an image of a web of light i found on pinterest without attribution. If you know who made this please tell me so i can credit them.

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We are hardwired to belong. As these hairless, clawless creatures we have developed all kinds of ways to protect ourselves; some generative, some destructive. Our most powerful development is not something uncommon to other animals; we herd together, we find safety in healthy connection.
 
To feel connected with another person who has our back, on whom we can rely, is a deep need hardwired into us from our earliest days. We could not survive without this connection as infants and children. We are both wired and socialised to need it.
 
What does belonging look like? The team from the podcast This Jungian Life describe it like this;
 
“Horses herd, birds flock, whales pod, and people tribe. The need to belong is as intrinsic to human nature as the need for food, touch, clothing, and shelter. We belong to families, communities, ideas, and ideals…”
 
 
When we belong we understand that we are accepted and we share certain beliefs, behaviours and values. We might share a place where we live, we might share a religion, we might share an ideological viewpoint or a favourite football team. Sharing something is intrinsic to the sense of belonging.
 
When we belong we are a part of something.

We understand ourselves, define ourselves in many ways, through belonging.
 
Belonging gives us comfort and reassurance. Belonging, being able to feel held by the community, takes us out of survival mode; suspicion, alert and sense of danger, and into rest, created, and enjoy mode. No wonder belonging is such an important feature of our lives.
 
At the moment, in my community, there is an accelerating a rent in the fabric of belonging.
 
The shift in identity – covid denier/anti vaccination versus covid aware/pro-vaccination has created a break in the sense of community. The potent and alarming rise in feeling tone has meant boundaries around civil discussion are eroded. People are sensing threat everywhere and there is discordance amongst once close knit communities.
 
What does this have to do with belonging. Well firstly, the sense of community has fractured. There is no longer a sense of belonging to a community in an area.  The sense of belonging rests in your “faction” – pro or anti. This means many people have more in common with people who live thousands of miles away than they have with their next door neighbour or even their family members.
 
Belonging, based as it is on sharing, seems to be bolstered by sharing information that digs you further into your views, ridicules those who don’t think like you and encourages the lobbing of disrespect and ridicule over the dividing line, which is quickly becoming a chasm.
 
The fears that are driving these rifts are potent. The fear of losing autonomy, the fear of getting sick, the fear of collapse of our healthcare system, the fear of putting something foreign into our systems, the fear of being told what to do.
 
The more we identify with our faction or the community of shared belief, that is holding us in a sense of safety in this time of our fear and confusion, the less we are able to listen to each other., especially those with opposing views.
 
In the alarm caused by all these things, we are polarised further from each other, further from the very shared human experience of fear, further from being able to reach and support each other. 
 
This is fertile fields for a deeper kind of harm-making and destabilisation that can be tended to if we are able to relinquish the mirage that we are enemies. If we step out of mouse view with all the conflicting sources and into hawk view. Hawk can soar overhead and look down on us trying to make our way in a world with a new-to-us threat. If we stop seeing ourselves as victorious by embedding in our self-righteousness and find the humble place of one scared human reaching out to another and make connection there, we might have a chance.
 
There are some who would say there is no virus, who promote the idea that this is a diabolical plot against free thinking humans and that those of us who have had the vaccination are sheep.  Although this rises compassion in me for the darkness of their vision and the high alarm state they must be living in to project that out onto the world, I think the vitriol that world view requires must be causing great harm. I would rather build community around our very human fear for our wellbeing, our fears for our family and freedom, which are things we share. I would rather build belonging to the humane and the compassionate than accelerate the rupture.
 
Is our belonging to these groups of "them and us" actually serving our wellbeing or is it bolstering our fear? Is the belonging that matters to you making you more humane or less?  Is it showing engagement in the experience of disadvantaged people, who are demonstrably most at risk from covid or is it every man for himself? Is it supporting you to make mistakes without flaming everything down in its path?  Is it serving values of community, kindness, generosity, mutuality, respect and connection or is it fostering distrust, conflict and anger?

Crucially, Is it aligned with the sort of sharing, the basis of community and belonging, that makes us more humane or not?
 
Reaching out is hard, especially to people who dismiss, shame and belittle. Reaching back is hard too when it requires us to deconstruct that which we thought would keep us safe. We have to be willing to look at what is alive in us and those we are rafting up with. We have to look hard, sometimes underneath the surface to see if this is the kind of human family we want to belong to or not?
 
To be willing to stay with your own discomfort at what you see there, to wrestle honestly with your own soul matters right now. I hope you will belong to a community of compassion and kindness. We need you.

This podcast  excerpt inspired this post - i'd love to hear what you think.

fragment from a soulmap journaling page

What if you love someone and hate their choices?

What if what brought you together is less of a feature in your relationship and the things they are now choosing bother, or worse, alarm you?

What if you are finding yourself having to gather and steel yourself before engaging, find yourself trying to prepare strategies for getting out of harm's way, finding little excuses to avoid or limit your contact.

What is this like for you?

My guess is that there is a muddy mix of alarm, grief, frustration, avoidance, anger and bewilderment.  

It's what i am seeing in clients and in my own life as this world around us swirls and reacts to the mighty changes Covid19 has initiated.

The muddy place of misalignment is somewhere we are navigating more often in this very polarised world and something we who wish to continue to engage in and build community, we who wish to maintain our humaneness in the face of so much dissention, need to get skilled in.

There is a strong element of shadow that rises when we are confronted with people who disagree with us, and an even stronger presence of shadow when we feel threatened by the other, including others that we love.

"How could they do that? How could they pervert things to take this stand? How could they put themselves at risk?"

These questions are applicable on both sides of the growing covid divide.

It's important that we answer them and i am going to suggest we use two views: 1. The conscious response and 2. the shadow response.

The conscious response is about tending to our values and what's important to us about the friendship. It's about weighing up the risk of contact, noting both our own capacity to steer away from the controversial and the hard and their capacity to do the same. It's about deciding on what we need in order to feel like we can stay in good shape, in order that we can flourish and shaping the relationship to do that. Making boundaries on what will fly for you and what will not is important. Personally i have had to say "no more" to a dear friend who sends conspiracy type videos. She may or may not be offended. It's been quiet between us since then. We can still connect on the things that bring us joy and that connected us. The boundaries are around things that disconnect us. I love her and i don't love what she's consuming.

If i had not checked in with my values and had tried instead to focus on smoothing it over, wanting to not upset her etc i would have ended up letting things into the relationship that would have harmed it. I would have been avoidant and resentful.

This is where the shadow lense is important. 

I know part of my shadow is the people pleasing, codependent part. Although i have some consciousness about this, the roots are deep and when i am stressed it is likely to leap out and take the steering wheel.

Part of my shadow is the immense rage i feel at the harm being done to wellbeing and communities by disinformation.  I need to keep that in check, inadvertently pouring it out onto people i love when i have too much contact with it, even when that contact is in the name of connection, tolerance and niceness.

I have to keep an eye open for shadow, because by its very nature it's hidden and unseen. i have to watch for the big waves of feeling out of proportion to the situation, a sure calling card of shadow and i have to hold myself with care, patience and respect.

So the boundaries i make are both internal, with myself, and external with the relationships and the wider community.

These boundaries ensure my energy isn't leaking out into relationships that feel wonky to me.  

These boundaries make sure that i have the capacity and energy to navigate change and be responsive to new information and not find myself becoming more concrete and more defended.

These boundaries make sure i am not engaging in the relational poison of contempt in order that my facade of niceness is maintained.

This, to me is how i can enact my boundaries, how i continue to build clean connection and how my humanity remains intact. 

How are you finding this?