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Belonging has meant a deep love, an embrace, a home, a space I can come back to, where I am seen, where I can laugh, cry, be at ease, in all the many ways I can be
I find belonging in stories that weave together generations, with all our messiness and imperfections. Belonging is unique in different spaces and contexts, it can be in the arms of a loved one, or in a bowl of a lovingly cooked meal. Belonging to myself has been about finding my own centre, my own gravitational pull and coming into myself as my longest home. Over the pandemic, my relationship to my body has shifted significantly . During Ramadan 2020, my sister-in-law told me that in Islam we are taught that our children and our bodies do not belong to us, they are an amannah – a trust – that Allah has entrusted us with them. I reflected on this for months and it brought me into a state of reverence for this body I have been born into, gifted with, with its own intelligence, that is always working to bring things into health, and harmony. I intentionally began to shift my relationship with my body to one of mutuality. I try to listen to my body, to become familiar with its own unique language, with the same intimacy of a lover and a mother. I practise attuning to this body; making the intention to support and facilitate it, whilst also reminding myself to TRUST it knows what it is doing and has its own wisdom that I don’t need to override. I am practising joy and feeling into each part of my body through song, dance, play and adornment. I am noticing how I speak to it and am trying to shift this with loving affirmations. In times of turmoil and crisis, I prioritiseI and centre my body’s needs – which can be as simple as eating a meal, making sure I get a good night’s sleep, and blocking out everything else. It becomes an anchor and a compass, letting me know how we are doing. A current challenge of mine is learning to meet my emotions rather than acting on them or reactively trying to distract myself from them. With the blessing of Ramadan again, which is happening now, I am journaling emotions that emerge while fasting. Occasionally this is helping me to have a different relationship to their arrivals. Cultivating an intentional loving relationship to my body is helping me practice belonging to myself. I can support my container to be a loving home for my soul. I look after it and it looks after me. In this, I feel a deep intimacy that I hope will deepen the capacity I have to experience deep intimacy in relationships with others as well. Within Islam, when someone passes to the next life, we say Inna lilahi wa inna ilayhi rajioon – to Allah we belong and to Allah we return – to soothe our grieving hearts. While I am finding deep comfort and belonging within my body, I am also reminding myself - just like everything else, it will keep changing, and this process of finding belonging within it will be continuous. Like many other things, it will return to the earth. This reminder not only connects me to the earth beneath my feet wherever I am, but it also invites me to connect more deeply to self beyond my physical body. A shared practice to cultivate belonging to ourselves (an approach kindly shared with me):
When experiencing a strong emotion, try closing your eyes if that is comfortable, or lower your gaze, to support yourself going inwards, try and locate where in your body the emotion is. Give it a colour, a shape, maybe turn it into an object, visualise it moving up through your body, out the top of your head, and returning to the earth, where it can be transformed for something else.
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