Deepening Your Sense of Belonging

Welcome! In a culture that values independence, we sometimes forget that our survival and ability to thrive depend on interrelationships. In your mother’s womb, you floated in the warm embrace of amniotic fluid and received a steady stream of nutrients through the umbilical cord. Perhaps you heard her sing lullabies to you then, so her voice became familiar before you were even born.

Sadly enough, even in the womb you may have felt let down. A surprising number of people trace their earliest trauma to the anxiety their mother felt while bearing them or to toxins she ingested that diminished their well-being. So we not only depend on each other from the start, but we need also to treat our interdependence as the sacred gift it is. Whether we have been marvelously supported or terribly mistreated in the past (most of us experience a mix of each), we can now choose to live gratefully so that our sense of belonging grows ever stronger.