Being is lost in the pressure of activity (and accumulation).

Lately I’ve been looking closely at how fear of not belonging ties me to patterns of domination. When I feel unsure about myself or someone else, I can devolve into my patterns of “know-it-allness” (spell check initially corrected “allness” to “illness” . . . apt). When my know-it-all self shows up, I use my intellect to soothe my feelings of

Can I honor those critics while also not buying into their bullshit?

It’s hard to change habits without practice. We get programmed by our own experiences, by the culture around us, and by our collective, ancestral, and personal histories.

When we truly love ourselves, we don’t need to be someone or something else. When we love ourselves, our sense of separation softens, the need to dominate dissolves. Comparison and competition clear away in the presence of self-love. Hierarchy and oppression crumble. We belong.

Transformation happens in practice not by getting somewhere or gaining something but by recognizing the right here and right now.

How do you acknowledge differences and inequities yet also hold a firm conviction that fundamentally we are all irrevocably interconnected and belong to each other?

Belonging to many circles provides opportunities to move beyond the delusion of separation.

Over the years, I have come to see how the need to be right is connected to not belonging.