Relationships

The Illusion of Belonging: Why it’s time to abandon the search

April 17, 2018 by lyra777 Leave a Comment

Belonging can only happen when a “part” joins a group

So by wanting to belong

You are under the illusion of incompleteness

In waking up you realise

You are already complete

You are not a part

But a whole

And a whole doesn’t need to join any group

You are there already

You are a whole universe

The Problem of “Belonging”

Most of us at some point feel the painful pang of wanting to find the place that we can call “home”. A place full of people that fills us with unconditional love, protection and strength whenever we feel we need it. A place where we always feel accepted, where we can bare our deepest selves.

We label this state as “belonging”.

When we don’t feel like we belong anywhere we feel like a puzzle piece, endlessly searching and hoping that we will finally find the whole picture that we are a part of.

This, however, is a problem.

This is because belonging is a complete illusion. It is a belief that we must abandon if we are to relieve our suffering, or else we will spend our whole lives searching for something that doesn’t exist in the first place. We will end up in a state (“be”) of eternal “longing”.

What Belonging Actually Is

Think about the last time you felt like you belonged somewhere. How did you feel on the inside? Warm? Loved? Accepted? Expansive?…

…Complete?

This is what belonging actually boils down to: completeness. And ultimately it is this thirst for wholeness that drives almost everything that we do. When we feel complete in a group, we feel loved, because we become love itself.

As mentioned in my little midnight musing at the beginning of this post, belonging can only occur if a part joins a whole. Yet, in waking up we realise that we are complete. So how did we come to believe that we were only a piece, rather than the entire puzzle?

Let me tell you a story.

How the Circle Became a Puzzle Piece

This is Circle. Circle is one full, content and joyous entity.

One day Circle goes to play with some other circle friends. They have a chat.

Circle is embarrassed. It doesn’t want its friends to reject it so it decides to cut a fragment of itself off and lock it up in an closet. Now it doesn’t have to show this aspect of itself anymore, and it feels safe.

Then Circle goes home. Circle’s parents have spent years cutting off pieces of themselves, so they don’t like it if Circle doesn’t cut them off either. So they push and prod Circle until it does the same.

Soon Circle trims and locks away so many parts of itself that it isn’t a circle anymore.

It becomes a puzzle piece.

Now Circle may feel safer, but it doesn’t feel whole anymore. Feelings of loneliness and incompleteness flood in. It wants to find the place where it can be a circle again. So it starts searching. Little did Circle know however, that what its little soul was crying out for wasn’t for other people. It was yearning for all the parts of itself that it locked away in its closet many years ago.

Eventually there will be times when Circle will go to places, or will meet other people, that will make it feel secure. Suddenly, Circle is now ok with opening the door to its secret closet and letting back in all the fragments that were lost.

This doesn’t last for long though. If Circle always relies on external circumstances to cue whether or not its ok to let back in its fragments, sooner or later someone, or something, will lead to Circle quickly locking the door again.

What Circle doesn’t realise, is that it always holds the key to the closet. Nobody can take this key away. Circle can actually choose to open the door whenever it wants to.

And when it does, it will finally become itself again.

Complete. No longer needing to “belong”.

Beyond Belonging

When we say, “I finally feel like I belong”, it is never because a person or a group is making you feel that way. Rather, it is you giving yourself permission for once to be who you truly are. Ultimately you are the gatekeeper of your fragments, the decider of whether to bare your heart to the world.

It takes courage, acceptance and a sense of fearlessness to learn how to open your gate when everyone may be against you. It may take a lifetime of practice. But remember – you are always the holder of the key. Go back and invite all of those locked-up selves to “belong” again to the core of your being. Only then will that feeling of completeness return.

It’s time to go beyond belonging. We are each unique circles, so there will never be a circle that is exactly like yours. In this sense, we will always be alone. Yet, to fully embrace this aloneness means also to joyously celebrate your special circle, to revel in all of its imperfect perfection. This opens your heart and fills your being with love. This love then expands outwards, embracing every living being in its path.

In embracing your aloneness, you actually connect with all.

