Good Life Project - How to Belong (it’s not what you think) | Sebene Selassie

Episode Date: August 17, 2023

Discover the profound insights of belonging in our latest episode, where we unravel the enigma of connection with Sebene Selassie, author of You Belong: A Call for Connection. Dive into a conversation filled with self-discovery, love, and a universal sense of belonging:A Personal Journey: From feeling like a "big weirdo" in Washington, D.C. to a celebrated teacher and speaker, Selassie's unique story is an invitation to explore our own sense of belonging.An Inspiring Revelation: Learn how belonging starts within, and why knowing and connecting with ourselves is the first step to embracing the world.Ancient Wisdom & Modern Practices: Unlock the secrets of ancient traditions and contemporary contemplative practices that reconnect us to truths of belonging.Healing from Trauma: Explore the methods to unlock trauma from the body, creating space for grace and growth.This episode isn't just about fitting in; it's about cultivating a deeper sense of connection within ourselves and the world.You can find Sebene at: Website | Instagram | Episode TranscriptIf you LOVED this episode you’ll also love the conversations we had with Rev. angel Kyodo williams about what we leave outside the room when we seek to fit in. Check out our offerings & partners: My New Book SparkedMy New Podcast SPARKED. To submit your “moment & question” for consideration to be on the show go to sparketype.com/submit. Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

And if we haven't done the work, we're often just projecting our lacks and insecurities and neediness rather than our true needs and our true possibilities. When we've done the work, we can actually show up much more clear. And that doesn't mean perfect. It doesn't mean that we won't make mistakes or won't need to work through our stuff, but there are gradations of that, right? And so not showing up just completely traumatized and reverberating that out onto everyone else, but actually knowing ourselves well and knowing what it is we have to offer. So my question for you, have you ever felt like you just didn't quite belong? Have you ever looked around and wondered why connecting with other people or even

fully embracing yourself seems somehow out of reach? belong. Have you ever looked around and wondered why connecting with other people or even fully embracing yourself seems somehow out of reach? You kind of long for a sense of belonging to yourself, to loved ones, to a community or cause, yet it remains elusive. This universal need, sometimes rising to the level of a profound yearning, is what we are exploring in today's conversation with Sebenée Selassie. So Sebenae is a teacher, speaker, and author of the book, You Belong, A Call for Connection, which provides practical guidance for cultivating a deeper sense of belonging within ourselves and the world. And growing up, Sebenae felt like, in her words, kind of a big weirdo. I think so many

of us can relate. Born in Ethiopia and then raised in a predominantly white neighborhood in DC, she stood out in nearly every way. An immigrant who was, in her words, a black girl who loved Monty Python and UB40 and explored Asian philosophy and did not go to prom, she just never believed that she belonged. But rather than try to fit in, those early experiences planted the seeds of exploration. In Stephanie's view, we all belong to each other and to all things, whether we want to or not. Our individual freedom affects absolutely everyone and everything. And our collective freedom depends on each and every one of us. And she shares her deep and long exploration of ancient traditions and modern

creative contemplative practices that can really connect us to these truths of belonging. Over time, Sabine came to believe something incredibly powerful. It was a bit of a revelation and to me, an incredibly powerful idea and invitation. Belonging, she says, begins from within. By first knowing and connecting with ourselves. We cannot find belonging with others until we belong to ourselves. And that can't happen until we truly do the work to know ourselves, then embrace what we've discovered. So join us as we discover the weirdness and grace of belonging, the paradoxes of oneness

and separation, unlocking trauma from the body and what it truly means to belong, starting from within ourselves and radiating outward into the world. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. We'll be right back. Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X.

Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Just really excited to dive in. So my understanding is that, so you grew up in and around DC, and in your sort of mid-teens-ish, I guess it was your brother who started to become involved in the Hare Krishna temple. And it seemed like that was a bit of a gateway into the world of a different kind of spirituality for you as well. Yeah, so exactly right. When I was about 15, my brother became what's known as a Hare

