#17: The Leadership of Belonging
When it comes to business, we tend to focus a lot on the act of doing – as in, what can we do that will help us move towards our goals and vision of success?
And while action is, without a doubt, a crucial piece of seeing results and external shifts, there’s a lot to be said about the role and importance of being. More than that, ultimately, our way of being directly affects how we take action and do things in our businesses.
In today’s podcast episode, I’m talking about what it truly means to be in leadership. I’ll also share how you can start seeking belonging in a deeper and more intentional way and feeling truly connected within yourself and with others.
The Epidemic of Loneliness
We’re more connected than ever before. Yet, so many of us struggle with loneliness, depression, and anxiety on a regular basis. Our devices brought a very commercialized quality to our relationships. Our connections are many and always within quick access, but constantly lacking the depth to truly fulfill us internally.
As human beings, we’re wired to flourish in communities. Yet, most of us are probably familiar with the struggle to create meaningful relationships, especially as we grow older and more used to quick-reward connections.
Is there a way out? How can we deepen in being and belonging within community? How we can deepen in belonging within ourselves?
Belonging To Ourselves
Belonging to ourselves is how you’re able to just be where you are, regardless of where that is, and still find true contentment, happiness and joy. That happens when you embrace, honor, and find compassion for all parts of yourself, even the ones you’re not able to fully enjoy right now.
Belonging to yourself isn’t something you’ll learn in a book or rationally access on command. The key is to open yourself to compassionately witnessing everything that is within you. Belonging to yourself gives you access to deep inner wisdom: the wisdom of your soul, of your past lives, of your ancestral knowledge, of your universal self.
Go back to any moments where you felt like you belonged. How did that feel? To me, that feels like being comfortable, seen, heard, witnessed, and held. Most of us aren’t able to feel like that within ourselves. Of course, that’s not about feeling “good” all the time. It’s about being comfortable and in honor – even when in pain.
When we find that sense of belonging to ourselves, we’re finally able to be in community freely, without shape-shifting to please others, without seeking constant approval, without all the shoulds of our rational minds.
A Longer Line of Belonging
A habit of disregarding ancestral belonging is increasingly growing in our Western world. We’ve washed away a lot of our unique stories and roots in order to fit into more swooping, pre-packaged narratives about what it means to be a citizen of our world.
When we don’t recognize our ancestral roots and the truths about where we come from, we’re missing opportunities to fall deeper into belonging within ourselves and also within communities.
Tuning in to this energetic line of your ancestral branches starts with cultivating curiosity about your own roots. The deeper the recognition of your roots, the more stable and grounded you’ll feel within who you are and the path you’re walking. It’s how we embrace the whole of ourselves down to the roots of our unique ancestral knowledge and energy.
Going deeper into your roots, you’ll also find nature. Down to our wisest roots, we all come from nature. You can find even more depth in your relationships with your roots by tuning into how you change and how it feels in your body when nature shifts in seasons, phases, and cycles as well.
Creating Alliances Within Yourself
Get in to the habit of asking yourself what you need. Learn to distinguish what’s nurturing instead of numbing. Deepen your relationship with yourself and start considering and honoring the things that you really need.
Deeper meditation. Allow yourself to tap into the soul within you and feel what it’s like to be embodied in your whole soul. It’s truly hard to shift things from just the mind, so take your meditation practice beyond just separating yourself from your thoughts. Experience your soul, your self, your belonging.
There’s no perfect belonging. There will always be some level of connection with our rational sense of being and doing. There’s no such thing as perfect belonging. A quest for perfectionism will distract you from the goal of embracing yourself more fully and it’ll steer you into fear of failure.
Honor your boundaries. Are you saying “yes” to things when you don’t truly feel a “yes” in your body? Or are you maybe saying “no” from fear and need to say “yes” more to open yourself to possibility? Tune into the emotions you feel in your body when navigating your boundaries.
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