THM 005: Belonging

We all seek connection with others, and underneath that longing is a deeper more mammalian longing to belong. We long to belong in such a way that belonging to others feels like we simultaneously belong to our self, the way we felt in our mother’s womb. It is a deep longing that many of us simply don’t have the vocabulary to communicate, yet we know when we come close to it. These people that strongly evoke this feeling usually become our best friends; they become our family, the people we turn to when times get tough, when we want to celebrate life, and when we simply want to hang out with someone that just “gets us”.

Unfortunately, for many of us, we have lost the function of recognizing the multitude of connections throughout our day with whom we would want to deepen connections with to call our tribe our family.

Much of this has to do with a lack of connection and understanding of how we belong to ourselves. We belong to our own contraction (places where we honor our limits) and our own expansion (where we honor possibilities). In our contraction, we mature and drop away what doesn’t belong to us. It helps in discernment as we meet new people. Understanding your limits lets you be clear about your capacity in being there for others longing and wishes for nurture and support. Without belonging to your limits, many people make commitments to people they simply don’t have the capacity to be there for. In our expansion, we realize our potential in what is possible and what is most important to us, our life’s purpose. Without belonging to a life’s purpose, many people commit to relationships that steer them away from their core purpose of their existence. The foundation of belonging to yourself is knowing your limits and your life purpose. As you connect with others, it will get easier to spot whom you have the capacity to support and nourish and who in turn can nourish you, as well as if your connections aligns with your life’s purpose. When we don’t belong to ourselves we have a growing angst. When we don’t own our limits, we have a growing sense of shame. When we don’t own our purpose, we have a growing sense of anxiety.

It is important to understand the distinction between “natural shame” (embarrassment) and “conditioned shame”. The first is based on biology and nature; the second on cultural bias. We have a natural mechanism of slowing down or pausing when to pay attention to something important. I call this “contraction”. It is through this natural function we learn our pacing and boundaries. When we notice from a place of innocence that we did something that did not represents us in that innocent state, we feel embarrassed and tension builds in the body of “natural shame”. It is this mechanism that reveals to us integrity and dignity that is based solely on our existence. It is a phenomenon that is autonomous and free from a conditioned response from others. Michelangelo once reported on how he made his magnificent marble statues so life like. It’s as if the marble block simply let him know what did not belong to them.

Michelangelo said, “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it”. It is kind of like that as you reclaim this natural function; the unique and authentic existence that is you gets to be, well… you.

“Conditioned shame” is a cultural conditioned response to be a good citizen and belong to the tribe. It is the internal policeman of our psyche that masquerades as our own conscience. It feels like yours, but really it is a parroted call and response to your cultural upbringing. Much of the introspective process inside of us is this sifting out the distinction between what is our natural shame and conditioned shame responses. If our “conditioned shame” response does not align with our “natural shame” response we go through an internal struggle, and if we succumb to a conditioned response of shame over the natural one, we give birth to toxic shame!

“Toxic shame” creates a feeling of feeling righteous in harming ourselves and others. The second thing to understand is that Shame has been so perverted and misused as a conditioning tool because it works so effectively in internalizing boundaries and containment. Many people have a strong adverse reaction to mere mention of the word. Natural understanding and exploration of our pacing and boundaries as a function has often been replaced by conditional shame to be a good son/daughter, citizen, and member of tribe and so on. Our innocence is autonomous and free in its own existence and naturally honors that in others as well as itself. When we get modeled and imprint on people we trust such as parents, teachers, and mentors who in turn were modeled conditional shame, this tremendous momentum of conditioned response meets innocence and becomes the soil and fertilizer that our seed of innocence cracks open and grows in. Over time as a natural sifting out processes of innocence/natural shame from the mire of conditional shame occurs our innocence and integrity is once again reclaimed, more mature with humility and wisdom to help germinate innocence and integrity in others. We are all in this together. The more we talk about what we are ashamed of and bring it into light of inquiry and understanding together the more our innocence and healthy pacing that comes from natural shame can be reclaimed and shared with others.

The third thing to understand “shame” is about slowing down or pausing. It is a contractive force that helps you regulate timing. Actually a more accurate way of describing it is an internal alarm system that lets you know you have gone too far. Those delicious and celebratory moments that feel shameless are moments of deep harmony with existence. Innocence in action is shameless in its expression because of right timing.

Anxiety. The first thing to understand is that anxiety is intimately linked with shame. Just like there is natural shame and conditioned shame there is natural anxiety and conditioned anxiety. Natural anxiety is something innocent that feels the impulse to move in celebration of itself. Think of a fidgety child caught in an impulse to play restricted in an adult world full of rules and restrictions. Conditioned anxiety is something different all together. Conditioned anxiety is reward systems to motivate actions to conform to being a good son/daughter, citizen, and member of tribe and so on. When natural anxiety and conditioned anxiety meet inside us and don’t align, a kind of battle of acting out occurs in us. If a conditioned anxiety wins it feels like full steam ahead sideways. We become in action around the things that we truly don’t value in life and have a sense of losing our passion and direction in relationships. If our natural anxiety wins we feel deeply validated in our actions around what truly matters to us and tend to have a feeling of finding ourselves in relationship with others.

Second thing to understand about anxiety is that it is something that is expected and revered in our culture. It is seen as a status symbol of how successful you are. Many learn that if you look busy even if you’re not, you will be rewarded with being seen as more successful and up to something. Many, particularly in their youth, get shunned in some way for not being in action with something.

The third is that “Anxiety” is an expansive force; it lets us know to accelerate. It lets us know we are lagging behind. Again it is the other half of a mechanism of right timing. When we are in action, we are in deep harmony anxiety disappears. Yet when we lag, we are in angst.

Putting it all together; In short when we belong to ourselves we have right timing. We feel in harmony with ourselves and our surroundings. Our internal functions of honing and reclaiming our function of belonging work by reclaiming natural shame and anxiety which reveals to us the contractive and expansive pulse that belongs to our innocence. In this innocence we are intimately connected belly to belly, eye to eye, and breath to breath as human beings. Our body’s right timing is increased through bringing gravity into our lower body and making our upper body lighter.

Tahil is a master at helping people transform their relationship breakdowns into breakthroughs.

Tahil is a Co-founder of Heart Source in Berkeley, Master Relationship Coach, Deep trauma specialist, and Intactivist. He has a passion for communication, culture, energy, health, and personal empowerment. For more about Tahil visit www.TahilGesyuk.com .

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