The Grief of Unbelonging
Plant with shadows behind
Recently I’ve been exploring the landscape of not enough. The not enoughness I feel in my bones, a feeling that gnaws and is persistent in its aggressions. Something that is with me almost every moment of every day, some days louder than others, but nevertheless a constant companion.
As I’ve been exploring this it’s brought about an unexpected grief, and this grief feels deep, it’s taken me. It's a grief I haven’t explored in this way before - the grief of unbelonging.
What I’m learning is that most of us feel this way in our Western society, this epidemic of not enoughness is collective. I’m sure my privilege has something to do with this, and as a white woman in Western Society, this sense of not enough is visceral.
We live in an individualised society that focuses on self, and self alone. We’ve lost the sense of family, of community, and of coming together. And in that we’ve lost any sense of belonging.
We search for approval, we seek out places where we hope we will fit in, we strive and we push to be accepted, but somehow, in all our endeavours, it’s not enough.
Do you notice that? No matter how much approval you receive, no matter what you achieve, it may feel good for a moment, but overall, the feeling remains. We therefore end up in a cycle of trying to prove ourselves and approval, it’s constant, but doesn’t do anything for this sense of enough.
Imagine for a moment you were part of something wider, a collective where you were held, not just by one or two people, but surrounded by other human beings that have you, that reflected your goodness back to you. Francis Weller speaks of this, the village mind, where the village impresses upon you a sense of worth, your medicine, your belonging, rather than you seeking it out. It’s a relationship of reciprocity, the village honours you and your medicine, and in return you offer that back. It’s mutual.
This is the sense of grief I feel. There’s something in my heart and soul that longs for this.
This sense of village is different to the things we usually turn to when we feel that we’re not enough. This is different to buying something, or eating, or drinking, or seeking approval outside yourself, whatever it may be. I say this with the most love and compassion as I think we’ve probably all been here at some point, I know that I have. But this place isn’t one of reciprocity, or mutuality, it’s of extraction.
What can we do when for many of us we don’t live this way? What can we do when it’s likely that our ancestors haven’t lived this way, or that we’ll get back to living this way any time soon?
We come back. We come back to family, we come back to the friends we have around us, we come back to ritual, and prayer. We sit around the table and have dinner together, we go for a walk in nature and marvel at her wonder. We play, we sing, we write. We come back. We come back to the inherent goodness within us, and around us, without having to do anything more. We come back to the possibility that if you did nothing else from this moment forward, you would still be enough.
This is everything I’m sitting with at the moment, in curiosity, in grief, in wonder and awe.
With thanks to Francis Weller for all of his teachings in this area and to Andrea Lucas for your holding in my exploration of goodness.
We’ve been exploring this in The Quiet Place, our tender community space. The Quiet Place will open its doors again in January, our first session is on Monday 8th January. You can join the waiting list and I’ll be in touch nearer the time.
