Team Sport.
""We can have all the world has to offer in achievements, status, possessions; and without a sense of belonging, it all seems empty and pointless.
-Tara Brach
Episode 25.
We are hardwired to belong.
Just as there is a need for food, sex, shelter, safety; intrinsic in those very primitive needs, and defined within Maslow's Hierarchy, is the need for belonging.
I would go as far as to say, the sense of belonging is is the primary need, upon which all others hinge, because belonging allows for all our core needs to be fulfilled. The very act of hunting/gathering food, building shelter, maintaining safety from true danger- came from being connected within a tribe.
This is why we feel so deeply threatened when we sense disconnection from a group; why there is such innate fear of abandonment (which we often cover up, compensated for, or express in some other form, but at it's source, constitutes this ingrained fear of abandonment- being cast out of the tribe).
This is not soft science, or fluffy Hallmark intimacy talk. This is not joining to sing "Kumbaya" or "We are the World". This is recognizing that our suffering is not personal, but shared. This is acknowledging that the courage in allowing ourselves to be seen and touched can heal even the deepest wounds.
Everyone longs for connection and meaning and purpose; a belonging; to be felt, seen, heard, embraced, loved; even if we are conditioned out of recognizing this- even when the longing takes shape in other forms.
So, the hard science.... There have been many studies showing the impact on health and wellbeing related to connection and belonging- and I'll highlight one of my favorites- a compelling fMRI study on being ignored and excluded--and how it affects individuals and groups. Kip Williams' studies indicated that the initial reaction to being "left out" from a virtual game of ball toss, was congruent to physical pain, based on the area of the brain that lit up on fMRI. This same area of the brain lights up with actual severe physical pain, yet the subjects were only engaging in a game, and undergoing rejection from playmates. This brain interpretation of pain was demonstrated by all individuals, regardless of personality or social/situational factors. Wow. So, feeling rejected or abandoned or experiencing fear around those emotions- not weakness; just actual brain science.
A Buddhist guru said, "Enlightenment is a Team Sport". Just as we face collective suffering- not personal and neither caused by you nor owned by you, but a shared experience; the pathway to healing also presumes the truth that we belong to each other.
Healing is not a personal endeavor. When there is suffering, and when we see this interconnection, we can meet another human in truth, even if it is scary.
We can be exposed in our fragility, and ask, will you still walk beside me....
The Simon & Garfunkel song, I am a Rock, could literally make me cry, in the first two notes. It captures a depth of separation - an unwillingness to let love in, in order to maintain the illusion of control over loss. It holds me in a place where I have been, and could return - isolated, protecting, and bearing armor to ward off fear and pain; instead of being open in vulnerable spots, accepting that there's no true safety net, and being courageous in my raw and wounded heart. "And a rock feels no pain, and an island never cries."...
Mother Teresa wrote, "if we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other." We belong. We are not a rock. We are not an island. And so, we feel pain, and we cry. Together. Because, we have the courage and strength. We can choose to play the team sport.
My soul tells me, we were
all broken from the same nameless
heart, and every living thing
wakes with a piece of that original
heart aching its way into blossom.
This is why we know each other
below our strangeness, why when
we fall, we lift each other, or when
in pain, we hold each other, why
when sudden with joy, we dance
together. Life is the many pieces
of that great heart loving itself
back together.
~ Mark Nepo
Love through it all,
Jessica
Do it all with Love. Nothing is promised. But everything is workable.
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