“I Do Not Need You To Protect Me” – A Sequel to the Love Letter

May 20, 2017 by lyra777 Leave a Comment

To my dearest beloved

I wanted you to know

That I do not need you

To protect me

I do not need you

To protect me from your sadness

Because your grief lets me know

You’re a beautiful human too

I do not need you

To protect me from your turmoil

As a woman, turmoil is something that I AM

So let me embrace it all

I do not need you

To protect me from your anger

It’s only a burst of energy

I’ll help you scream it out

I do not need you

To protect me from your fear

Because seeing you be present with it

Actually gives me strength

I do not need you

To protect me from your vulnerability

You are never weak in my eyes

You are the strongest man to me

I do not need you

To protect me from your mortality

Because our love surpasses time and space

Our connection lasts eternity

So let me not need your protection

As it will set you free

You may be surprised at the results

If you just let emotions be

Afterword

This is a sequel to a poem I wrote on Valentine’s Day called “I Don’t Need You”.

Men have so much pressure to be “strong”. When boys are taught to “man-up”, “not be a sissy” or “not be a girl”, this can have seriously damaging effects on their emotional well-being. The biggest shame is that vulnerability is man’s greatest strength.

A lot of men feel emotions just as strongly as women do. Yet they feel like they shouldn’t have them, let alone express them. There are also men who pressure themselves to be the “tough” one in the relationship, to be the protector of the two. This may lead them to hide their emotions from their partners because they feel they must shield them from pain. This can make them hold in much anguish. The emotions are there, and they need to be let out. I tried to convey in my letter that my loved ones’ vulnerability only serves to make us both become stronger, deepening our love.

“I Do Not Need You” — A Love Letter

February 13, 2017 by lyra777 Leave a Comment

My dearest beloved

I wanted to tell you

On this day of love

That I do not need you

I do not need you

To make me happy

So you will never have the pressure

Of my contentment on your shoulders

I do not need you

To provide for my financial needs

So pursue any dream you want

Without worrying about supporting me

I do not need you

To boost my self-esteem

So if my butt really does look big in these jeans

You can say and we can laugh

I do not need you

To always act cheerful

So if you feel like being grouchy

Express it in all its glory

I do not need you

To always be a ‘man’

So when you need to be vulnerable

Do so without feeling ashamed

I do not need you

To always keep me company

So when you need time by yourself

Go without feeling guilty

I do not need you

To always wipe away my tears

So if you too are finding the world too much

You can relax, knowing I am still supported by friends

I do not need you

To always be by my side

So if you want to hang out with the lads

Go and have that beer

I do not need you

To be someone who you are not

Be whoever you want to be

And I will support you all the way

I do not need you

To make me feel complete

Because we are not two who have become one

But two who have become three

I do not need you

So I can set you free

Because I love you

And you are always dear to me

Happy Valentine’s Day

People are Like Plants

January 5, 2017 by lyra777 6 Comments

People are very much like plants.

Plants need four things to grow – soil, time, sunlight and water.

plants

We are in fact exactly the same.

All the time we are incubating seedlings of wisdom that are waiting to blossom. We are fertile ground.

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We tell people how they should be growing their little plants, which is madness really. Your plant maybe a rose, and mine may be a cactus. If I applied the same requirements as you — lots of water in a temperate climate — my cactus will end up all shrivelled up.

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Yet, we say to others, you should grow like this, and you should grow like that, thinking that is best for them. This is only because it worked for our plant, but it may not work at all for theirs. We could be twisting their little plant to grow in a way it doesn’t want to.

We may also become impatient with other people’s growth process, demanding that they grow faster, that they act now. But no matter how much you yell at a plant, it will still grow at its own pace, because plants need time and patience to grow.

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Plants also need sunlight and water. This also will come naturally. As time passes, there will be inner weather changes. Sometimes we have days of bright, warm sunlight within, making us feel bursting with happiness and hope.

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But other days we are surrounded by dense clouds of sadness. They can become heavier and heavier, eventually enveloping us into darkness.

