Longing to Belong. Longing to Be Me!

More wants to come. More wants to be shared. To flow from me. Not to leave a trace, but to make meaning. To convey. To make known.

I shared this on Instagram today:

And this is what it means to love (in the post I wrote live, but when I typed it here, I wrote, as you can see, LOVE, which has me smiling from ear to ear), to not be stymied, held back or limited by the things that are happening around you. To be driven by the inner will, volition, that is what keeps you going.

Something stronger than you, a force larger than you. This force that once you come in contact with, you realize is YOU!

I’ve been breaking and in this breaking, there is a crack, allowing the light to come in so I can see what I really long for, that there is this longing, a deep desire to belong. Acknowledging that I want to belong to someone.

What it really is, is a longing to

Accept myself

Love myself

Trust myself

Rely on myself

And this takes courage. To face myself fully. What I really mean is to meet myself. Really meet myself.

Acknowledging this longing for belonging. Longing to belong to someone.

That someone is ME!

There is no one outside of me that I could ever belong to. I have been here all along!

Hidden within the beauty of all of this, is Me!

Meeting more and more of myself with each step I take! It is incredible! Work. And incredible. Both!

As soon as I wrote that, more came. More wanted to flow. It’s like the crack has become a crevasse and everything that I have known is crumbling. Allowing me to access the foundation, to go deeper to access the root.

I have long sought to belong. To be accepted. To be welcomed. To be a part of. To be whole.

I thought for many years, and still have as recent as today, that this would be actualized, realized, known through a relationship with someone else. I longed to be sought, to be a priority, to be important. Important and valued enough to be fought for, to not be given up on, to continue to invest time and energy to cultivate a relationship, a union.

It became clear to me today, that while I have been seeking this, longing for this, a deep, deep desire for this, this which I have been seeking and longing for is actually a relationship with myself. That someone, is me. That which I have desired has been here all along, only to be located hidden within the beauty of this longing. This longing that has brought so much pain and hurt, grief and loss. (as I type the coyotes are howling!)

This grief that I have been experiencing is this of loss, loss of a connection with myself. A grieving that accompanies a realization that what I have been seeking is me, inside of me and that I was looking for it outside of me, externally and this searching, this desire to locate it brings me face to face with the realization that I turned away from myself. And now that I know this, I am grieving the notion that for so long I was looking because I did not know. I did not know my own power. I did not know the most important relationship is the one with myself. That I alone am important. That I alone am value. That I alone am love.

Not that I am alone. I know this, even when I feel loneliness, a loss of connection or understanding. Alone is the sense that this is my path, I am the one walking it, I am the one creating it. No one else has walked my path. And I do not want to walk the path of someone else. I know this, because I have tried.

I have stuffed, crammed, shape shifted, adapted, altered and shut off pieces of myself to fit in, to be accepted, to be liked, to maintain a relationship. In some cases, because I was asked to, many instances because I thought this is what I was supposed to do. This, I thought was what one does. One changes to meet the ever growing and shifting needs of others around me.

This is what got me going this morning, what prompted, sparked or ignited this awareness. Up until recently, I had yet to have someone model for me what it really means to put themselves first in a relationship, at least one that I respected. To choose themselves over anything and everything else. And while I see this as the greatest act of service, to be true to you, not shifting or adapting or accommodating to others, I found myself full of anger. Anger. Full on anger. Not for those who are able to do this. No. Anger towards myself for not doing it. For seeing, for having this modeled for me and coming face to face with the realization, the actualization that is it possible. That one can make a choice for themselves without guilt or shame, without second guessing or doubt. One can make this choice and move on.

From one perspective, to me this meant that I am not important. I was actually told this. I needed to hear the words my heart already knew, “other things become more important.” This was a blow, a knock that took the wind out of me, leaving me breathless. Just as the way it began. Took my breath away in the beginning, and my breath left me as it ended.

At the same time, it cracked me open. The split wide was enough for me to see the trend of how I have been in a pattern of unhealthy abusive relationships, intimate and/or work related. This has been a through line for me in this life. Relationships in which someone else either knows consciously or not, that I have given them power, a power over me. A power stronger than me, one in which I was malleable and easily sculpted and molded to fit in whatever way they needed me or that I thought I needed to be. Oh, this is huge. I gave others this power. This power to dominate and control me, where I felt inferior and weak, subject to their moods, words, emotions, actions and behaviors. Acting from a place of fear rather than strength and love. Thinking that their actions and choices were a result of me, caused by me. Putting me in a place where I was at their mercy. Again, in some cases they were aware of this, most often they were not. It happened to be a dynamic that we fell into, that I passively, yet willingly, allowed.

And it is with this knowledge that has dawned on me over these past couple of days, that has me crying. Has me full of anger. Has me grieving, this loss of sense of self. That I gave myself over, my power over to someone else, someone outside of me. Because I did not know my own power.

This continued to happen, even once I realized my own power, that I am this force, this strength, this vitality. I am this will. This is how strong and deeply rooted my desire and longing to belong was engrained in me. This how strong this pattern of being was. I wanted, I longed for, I sought someone outside of me. This is what was modeled, shown. This is what I was fed, what I consumed. You are nothing without someone else. That my worth was determined by someone outside of me and that I needed someone to determine my worth. That my worth was dependent on belonging, belonging to someone who determines how and where I stood. How I viewed my relationship with myself was dependent on how someone else saw me, if I was in good graces with them, if I was worthy of being seen and interacted with. If I belonged. And it has brought up all of the stories, the stories of you cannot hack it, you must have done something wrong to scare him off, why can’t you maintain a relationship. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?

WHAT DID I DO WRONG?

Until I realize that all of this, all of these experiences have led me here, to see, to realize that I am who I seek. That time and time again, when things come and go, relationships start and dissolve, the one thing that remains, the one thing that is constant is me. (Yes, my breath, my body and of course my consciousness) Me. I am the thing that remains. I have not given up on myself. I remain committed to me. I value me. I trust me. I rely on me. I love me. This is what I am meant to see. I have been longing to belong. Longing to be. Me. To be accepted by me. Loved by me. Trusted my me. Committed to me. To show up for me.

Me.

 I am the one I have longed to meet.

Me.

And here I am. And here we are. You and me. This part that has been longing and the part that has been here all along. Together. Found. Connected. In unity.

Me.

Smiling in this, smiling with this.

with a hug,

S