All connection starts with a feeling
Did you experience this inner urge at some point in your life… the urge to “belong”? After all, as the social beings we are, being lonely somehow doesn’t do the trick, right?
Two interesting questions arise from this:
1. What is it that we seek to belong to and more importantly: WHY?
2. Once we find it, how can we make the connection — how does our longing for BE-longing become a reality in our life?
A “place” where we are allowed to be — HOME
Home. What an interesting concept of the human mind and heart. But what is it? — A place? A person? A relationship? A role we play when being with others? Our comfort zone? “That, which we know all too well, and that makes us feel secure”?
Having been on the move every few years for the better part of my life, I look back and realize that a place, a geographical location never was my concept of being home. Sure, I got places I feel more drawn to and enjoy being there more than in others… yet for me it was always more about the people. About how others made me feel when I’m around them. And isn’t there this old saying:
“The home is where the heart is”
I feel at home when I am not just alone with myself, but when I can be close to people that give me the feeling of being wanted, of being part of them and who are open for the exchange that happens once two hearts open up for one another, out of pure curiosity and joy. It doesn’t matter if it is one or many. The quality it is that counts. The authenticity in being open and the honest desire to reach out and genuinely connect.
Love — Filling up the lack of “you” in yourself?
But what motives were driving me into relationships, especially intimate ones? On the forefront it was the attraction towards the other person — obviously. But what made me feel attracted? I guess most of the times I saw in the other something that I thought was missing in myself, and by being with that other person I thought I’d find it in me. I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. But even once I found it at some point, there was this fear to express myself fully and really “own” this something I found so attractive in the other person for and in myself.
I think I was always unknowingly searching for the “place” where I could simply be myself, without any fear of being wrong, having the feeling to be accepted and wanted.
I was afraid to show myself to the world, in all my facettes. And why? Because of the fear that I might not be allowed to be part of it all. That people might not like me. That I might be alone in the end.
Isn’t it funny and paradoxic how much we sometimes fear what we desire most — and then do anything in our might to prevent us from doing what is necessary to manifest this reality in our lives, just by believing we could prevent the feeling that we are in right now anyways? It’s like creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Finding the home in yourself
The turning point came for me, when due to a “broken” relationship I was forced to deal with this pain of not-belonging. Looking deeply, I realized that I had anchored myself outside of myself all the time. Putting all of my hopes and expectations on others, but never taking responsibility for myself.
Why? — Because the notion did not exist in my mind that this was even possible, simply by choosing it to be so.
What is good in expecating everything from others? Nothing really I could think of. It creates dependencies and makes any relationship unfree, because one person is always the “needy” one, while the other is forced to “provide” and meet the needs, if the relationship is supposed to be “intact”.
But what happened if both were having a firm home in themselves, not being in desperate NEED of the other for the sake of their own feeling of completeness, but instead out of a state of inner freedom enjoying being with each other for the sake of mutual encounter and shared experiences that lead to true love and connection?
So what can you do to find a home in yourself?
I found it all starts with allowing myself to feel. With all my senses, heart and mind.
Feel what?
Feeling what I have inside. Feel the pain and the joy. The longing and the “home”, that already exists in myself, as I and you are complete by nature.
And the misconception that I am separated from that which I try to belong to, or that I am not “whole” and would need another person to achieve this wholeness. Don’t get me wrong: Having someone or many someones you can feel close to is wonderful. Nevertheless, it will never be really free if you cannot feel yourself first, and don’t find the courage to own yourself fully.
When you start listening to the quiet voice inside yourself that lets you feel what it is that you desire in the other —it will show you the way to what you neglected as a part of yourself all the time; a part that will await you with open arms, once you waded through the insecurities.
Welcome home my friend.
