• How important connection and belonging are to our survival (and happiness!) as humans (even if we fail to recognize it). (:36)
• A beautiful quote that speaks to our interrelatedness from Martin Luther King Jr. and reveals:
  • A surprising truth about depending on more than half the world before leaving the house for work in the morning. (1:31)
  • How peace on earth hinges on our ability to recognize how interrelated we are. (2:29) 
• How connection impacts our health and longevity. (2:47)
• Why it’s so vulnerable (and sometimes even painful) to realize how much we need connection. (3:10)
• A beautiful poem by the Persian poet Hafiz that articulates how we long to belong. (4:23)
• Two paths we can all take to feel our connectedness and our belonging. (5:05)
• The important truth you must know – that a feeling of connection is always available to you. (6:17)
• Our human tendency toward “othering” and how it blocks our sense of connectedness. (6:33)
• Michelle’s story of a rental car return gone awry that may inspire you to practice kindness and compassion when your suffering exceeds your resources. (7:21)
• Michelle’s story of an unlikely bond she shared with a stressed-out stranger in an airport (someone who she initially judged). (10:17)
• Relative vs. absolute love (according to Norman Fischer) and which one is always available to us, regardless of our relationship status. (13:20)
• The tens and hundreds of thousands of people who include you in their well wishes and are rooting for you in ways that you may never have realized. (13:40)
• A favorite poem of Michelle’s by Julia Ferhenbaucher called Hold Out Your Hand. (15:00)
• What to ask instead of “Am I good enough” and a powerful reminder that you matter and are needed. (15:42)

Hi Everyone,  I’m Michelle Becker and you are listening to the Well Connected Relationships podcast.  In today’s episode I want to explore the importance of belonging.

As human’s we are a species that thrives on belonging. We are indeed stronger together.  In fact, without someone to love and care for us we wouldn’t have survived this long.  It’s easy to think of our adult selves as competent to stand on our own, but really, the reality of our situation is that we depend on each other in ways we fail to see.  This excerpt by MLK speaks to this beautifully:

All of life is interrelated….

We are interrelated and we need each other.  It’s one of the reasons that one of the most powerful predictor of physical health is having healthy relationships.  One study showed that even the simple act of caring for a plant caused people in nursing homes to live longer.  We are interconnected, whether we feel it or not. By nature of being born we are part of the human family.  

It can be a vulnerable thing to realize how we need each other.  Maybe we haven’t yet found that special someone and we feel single and alone.  Or we don’t seem to belong to the in crowd at work, for example. We can feel alone, rejected, desperate.  It’s a painful thing to want to be connected, to belong and to feel that we don’t belong.  Especially if we’ve been rejected for who we are based on the color of our skin, our gender identity, our sexual preferences, our socioeconomic or educational status. We can be rejected for being too nerdy, or not smart enough.  Too loud or too quiet.  Too much or not enough.  Too fat- or too skinny.  Too tall or too short.  In fact, while some of us have experienced more rejection than others- all of know the experience of being excluded for one reason or another.  Maybe it’s our politics or our religion.  In the words of the late Gilda Radner who played Roseanne rosannadanna on SNL- “If it’s not one thing- it’s another.  

The thing is though, we only feel the pain of exclusion because we long to belong.  Daniel Ladinsky, who translated a poem called With that Moon Language, by the persian poet, Hafiz writes:

With That Moon Language, by Hafiz (translated by Daniel Ladinsky)

Admit something:

Everyone you see, you say to them,
“Love me.”

Of course you do not do this out loud;
otherwise, someone would call the cops.

Still though, think about this,
this great pull in us
to connect.
Why not become the one
who lives with a full moon in each eye
that is always saying,
with that sweet moon language,
what every other eye in this world
is dying to hear?​

And in this poem, the secret is revealed.  There are two paths to feeling our connectedness, our belonging.  One path is to wait until we feel welcomed by others. The other is to become the one who welcomes others.  “Why not become the one who lives with a full moon in each eye that is always saying, with that sweet moon language, what every other eye in this world is dying to hear?

In my mindfulness practice I became curious about what it felt like when I received love:   ….then I noticed what it felt like when I gave love:……  SAME Feeling!  Hmmm, this feeling of connection is actually always available to me.  Just like it is always available to you.  