Krishna. And he had been exploring kind of Eastern mysticism and philosophy and throwing books my way. So I became aware of Buddhism and Taoism and Hinduism, and I took get to it otherwise. And I started spending time with him. So there was a temple outside DC in Maryland, but there was also what was known as the O Street Temple, which is near DuPont Circle. It was kind of a downtown hangout scene. So DC at that time was really known for hardcore punk rock music, which I was aware of, but it wasn't my scene. This was like early 90s then or late 80s? This was the mid to late 80s. It was all the Fugazi and Discord and all of that going on. So many of those folks would end up at O Street because one, there was free vegetarian food and there was sort of this vegetarian movement in hardcore, the scene there. And so it was just kind of like a funky, cool place I was attracted to. But I was going for these lectures. So I would listen to lectures on the Bhagavad Gita and, you know, different aspects of Hindu philosophy. And I understood very little of it, but it was definitely intriguing to me and then led to me majoring in comparative

religious studies when I eventually went to college. Yeah. Did you grow up in a family where that tradition was present in your family in any meaningful way? You know, not really. So I was born in Ethiopia and half Eritrean, half Ethiopian, and my family moved here when I was three years old. So, you know, very early on disconnected from the culture.

And because we were already a bicultural family, you know, very early on disconnected from the culture. And because we were already a bicultural family, there was a war going on. There was a lot of separation within the larger community. So Eritreans and Ethiopians weren't hanging out that much. So we were quite separated actually from the larger communities, both the Eritrean and Ethiopian communities. So I didn't grow up within that culture. And also, my mom was Ethiopian Orthodox, and we were all baptized in that church. But my father's family converted to Lutheranism. His dad was actually quite involved in the Eritrean Orthodox Church, but then converted to Lutheranism as an adult. So there was that difference between my parents, which led to us not really having kind of a unified spiritual background. So we

didn't go to church. We weren't really indoctrinated in that way. But my brother and I both, I think from early on, had sort of that seeking and that interest. And so he opened that doorway for me. Do you ever think back to those early days, especially, and wonder what was underneath the seeking? Like what was the deeper impulse, especially, or I'm so curious when it happens early in life and independent of sort of like familial influence when it's just really generated from inside? Yeah, that's such a great question. I've never been asked that succinctly and beautifully. But I think that there was that seeking for meaning that comes from being so disconnected culturally

and spiritually and even physically from the land and the place where we came from. So for me, I never felt like I belonged to any particular culture. You know, I didn't really connect with Eritrean culture because I didn't speak Tikrinya, the language that my dad speaks. I didn't feel that connected to American culture because I was the weird immigrant kid who dressed funny and ate weird food and brought strange lunches to school and spoke a different language at home. But I didn't really feel that connected to Ethiopian culture either, because it wasn't fluent in Amharic. I couldn't read and write it. We weren't really living sort of a fully Ethiopian immigrant life because we were outside of that community. And so I think I was searching

for meaning and belonging because I didn't have a coherent sense of that around me. So it was kind of piecing together my sense of understanding of the world based on all these different influences, including the pop culture and TV and the kids around me. I think that early on, I wasn't sort of a kid who had mystical experiences or, you know, really profound experiences with nature, with spirit. But there was that searching for understanding, for meaning, for belonging that probably partly just innate and then also definitely because of the circumstances. Yeah, I mean, that's so interesting. And that all starts to emerge with you also in the context of the music scene and the punk scene. And it's fascinating to me that there was this tightly woven's almost like, wow, like, how did that happen? And yet But especially at that time, it was the murder capital of the world. You know, Mayor Marion Barry was caught smoking crack and you had a homeless encampment across the street from the White House, which wasn't barricaded off as it is now. There was just really stark poverty and violence just up against some of the richest, most powerful people in the world who generally lived in very

segregated, isolated neighborhoods or outside of D.C., but everyone had to come into D.C. for work and for contact. And so you had the World Bank, but then you walk a few blocks and, you know, you had a lot of kind of homeless drug activity that tourists would wander into. So it was this really strange place. And I think for Yao people who grew up in D.C. at that time, there was this real sense of seeing through the veils, you know, and recognizing the hypocrisy of where we lived. And, you know, D.C. at that time was probably 80 percent Black, but it also had a Black middle class and upper middle class and elite. So there were so many layers of culture and power and money and again, like a real hypocrisy. So we were both saying before we started that we're both Gen Z, you know, so that generation, I think, really started to... Gen X. Gen X, yeah. We are not Gen Z.

