I wanted to belong to life so I looked around at what was on offer.
“Join me” . . . said the sporting club, we will cheer for you and you for us, we will leave it all on the field and you will learn to be your best. So I joined and belonged to everyone – but not to me.
“Join me” . . . said the religion of my parents, we will eat, drink, pray together; you will be part of a community that has thousands of years of history to belong to. So I joined and belonged to the community – but did not belong to me.
“Join me” . . . said the fiction writer, you will be swept away by my stories and have things to discuss with those around you, so I joined and had stories to tell – but none my own.
“Join me” . . . said my friends, we will drink together, party together, have meals at fancy restaurants and get up to mischief in the small hours of the morning, so I joined and belonged with my friends – but not with me.
“Join me” . . . said my partner, we will start a family, you will be Dad, I will be Mum and we will be parents, partners and lovers together, so I joined and belonged to the relationship – but not to me.
I wanted to belong to life but got stuck along the way. I felt frustrated and tired – very tired; I was tired to my bones, tired to a place that all of my efforts amounted to naught and all I was left with were the things that “took the edge off.”
BUT . . . I wanted to belong to life and to begin with, hated what Universal Medicine presented.
Universal Medicine presented it was important to care about me, it said to consider belonging to me before I could really feel belonging with others. It presented the power is in you but that tiredness you feel is the result of avoiding that power . . . I wanted to belong to life but when you are tired, when you are sceptical, this is not what you want to hear.
BUT . . . I wanted to belong to life so I tried what Universal Medicine presented.
It has been challenging at times, it has taken commitment, my life is not and will never be perfect, but I can meet with family and friends and that meeting is what I appreciate more than any food we eat. I can work with clients and the quality of the work can mean more than any pay cheque.
I have a religious way of life that places God and me on equal footing in terms of light and responsibility for the wellbeing of myself and the world.
I have found a place within where I belong that no one else can touch or call into question. A place of humility, a place of sacredness and a place from which I no longer NEED to belong because I am with me always.
I wanted to belong to life but really, really, really wanted, and now belong, to me.
By Joel Levin, Australia
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Joel Levin, is a student of life, himself and The Way of The Livingness. With a deep interest in what makes people and groups productive, effective and joyful to be around.
For the full back catalogue of Joel Levin’s writing, visit: www.joellevin.net |
Related Reading:
Living Religion: my Livingness is Religion
Living Religion: a Relationship with Self, Love and God
The Outlier – Thanks to The Way of The Livingness
The Truth about Universal Medicine 
When we understand the ‘me’ energetically, then we can start to drop the ‘i’!
Without connection to ourselves and where we are from we will seek out many alternatives that we settle for but don’t really feel at home with in truth.
‘I have found a place within where I belong that no one else can touch or call into question. A place of humility, a place of sacredness and a place from which I no longer NEED to belong because I am with me always.’ Beautiful Joel – this is the home we have all been craving to return to and is so simple to find.
Until I came across Universal Medicine, there was nothing in life that supported me to connect deeply to myself and to be a participant of life with this as a foundation. Consequently my focus has shifted entirely and I find that life makes so much more sense as well as being much more settled and at ease.
“I have found a place within where I belong that no one else can touch or call into question. A place of humility, a place of sacredness and a place from which I no longer NEED to belong because I am with me always.” I just so love these words. Belonging to our self, regardless of pressure from others, is so important.
How many other people in the world want to belong to ‘life’, but really truly it is to feel instead that is it belonging to themselves and that contentment and settlement within they crave. Funny (or not so funny) that we can go in the complete opposite direction of the thing that we truly most want! Feeling it is time to increase the self-love and self-worth (up the Love), so we actually give ourselves permission to feel and be this.
People can feel something is missing, so they search, maybe belonging to life will fill the void, but no nothing changes; it is ourselves we truly miss as Joel shares in this blog.
“It presented the power is in you but that tiredness you feel is the result of avoiding that power.” Wow, what a stop-you-in-your-tracks statement! What could truly be more tiring than avoiding being the power we are, the love, the joy, the truth, the light, it’s a lot of energy to hold back. Note to self. 🙂
Joel I came back to this blog because what Universal Medicine offers to the world is very simple to care for ourselves first; really deeply care. This is the total opposite to how many of us are raised. We are taught to look after others before ourselves so in effect we leave ourselves out of the equation so no wonder we get tired and resentful.