Fear not, because these very clouds will provide you with the second key ingredient to grow your seedling: water. Your very tears will be welcome nourishment for your little plant of wisdom inching towards the sky.

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As with all things in life we need a optimal balance of sunlight and water for our plants. Individual balances may vary — some plants may need more sunlight, others may need more rain.

However, sometimes we may find ourselves being enveloped in thick, dark clouds for long periods of time. They can become so dense that we cannot pierce through them with our own little sunlight. Being in darkness for so long is unlikely to help our plant to grow.

Luckily no man is an island, and we have other people around us who can lend a helping hand. They can share their light when we can’t shine it on ourselves. There is another word for this — love.

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Often when other people consciously share their sunlight with us, our clouds will naturally start to rain. They can, in fact, pour. Floods of tears will come flowing down, and the rain will pitter and patter until your clouds will start to disappear. Eventually you will start to see the shimmering of your own sunlight again.

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And your plant can bask in its warmth.

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Now remember, sharing sunlight doesn’t mean trying to forcibly blast someone’s clouds away through pushing happiness on them. This can be very counterproductive. Yet, people using this method often can get frustrated as to why the other person is not responding to their happy bomb.

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The reason is simple. If you are throwing a happy bomb at someone, often (but not always) you are indirectly saying, “you shouldn’t be sad”. In other words, “I don’t want to accept you as you are”. This tends to be because people do not like to accept the clouds of sadness within themselves, so they do not want to be reminded of them through other people.

This is where remembering that people are like plants is so important. People’s little plants benefit from the sadness. They are nourished by tears. As such, accepting people as they are, in that moment in time, is crucial. Also, remember that plants need time to grow, so no amount of blasting with happy bombs will speed up the process.

Sunlight is love, and love is unconditional acceptance. It is a state of being. It is to warmly radiate your own sunlight on someone, gently telling them “you can be exactly who you are“.

Another mistake people make is to go in the polar opposite direction when trying to help people with clouds. Thinking that it’s inappropriate to be happy around them, they instead draw out their own clouds of gloom. Although on the surface this may seem like a form of empathy, in the long run this equally doesn’t help, because instead you are just darkening each other’s clouds together.

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Note that you will find that some people actually want to stay with their clouds of gloom. These people will prefer to be with people who darken their clouds further. This is fine if that is what people want. However, whilst this may give these people a temporary feeling of satisfaction, ultimately the little plant of wisdom will not grow by staying continuously in darkness.

Ultimately, our plants need their own unique mixture of of soil, time, rain and sunlight.

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As we go through cycles of rain and sunlight through the passing of time, sometimes aided by the sunlight of others, you will find that what was initially a little seedling inside…

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…will eventually sprout a stunning flower that radiates both deep insight and beauty.

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What kind of a plant do you have? 🙂

Afterword

The idea that people are like plants was one I had during my winter months of darkness.

I have learnt the importance of patience when it comes to self-development. Often I beat myself up for not feeling better quickly. But now I know that my plant will grow at its own pace. The best thing I can do for it is to lovingly accept it as it is.

I have also learnt the importance of accepting your sadness. We live in a hyper-positive world where the social expectation is that we need to be super duper happy all of the time. I’m sure I’m part of a large majority of people who see crying as a ‘weakness’ – even if it’s on a subconscious level. Although we may say to others that crying is ok, we still don’t want others to see us cry, and we feel uncomfortable when others do. I picked up the idea that “crying = bad” at a very young age and I remember holding in a lot of tears as a young girl. This is maybe why I cry so much now. I think I’m crying for the young girl inside that didn’t think she was allowed to cry.

Our plants need both sunlight and water. Our tears are crucial for our own emotional development. I once heard a beautiful quote – “Two things bring us closer to God, prayer and tears”. Crying can be the exact catharsis that we need. The only reason why I have some of the deep insights on life that I have today is because a few of my little plants have sprouted after years of going through both sunlight and rain. My “rainy seasons” (i.e. periods of depression) I know so far have been crucial for my own development.