As evidenced by my complete lack of hair. As evidenced by my gray hair. So there was that awakening, I think, happening in that generation to maybe similar to what the boomers saw through, you know, not wanting to have that same sellout or buyout that maybe other generations had. When I think about, in my experience at that same age was just profoundly different for so many different reasons. But more broadly, Gen X has so often been known as sort of like the disaffected generation. And I like your lens, your twist. We're saying, well, actually, I think part of that may be that a lot of that was a focus internally on self-exploration, self-discovery, self-revelation, which I think in no small part sort of like has seeded what we've seen coming in generations after us. You end up in McGill doing your undergrad as you share your study of Buddhism,

Hinduism, culture, and race, and then end up back in the city, actually in the new school. I'm curious, did you see this for yourself just as the evolution of your early exploration of Buddhism, Eastern spirituality, and you were curious about it? Or did you see this as, this is something that I'm deeply curious about devoting my life to, and maybe this will help me figure out what is the nature of that devotion? Yeah, I don't think I consciously made that connection. It was still sort of subconscious or innate draw to these ideas and to these philosophies, but it wasn't with sort of a clear idea that, you know, if I could change myself or find, you know, some sense of awakening within me, that that would help in the world, which is maybe what I've come to as an understanding. Yeah, it was just a real

draw to these ideas. It was very unanthropological in nature. So, you know, like many religious studies departments, especially at that time, it was kind of frowned upon to be a practitioner, especially in Buddhist studies. My advisor happened to be, but that was rare. So it was a much sort of, there was almost a preferencing of people who could have that distance and perceived objectivity about it. While I was interested, I wasn't meditating yet. Actually, I didn't start meditating and practicing until after college. But yes, there was that draw to what was being talked about there. And then this kind of fascination with these other cultures that took these ideas and these philosophies so seriously that they

imbued everything within the culture. So your own practice really grew out of when you left, it was more of like a, so now let me start to see what it feels like to take my seat on a more devoted basis. I know from what I understand, the early practice for you was more Zen Buddhism, which from what I know of sort of your evolution over the last couple of decades, the way you teach, the way you approach it and what you studied is very different. You know, it feels very, very austere, very stern, very stripped down. And my experience of hearing you and reading you is very open, very fluid, very let's meet each other where we are.

So I'm curious how you evolved away from it. What was it that made you say, this is a great first step in to my own practice, but it's not feeling quite right for me? Yeah, that's such a great question. And it kind of brings me back to what we were talking about in terms of Gen X. I think we were the generation that first took therapy really seriously en masse. You know, so many of us started therapy younger and stuck with it and really committed to our transformation through that process. And so it was sort of that therapeutic approach that brought me to Zen only because I did the kind of spiritual smorgasbord shopping that many people do when they're searching. Kind of mandatory at some point, right? Yeah, exactly. So, you know,

I visited all the places and all the temples and schools and practices, but I was drawn to my first teacher, Barry Magid, who is a psychoanalyst and a therapist, and he wasn't my therapist. His approach of really seeing kind of the psychological entanglements and making that connection between Western psychology and Asian Buddhism and Buddhist psychology really spoke to me and was, you know, just very clear, very simple in a lot of ways. And I think at that time, that's what is needed. You know, you said at the beginning that it was kind of, I think you mentioned like drawn to this as like some sort of conscious evolution. And it's really much more simple than that. I was drawn to practice things of my own pain and suffering. So I was just seeking alleviation from the

psychological despair that I was in as a young person trying to navigate what does it mean now to go out in the world and make something of myself. Yeah. When you step into that world and then eventually find your way into more of an insight-based approach, which is sort of like, I hesitate to use labels because I feel like so many people have really just created this integrated approach where it may be centered around a certain set of ideas, but it's really inclusive of a whole lot of different ideas, schools and teachers these days. And I feel like that's the way that I experience you as well.

I don't know if that's the way that it feels from the inside out from you. But when you step into that community in the United States and you start to deepen into it and spend years in it, it's also not a community that is widely known as being incredibly diverse or inclusive. I'm curious when you're coming to the practice and the teachings to a certain extent because of your own pain and part of that pain is a sense of, as you described, I just, I can't really figure out where I fit. I always feel like I'm the other. And then you step into this community. Does that feeling deepen? Did it get resolved? How do you experience that? Because it's sort of like a variation of what you've described in the quote, outside world. Yeah. You know, I think that during my Zen practice years, I really had

this separation between my spiritual life and the rest of my life. So I was in grad school at the time, you know, it was in New York and going out. And I've talked about many times how I go out partying one night and then have to go to the Zen center in the morning. And sometimes that was late and Barry would lock the door exactly at 10 o'clock. And there were multiple times where I was walking towards the door and heard the lock click and had to turn around and go back to Brooklyn. So there was this bifurcation in a lot of ways that, you know, I was doing this Zen thing over here. And then I had the rest of my life that was diverse and full. I was studying race and cultural studies in school, and I didn't even know to ask for it to be different. I had grown up in white communities and white neighborhoods and white spaces and really didn't have a lot of options for integration or diversity or inclusion and really wasn't educated to ask for that. You know, even when I studied it,

