having created a family.  Some people are, um, feel other, but are chugging along in their lives. What I noticed from spending a lot of time, there was, well, one, I kept trying to find ways to help people not feel that way for one.

Right? Like who needs to feel this way. But what I, what I realize is that while yes, there are absolutely places where you can feel a lack of belonging. you end up volunteering somewhere and you're surrounded by mothers who are talking about their kids or you're at the office and there's another baby shower.

And like, you're literally like the only one who doesn't have a child and doesn't have the possibility of a child say, then that would be an easy way to feel like you don't belong. Right. But the other thing is, is this, and this is where the as within, so without, so as when we get that right, what's inside of us, how we feel.

And then the, without is the outside of us part. And the fact is, is that, if we felt a sense of belonging, no matter what, whatever was happening in the without world, wouldn't have to affect us. So for instance, someone excludes you from, you know, the hunting club and you have no interest in hunting.

I mean, you don't care. Right? Silly example. I know, but you catch my drift. If 

it 

has no heat for you, then it has no power over you. That's the point. And so when we allow the outside world to show us how we're not belonging or how we're other, it's a reflection of what's inside, which is that you don't feel like you belong and you feel other.

So I know that can sound harsh, but it's really not meant to be. I'm just reflecting the reality that. It has to be within us, in a certain way in order to affect us so. And unfortunately, generally speaking, this just comes, this is another example of programming, the stew we grew up in, you know, our surroundings, our society, eventually.

Goes from being outside of us to being implanted within us. So, you know, you think about your inner critic's voice, right? Like you didn't always have that. It's, it's usually, um, coming from someone in your environment or just stories that you've heard and it formulates into your own special brand of opressor. And, this programming allows the oppressor to live within us.

And so after a while, honestly, the feelings that we have about not belonging really are coming more from inside, as they say, it's an inside job more than, we are experiencing actual examples. Now I'm not, I can't speak for everyone. Right. Trust me. I mean, I know that some people hear it more, they come from certain families where this is reflected back to them over and over again.

But what I'm merely trying to say is that. Just because we're triggered by some events, uh, in the outside world that remind us of this fact, the fact is is that we are probably putting ourselves through this feeling a lot more than any external events actually are. And so how. How do we create belonging?

I mean, one of the reasons, I created ladies like us is, is to enhance a feeling of belonging, but I'm not trying to do this in a way where I just have my non mom club and we're just kind of rolling in our  and our non mum interests, although that is certainly something I'm interested in.

And I do believe that it's really beneficial to know you're not alone in this and to, draw strength from your sisters and brothers, who are living a different kind of life than. culture would, would have us have, right. Have us be living. But what I, what I really want to share in this episode, as well as just in this podcast in general is really, a blurring of that, duality, that polarity. 

To create it within us, such a deep unwavering sense of belonging that we can't be told that we don't belong right. Or there that we're not whole, or that, our lives might not be as worthwhile to save as, as, as a mothers, for instance. Right?  So the reason this topic came up for me was because of a recent, coaching session I had.

And,   like I said, I like getting coached because I'm always amazed at like, you think, you know, a thing and then you're like, oh, wow, no, I didn't. No, I didn't. So. It turns out I was avoiding something and like procrastination usually is,  it involves avoiding certain negative feelings rather than being focused on how you want to feel when you accomplish whatever goal.

Right. And so identifying. What I realized the core feelings I wanted to feel. This is my list. I wrote satisfied. I wrote confident . I wrote fulfillment and I wrote belonging. And I was like, huh, how about that belonging? Like, it really surprised the hell out of me because it just didn't sound like it fit, you know?

Even as I tried to remove the word from that list, that didn't feel right at all. Like it just belong there. And I was like, I got to explore this. Like, what does this mean? So think about it when you are in flow and you're doing the thing you need to be doing, or you're, you're kicking butt at work. I mean, I don't know, isn't that a kind of belonging?

Like, I think what I really realized for myself and if this is a weird stretch and it's only true for me, then thanks for bearing with me. But I think what I'm trying to say is that it was like I belong to myself when that goals accomplished. Or when I'm in the flow of working towards that goal, that is like such a sense of belonging.

Like, it means that I am using my gifts, using my strength, using my mental powers. Right. and literally, not for nothing, but I'm also belonging to the moment I'm belonging to the world. I'm belonging to my gifts. I'm belonging again to myself and I'm belonging to my purpose. So when all that like sprouted out of my head, I realized that belonging as a value, as a core desired feeling actually makes a lot of sense when it comes to what we want to create in the world.

And. sometimes going out on a limb to create something and you might end up with mud on your face. If it's a, if it's a larger endeavor, if it's a more public one, um, something that feels like could be failure, but what keeps us going? Like, it's not, if we're carving a new path and you know, no, you don't belong there.

You, you have to like machete the shit out of that path. Right. It's going to feel resistant. Like you're not supposed to be here because the path was never there before. But when you belong to the moment you belong to your mission.  You belong to your vision. It's sort of like, that is the kind of energy you need to keep going, in spite of those obstacles.

 What I really, discovered is simply that belonging in a true sense is being in purpose. That was the connection that I made and, um, I'm rolling with this new information, in my life incrementally, but you have to make space for things to integrate and kind of, change the space inside of you.

And so I know, like I took us on a weird little journey from  the sense of belonging in the world and how we're perceived and things like that into a space of spiritual belonging, but I believe they are connected. And one of the ways that I find is really effective for belonging to yourself in any moment is to remember, to come back to subject.

this is Uh, teaching of, Dr. Sue Morter in the energy codes, where We decide that we are the subject and then things outside of us, our object. And oftentimes when we are. Object object object, like what does she think? What do they think? Am I doing a good job? How's the world reflecting back on me.

All of your energy is dispersed and it's outside of you. So you're kind of latched on to all these external things. that is, very much, uh, set up to be at the mercy of, of those forces, of the. Feelings and reflections of the things you're, you're hooked into and you can quickly get knocked off course or out of your, out of your power, out of your flow, out of your belonging.

And so, , simply gazing at an object with all of your energy. really investing all of your energy into that, that object that you're looking at, and then closing your eyes and literally bringing that back home, bringing that back into yourself, um, bringing it back to subject and remembering the, who is in this moment, who is here, um, who is, who is the driver, who.

Who is the visioning, being in this moment. So, um, that's the, the exercise called subject object subject, but coming back to subject will quickly realign you with, I would say exactly the sense of belonging that I'm bringing forth you today. I hope that that was, , that was a fun journey for you.

It was for me. I love to share and I kind of want to see where, um, where I take this next. I want to, talk more about this, this really amazing, uh, session that I had because I also picked up on another invisible spot, a blind spot, if you will, in my own, operating system.

And like I said, I'm not mad about it. I'm just kind of like, wow, it's amazing. You didn't know, and now, you know, and what are you going to do with that? So here's where I leave you. And I hope you have an amazing week and I will talk to you soon.