Maybe I have tropical plants 😉

I also wrote this blog because I’ve been thinking a lot about how to help people who find themselves in thick clouds of darkness. Seeing what helps me has taught me a lot. I talk in this entry about the things that don’t help people with dark clouds, and that’s because I have made all of the mistakes I mention here. I have thrown happy bombs and I have further darkened others people’s clouds. I know I still make these mistakes, but then I’m only reminded about how they don’t work. Conversely I have been on the receiving end of both types of approaches, and I know that they have not helped me.

I have learnt that if someone can’t pierce through their dark clouds, just be with them and shine your sunlight of acceptance. This sometimes may mean just sitting with someone in silence. Then let the magic of time take over. Finally I want to extend my special thanks to JW and CH who have shared their wonderful sunlight with me during these recent cloudy times.

Dear 20 Year Old Me

September 27, 2016 by lyra777 Leave a Comment

Saying goodbye to my 20s with a Roaring 20s Great Gatsby Party!

I have turned 30. Entering a new chapter of my life has made me reflect on how I have grown in the last decade. This then made me wonder – if I were to write a letter to my 20 year old self, what would I say to her?

Actually, if I were given the choice to send a letter back into the past, I wouldn’t. I would want 20 year old Marie to plunge into her new decade with the same ignorance I did. Why? Because my hardships and struggles have made me the woman I am today.

But if I had to pick six pieces of advice to say to her, perhaps I would say something like this.

(I also have a recommended reading list at the end of the entry based on what I’ve written, so please check out below if interested.)

1. Be your authentic self

In your twenties you believed that life is a performance. Every action, every conversation needs to be manipulated to bring about the ‘perfect’ outcome. That is, to have other people like you.

The problem with this is that because it’s an act brought about by fear – that is, the fear of not being liked – you spend all your energy trying to avoid this outcome as much as possible. To do so, you constantly suppress what you think and feel. This is nothing short of violence towards your self.

In fact, in not being honest you are not only hurting yourself, but you are doing all the people around you a disservice.

Life is too short to be anyone but yourself.

Remember these three things:

Be honest with your emotions

We may be taught that ‘emotional control’ is a sign of maturity. This may be so, but this is different from emotional suppression. If you deny and push down how you are feeling inside, it doesn’t miraculously go away – it gets stuck inside you. The result is that you become a volcano of emotions, waiting to explode. Often also, this leads to depression. It is possible to openly accept all the human emotions we feel – from happiness to anger to sadness. It is only through truly embracing them that you can let them go.

Be honest with your words

There is something to be said about radical honesty. You may feel like you are preventing people from getting hurt by choosing words carefully, but in actuality you are doing them a disservice by not telling them the truth. This doesn’t mean however, that you tell the person you hate that they are an asshole. This is not helpful. I very much recommend nonviolent communication as a means of getting across what you are thinking and feeling.

Be honest with your body

If your body tells you to stop, stop. Don’t push it beyond what it wants. You will find that to do otherwise will eventually hurt your body. You don’t have to push your body to the limits to achieve something. Yoga is a prime example – you work closely with your body, listening carefully to it and soon flexibility + strength follows.

2. Constantly let go

In Japanese there is a saying, ‘dan-sha-ri’. It means refusal, disposal and separation. Derived in part from yoga, it refers to the cleaning and throwing away of unwanted items.

The importance of this is perfectly demonstrated in the parable with the keen zen pracitioner and the enlightened master. ‘Teach me everything you know!’ the young practitioner said to the master. The master simply told him to pour him a cup of tea until he said stop. Even when the cup was overflowing the master said nothing, ‘The cup is flooding!’ the zen practioner exclaimed. ‘Yes’ said the master, ‘that cup is like your mind, how can I teach you anything if it’s full already?’.

If you don’t throw away things in your house, it clogs up. Mess builds. Life is the same. If you don’t constantly let go of things – may it be thoughts or emotions – they accumulate and you’ll simply have no space to let in the new. When you feel like you’ve hit a life block, then don’t do anything more. Instead, let go.

Oh, and on a side note, remember that your inner state and outer state are closely connected. If your room is messy, that’s probably a good sign that you need to do some cleaning on the inside. Conversely, an effective way to start your inner cleanse is through scrubbing the house and throwing away all unwanted items!