I wasn't really empowered in a sense to ask for change. And it's interesting when I stepped into the Insight community, there had already been people like Gina Sharp and Larry Yang laying foundations for that change. So there were people of color retreats that had been started. I was in DC at the time for a short spell, and there was already a people of color group led by my now good friend, Moss Armiento. So I sort of stepped into the insight world right when that work was starting, you know, maybe I'd been a couple of years old. And when I moved back to New York and started attending New York Insight Meditation Center, there was a very large PSC group there, a people of color group. So for me, I was kind of given

access to that at a time when maybe I had more skill to then advocate and be part of a movement of change, which has now taken hold in a very strong way. So I really benefited actually from the work of others. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch,

getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. It's interesting, like we have this conversation. You have been in this community for probably the better part of two and a half decades or so, teaching for much of that. Always a student, of course, but still teaching. And I was listening to a conversation said, you take what you get from your teachers. And sometimes in the beginning, I feel like I'm just imitating them, trying on their clothes. They don't quite fit, still trying to find my own way when it comes to devotional practices. And I was listening to this and I'm thinking so many folks, like you think, okay,

so you're in this for two and a half decades now, like you've got it dialed in. And it was just amazing to hear you say, no, I'm still, there's so much of a beginner mind in me still. I'm still trying things on. I'm still learning. I'm still evolving and growing and seeing like who am I within this larger practice? Yes. Yeah. And I've, you know, I've only been teaching for about a decade, but it's a significant of time too, to take on this role. And, you know, I've been considering lately that I don't want that role or that process or that activity to

become another identity. So I've been really also trying to shed this notion of being a Buddhist teacher, because I can see how much that could constrict me in terms of my own evolution and development. You know, we talk a lot about change in Buddhist practice, that that's kind of the central teaching considered to be the most important teaching, the one of impermanence and change. And sometimes we forget that we are actually a part of that. It's not just on a minute level of watching the breath or seeing into the nature of reality and phenomena changing, but we ourselves are constantly changing. And that can be hard. You know, it can be really hard to say that, you know, this practice or this teaching doesn't necessarily fit me anymore and I'm evolving and changing as

well. And so I've been moving towards allowing that to be true for me, to allow I'm also constantly changing and exploring new things. I've been in a deep study, not for the purpose of teaching at all, but I've been in a deep study of astrology and tarot and numerology in the past few years. I've taken this pandemic isolation literally and kind of become very interested in hermeticism and esoteric studies. And that's been a powerful process of allowing myself to evolve in terms of my ideas and my perspectives and influences. And, you know, I hope I continue that. Yeah, I love that. It is the fundamental non-grasping of your own identity. It's like, I'm just going to hold it fluidly with open palms and see where it takes me, rather than saying, this is what it is, and I will direct it to this place and this place

and this place. I feel like in no small part, we share a friend, I believe, in Rev. Angel Quioto-Williams, and I feel like she's in a really similar place. She's really just, her sense of identity identity is she's using different identifiers. She is really stepping out and saying that person that maybe you thought I was or labeled me as and maybe even I held myself out as five, 10 years ago, I am growing and changing and shifting and like very intentionally creating the space for that. But like you said, that can be astonishingly uncomfortable for us. Yeah. And we don't necessarily have many examples of that. And I've been really inspired by this idea of reverse mentoring lately, where, you know, we can really learn from young people as much as we can help and mentor them. And one of the things that I love about the Gen Z, the real Gen Z, is their openness to change and adaptability.

And I see that with my nephew and some other younger people I follow, even on social media, they'll just wipe out their entire social media. They'll archive or delete every single post and just start over. They will kind of adopt a new identity or a new way of posting or new filters or colors. And I just find that so refreshing. And there's a way in which, you know, they're younger, of course, they're playing with their identity, but it also is something very unique to that generation

in terms of change. And we see it with gender identity and fluidity. And yeah, I'm really inspired by that and hope to learn from them in that way. If it doesn't fit to say like, all right, that was interesting. And then move on to the next thing. It's like a series of experiments. I feel like I never, and a lot of folks, I think our generation and older maybe didn't feel a sense of permission to do that. I almost feel like we were, you know, there was a sense of like, you will track yourself in a very particular way.