When you look at others what do you see?  Do you focus on your differences- what feels foreign or unacceptable to you?  There is a term for that- it’s called “othering”.  We do this all the time. Someone cuts us off in traffic and we think of them as a bad driver, or entitled, or other colorful names.  Really though, who among us hasn’t cut someone off in traffic- even if we didn’t intent to.  We were about to miss a turn, or we didn’t see the other driver.  Do we call ourselves these names?  Usually not.  We think of the one who cuts us off in traffic as different than ourselves- which usually boils down to some comparison of them as bad and ourselves as good.  I’ve certainly fallen into this trap plenty of times myself.  I can get all huffy and stressed out about it.

It doesn’t have to go this way though. Some time ago I attended a workshop in CFT with Paul Gilbert.  For three days I was steeped in compassion and seeing others and ourselves through the lense of compassion.  At the end of the third day I got in my rental car and headed back to the airport……

It was amazing how warm-hearted and connected I felt to this person who cut me off in traffic- this person I’d never even met.  That’s because the other path to feeling connected and belonging is to see others through the lense of our shared common humanity.  When we see and understand the bigger picture that we’re all human, we all make mistakes, we don’t always behave in ways that we’re proud of, and we allow that understanding to soften our hearts it changes everything.  

I often say In any moment when our suffering exceeds our resources bad or unskillful behavior is likely the result.  …..

So one path to belonging is to offer kindness to others.  This might be as simple as looking up from our screen when we’re on the train or bus and noticing the mother beside us who is struggling with their misbehaving toddler and offering a smile of understanding- mother to mother.  It reminds me of another experience I had, actually.  

I was at the airport in the gate area waiting for my flight.  It had been a busy time leading up to the trip and I was exhausted and looking forward to just reading my book.  Across the way was a mother who’s three small children had clearly had enough of this traveling thing and were climbing on her and a bit whiney.  I’m sure was at her witt’s end, but the way she was treating them was borderline physically abusive.  

I could feel a concern for her children arise in me- along with some judgement of her for the way she was treating her children.  An impulse arose to go over to her and let her know I saw how she was treating her children and she needed to do better.  

And then I saw her.  Really looked at her and I could see how worn out she was.  My heart softened and just then the seat next to her opened up.  I moved in beside her and gave her an understanding smile.  I said something to the effect of, “It’s so hard being a mom sometimes- I had three small children too” and I could see her body soften and her eyes fill with tears as she said to me, “oh, you must understand then.” I said, yes it’s so hard sometimes.  Then she went on to explain they’d had a very difficult visit with family and she was feeling the pain of that- and they’d been traveling for a while and everything just seemed to be falling apart.  As I listened to her tell her story, I couldn’t help but notice how the youngest crawled into her lap again- but this time she held him and rubbed his back in a soothing way.  Something in her shifted, and then her kids seemed to calm down too.  There was a softness, a connectedness, something loving and peaceful between them.  And my heart melted further.  

I could see that our interaction had benefitted this mom and her kids.  But somehow I came away feeling like I was the one who had benefitted the most. Once again, over and over again, I’d experienced the power of kindness and common humanity. After all I did have three small children and I knew what it was like to behave in ways I wasn’t proud of- even though I dearly loved my children too.  And I as I boarded my flight I was filled with fondness for this mom.  We’d bonded over the shared experience of being overwhelmed.

Sometimes, like for this mom, we need another person to look at us with eyes of kindness and understanding.  I’m reminded of the way Norman Fisher talks about relative and absolute love.  Relative love is that kind of love- we need a person to deliver it to us. Absolute love is the love that is always available to us.  

The truth is that right this very moment- even though we don’t know who or how- there are thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people who are wishing their kind wishes for you and me.  We’re included in their wishes when they say, “May all beings be free”, “May all beings know love and the causes of love” May all beings know joy and the causes of joy, may all beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.  There are people singing words of hope and love and people wishing us well in whatever way feels right to them.

We may feel alone at times,  but the truth is that in the absolute sense we are never alone.  Whether we have just been rejected by someone or not- in the larger truth of things, just by virtue of being born in this human body we do all belong.  

If we want to feel love and belonging- it’s as close as looking at the people around you and becoming the one that lives with a full moon in each eye.  

I care about you.  I hope you care about you too.

Extro:  That’s all for today’s Well Connected Relationships podcast.  Thanks for being here.  If you’d like to get our notes on the highlights of this episode, along with a simple practice you can use, be sure to join our Well Connected Relationships community on the Wise Compassion website.  I’ve got so much more in store for you.  So be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss a thing.

Rest of extro?