3. Remember that you can be the observer

In your early twenties you lived your life swayed by emotions and thoughts. It was like you were on a boat rocked constantly by a storm.

It doesn’t have to be this way, because one thing you must realise is that you are not your thoughts. You are not your emotions either.

You are, in fact, the observer of all of these things. You are the listener. You are the feeler. As such, you can choose not to react to what emerges from you. That is not to say you should suppress your thoughts and emotions (see ‘1) Be Your Authentic Self’). It just means you are fully present with your thoughts and emotions, while making the conscious choice not to respond to them.

Meditation is key to sharpening this technique.

4. Remember that all actions come out of love or ignorance

All actions come from love or ignorance. Even fear and anger come from ultimately not understanding what you are dealing with properly. Each and every single decision in life we have a choice as to whether or not we make it from these two states. And there are absolutely no excuses – ‘but that person was being horrible, I had no choice’, ‘I had to respond immediately’. No. We always have a choice, so long as you are totally present in the moment.

On a similar vein, remember there are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ decisions. There are only decisions that either come or not come from the heart.

But surely there are ‘right’ decisions! You may say. For example, what if you invest in something and it is a huge success? Wouldn’t that be a correct decision? Well, what if after your successful investment, you become so well-known among your business peers that brings about jealously? What if someone backstabs you and steals all your money, leading you to suffer terrible poverty? Your ‘right’ decision may not seem so ‘right’ anymore.

My point is, you never know the complete consequences of what each decision brings. Some may be pleasant, but they can quickly become unpleasant too. So the only thing we can do in these circumstances is to ensure that every decision we make at least comes from a place of total openness and honesty both to ourselves and others.

5. Live with humility

In your twenties you are still struggling to find your place in the world. You believe that there is such a thing such as a ladder of success, and it is your job to work hard to climb up on it. As such, people lie above or below you on this hierarchy, and you have a drive keep on top of it. You are also terrified of falling behind.

It is time to let this idea go.

First, if you define ‘success’ as ‘being skilled at something’, you must realise that there will always be people better at everything single thing that you do. Even if you were an Olympic gold medal winning champion, one day your muscles won’t be what they used to be and someone else will take your spot.

Conversely though, there will also always be people who are less skilled at things than you. So just accept that there is this spectrum of people that will always surround you, no matter how good you become at something. Therefore it is pointless to get on the treadmill of being ‘at the top’.

More importantly though, remember that this whole idea of placing people and things on a scale is a mentally constructed one, so it can be abandoned. For example, let’s say you start sewing. If you break it down just to what it is, all you are doing is threading a needle in and out. And the experience can just end there. But if you come out of the present moment of performing this action and start comparing yourself with others, then suddenly you are ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than other people at it. You could have just stayed in the moment enjoying your sewing.

Humility is being in a state where you do not see the world anymore on a scale. Everything just is. There is no ‘better’ or ‘worse’. Things just are. Seeing and experiencing the world in this state will bring about a massive feeling of liberation.

6. If you want to live life to the fullest, play with it.

One of the biggest errors you made in your twenties was thinking success and suffering were synonymous. They really aren’t. Success may take lots of effort, yes, but it doesn’t have to involve suffering. Suffering is simply a mindset.

If you are the type of person who approaches life ‘seriously’ you may find yourself facing a lot of blocks in life. Why? Because this type of consciousness and attitude is actually very limiting, not to mention painful and boring.

Instead, think of life as a game. To play is to be creative, to be exploratory and to have fun. Approaching life as a big playroom helps you to more effortlessly navigate what it throws at you, no matter how hard it is. Even for things that may not seem like a playful event, such as a break-up, stressful exams or illness, try bending your attitude a little and see it within the context of a playroom anyways. This doesn’t mean you are not taking what has happened seriously. In fact, it’s the polar opposite. Because you want to approach all of these hardships in the most effective way possible, this is what you are doing. Less suffering from you means that you can be there and help out others during these hard times.

If you want to take life seriously, stop taking it seriously.