And once you make your choice and like, that's kind of it for this season of life, you know, which for many people was until their mid forties, until you earn your choice, that's kind of it for this season of life, which for many people was until their mid-40s, until you earn your right to question everything. And then maybe or maybe not make some big changes. But, you know, I do see the cycle happening much earlier in life, and I'm inspired by it, similar to you. You know, as we have this conversation, you know, like we're in theory emerging in some way, shape or form from the last few years. And you in the very early part of the pandemic came out with this book on belonging, which, of course, I'm sure you didn't know what was coming. You couldn't have timed it. But the topic of belonging, I think, has become something that is so central to us. And it has been for generations, but I think now

we're feeling the pain of not belonging just on a radically different level. Or maybe we're not feeling it more, but we're surfacing it more. Like it's becoming more like we actually are realizing this is a thing and it's happening and it's causing suffering. I want to dive into some of the ideas that you share, but I think it probably makes sense to just create some context first. When we use this word belonging, it's kind of a weird word because it's not necessarily the easiest thing to define. Often I've heard it defined as more of like, it's the negative. Like we can talk about isolation. We can talk about separation. We kind of know what those are, but belonging feels murkier. Tell me in your mind, when we talk about belonging, what are we actually talking about?

Yeah. So, you know, sometimes when people hear the word belonging, there's only sort of the social material idea of it. And I'm really talking about belonging a much deeper and more paradoxical level. Really, the main premise of the book is that there is a fundamental belonging that is paradoxical level. Really, the main premise of the book is that there is a fundamental belonging that is paradoxical for all of us, human and non-human. And the truth of that is articulated in a Buddhist teaching. It's called the paradox of the two truths. So the absolute truth of the relative truth. And I'm using that teaching to kind of explore what it means to grapple with that as a human being.

So the absolute truth that we are interconnected. And ancient wisdom talks about this and has many metaphors for that deep interconnection of all life. But also modern science has shown us that there's no separation, that phenomena affect each other, that material have these consciousness or these experiences in our lives that have us experience the world as distinct entities. Like I am 7am here in Brooklyn, you're Jonathan, you're there in Boulder, Colorado. And, you know, those are truths. And there's also some really cosmic interconnection between us. And to be able to hold that paradox is very hard. You know, it's not, of course, we can consciously, conceptually understand that. But to really grapple with what that means is a much deeper sense of what it means to belong, because we

have to really contend with the two. And I kind of explore this paradox in terms of our day-to-day life and social reality. And, you know, when I think about it, some of us can sort of tend towards one side of that paradox and decide we're all one you know, the material reality of our world, we can forget about that interconnection and get really lost in the identities and the separation. So for me, belonging becomes a much, much more profound kind of grappling when we think of it in these two ways. Yeah. And it seems like each one of those has its own stuff that goes along with it. Yeah. I mean, you know, beyond the fact that just holding those polarities as both being true alone is really difficult, I think, for us, because we're kind of taught to say, like, well, there's this or this, you know, either we're all one and, you know, we're part of a big cosmic super organism. And like what we do affects another person, not just because they happen to be close to us, but because there's a deeper fiber that we use us together.

Or we have this uniqueness, like this separate identity and sense of like reality on the ground, the lived day-to-day experience is more that I think for a lot of people and the notion that, oh, these two things can go together. I feel like each side or each thought has its own potential, both struggles and delusions. On the oneness side, we lead down the potential path of spiritual bypassing because we're just like, hey, we're all in this together. This other thing doesn't really exist. It's not a problem. We just have to wake up to that fact. And on the other side, how can you say that we're all one? Because here's my lived experience. There's a lot of suffering, a lot of harm in my unique day-to-day experience. And that person over there, that community or that group or demographic,