So true Mary. Especially as a woman, putting others first was a priority. In our family when guests came we had a saying FHB – family hold back. This was the ethos – everyone else first. No wonder we get so drained as there is no loving or caring for oneself in this equation.
Why have we been taught to care for others before self, it does not make sense, how can we truly care for another until we have learnt to care for ourselves first?
Joel, I love your blogs as they are so honest and true to the lives we lead. How many of us want to take
“the edge off life.” and so we indulge in everything and anything to dull our awareness so that we don’t have to feel what we actually cannot stop feeling, and that is our divinity. It’s like having the big White Elephant in the room and pretending it’s not there by ignoring it.
So simple yet we make it so complicated looking to belong to and with everything else but never truly to ourselves. The first workshop I did with Universal Medicine it made absolute sense. My body 100% felt this and there was no doubt. Since that day, through a willingness to heal, my relationship with myself and others is better than it ever has been before and it keeps unfolding. There is no plateau when it comes to love.
In that belonging to ourselves, we don’t feel separate from others but actually more connected.
Great point Leigh.
So many of us crave that sense of belonging so we search high and low outside ourselves for it unaware that belonging to ourselves first is what we most crave.
When we belong to ourselves first, we take that steadiness out, and it’s always there to support us and allows us to more truth out there in the world.
Belonging to self first brings a settlement that we can then take out when we are in the world.
I also wanted to belong to people.
I wanted to be good with everybody. That is not possible I realize now. We have to work our way out of the mess we are in as humanity. It is not to belong to but it is to take responsibility for.
Life is very much set up to make us think that belonging to ourselves is selfish but it is not when you consider all the problems in the world that have stemmed from not living this way.
I am intrigued that the belonging to everything outside of ourselves feeds the tiredness we feel. There is a part of me that wants to go “whaaaaat?” but the truth is I feel in my bones that what you say is absolutely right. The need to belong can be debilitating if we don’t recognise that we belong to ourselves and appreciate the magnificence we are made of first and foremost.
Appreciating ourselves, our magnificence first is far more loving and energising than continually searching on the outside.
“It presented the power is in you but that tiredness you feel is the result of avoiding that power” – oh I know that tiredness, I am feeling it now. It is exhausting.
To be belong to me, is for me also belonging, or returning to God. Homecoming.
Beautiful Joel.
And with feeling how we belong to ourselves first we can feel we are part of all there is.
Awesome Joel, this is true and what a raw and real examples of joining things that in true reality, actually not bring us closer to who we are, but offer us a temporal solution for our missing link – our connection to us, Soul.
Funny how we often convert belonging to submission. I think that’s what happens when we don’t want to bother belonging to ourselves first.
And belonging to ourselves requires a surrendering of that part that wants to be something other than itself. Yet craves everything that it’s true self already is. Madness!
Belonging to ourselves first makes sense, ‘Universal Medicine presented it was important to care about me, it said to consider belonging to me before I could really feel belonging with others.’
Letting go of the ‘need’ is to open our heart to be.
I too did all the above mentioned ‘joining’, except for the sporting club, had some adventures, some fun, some life experiences and learned some lessons, but there was still an emptiness deep inside that wasn’t able to be filled by anything outside of me. When Universal Medicine presented that what I was looking for was actually not outside of me but within, I wondered why, if it was that simple that I didn’t already know and live this? But I gave it a go and am I delighted I did, because that gnawing emptiness has been filled to overflowing with the re-introduction to the wonderful me, the me who absolutely ‘belongs to life’.
What a beautiful term “the wonderful me”, it feels so true. When I think of the essence that is inside each of us, particularly so easy to see in the open gorgeousness of children, that’s exactly how we feel!
Love this Joel, I totally hear what you say, life imposes on us the need to belong when in truth there should be no ‘need’, for we all do already belong- we belong to something so very grand and magnificent, universal and majestic.
So true Sam, and what a settled feeling it brings to read your words.
Before we join any group, religion, philosophy, workplace etc. it serves us well to astutely discern that precise quality of the energetic vibration on offer and how this will be affected or influenced by the part we bring to the equation.
Looking to do this at the moment with volunteering my time somewhere so a pertinent reminder thank you.
Whatever the situation it is always important to discern the quality of energy that comes through ourselves, and others, ‘discern that precise quality of the energetic vibration on offer’.