I can point to and trace a direct line to them causing this harm in my life. And yet you're telling me that we're all one. So it's so interesting to sort of like see the different sides and say like each one has its own stuff. Yes. And it gets even more nuanced the more you kind of go into the super by their one. So one of the things that I've been really looking at in myself, and I always look in words first, is the ways in which the relative side, you know, my identity and uniqueness can also become another place where, if I let it, can tap into another paradox. Because yes, I'm Black and I'm a woman and I have these experiences based on sort of these social markers, but I also have a completely unique identity that cannot be captured by these labels and is constantly evolving and changing. And that puts me right back in touch with that

oneness, right? The multiplicity of diversity, you know, just the separations of diversity, but those multiplicities and uniqueness are actually like a doorway into that interconnection. And isn't that paradoxical? And so there are kind of trap doors and possibilities in all of these explorations. Yeah, no, I can see how sort of like with every layer that you peel back, there's like, oh, look, something new to dance with here. It's like, there's no there there. It's like, you just keep going deeper into it and deeper into it and deeper into it. And yet, we're at a moment in time where I feel like we can't not do that. Because there's so much suffering related to the feeling of a lack of belonging on both an absolute and a relative

level, like belonging to absolute and a relative level like belonging to myself and also belonging to something bigger than myself i feel like there's so much suffering it's interesting that you were saying like how you're really kind of fascinated in studying um hermetic life and things like that because you know it's been a forced hermetic existence in a lot of ways for millions and millions of people. And so often, when that happens, there's nowhere to go but inside and, you know, more time than you've ever done before. And visit yourself and visit these questions. And I wonder whether that right now is leading to more or less suffering. You know, I think we can't not do it also because we need each person to tap into their unique gifts and talents.

Yeah, so true. Because, you know, we really, this wiping the slate clean and experimentation and really playing with possibilities is what's going to lead us out of this mess. There's a way in which we're holding on to those rigid identities we were talking about before from previous generations, it's also holding on to structures because we thought that's where the safety was. And as things start to devolve and hopefully evolve from there, you know, we're not going to be able to rely on so many of these structures that we've come to take for granted. And as climate changes and social changes continue to cause these disruptions, we need each person to know themselves really well, to know what they can bring into the world and what magic and possibility and beauty will come from that we don't know yet. Yeah. You write on this particular topic,

we must know ourselves on the path to belonging. How can we tend to our feelings of not belonging if we don't know how belonging feels? You belong to everything. First, you must belong to yourself. Where do you people come from? Acknowledging trauma, releasing fear, avoiding spiritual bypassing, working with your shadow, therapy, honest friends, self-exploration, self-study, self-knowledge systems, address bias. And it's interesting, the more I was thinking about this, okay, so first, before we can belong, right, we really do have to do that work or else if we show up in a group or if we show up in a community and we're seeking this feeling of belonging, but we actually don't, you know, we, we often show up and we present some scaffolding

or some avatar of the being that we want to be accepted into that group. And we think that will give us the feeling of genuine belonging, but it's just the avatar that's belonging. And it's not us because we haven't actually done the work. And then we're not also then willing to show up as that person in that moment. So we might be surrounded by people or communities and still feel utterly alone. Yeah. And if we haven't done the work, we're often just projecting our lacks and insecurities and neediness rather than our true needs and our true possibilities. You know, When we've done the work, we can actually show up much more clear. And that doesn't mean perfect. It doesn't mean that we

won't make mistakes or won't need to work through our stuff, but there are gradations of that. And so not showing up just kind of completely traumatized and reverberating that out onto everyone else, but actually knowing ourselves well and knowing what it is we have to offer and what we might need in order to bring those offerings to fruition. Yeah. And a part of this, and I know I've heard you speak about this and write about this, is yes, it's knowing what we care about, who we are, what matters to us, our history, all the things that I just shared that you wrote about. And at the same time, it's also, to a certain extent, it's surfacing the stuff that is not conscious to us and yet leads us in so many actions and behaviors and decisions, the unconscious

bias, the conditioning that we bring with us. You have this fabulous quote from Krishnamurti, you know, you think you're thinking your thoughts, you're not. You're thinking the culture's thoughts. And a lot of people would hear that at first you know, you think you're thinking your thoughts, you're not. You're thinking the culture's thoughts. And a lot of people would hear that at first and say, no, no, no, no, no. Like I'm me. Sure, I'm influenced a little bit, but like I have free will. I have my own experience, my own life.

But the bigger idea, the notion that I think you're offering here and tell me if this was the way it lands with me is how do you know that until you really inquire into it? And that's a deep process, which sometimes reveals things that we don't like to own. Yeah, I use unconscious bias as kind of the clearest example of that that's been studied. And, you know, we can see that many of the studies have been done on race and also on gender, but it can show up in all sorts of ways. And the ways we think of ourselves as particularly, you know, awake or enlightened,

or at least just and fair, but actually we've been conditioned by these societal forces and we come into situations and into contact with people with all of these biases really deeply ingrained in us. And so starting to be able to know ourselves on a deep level have been conditioned. You know, we are influenced by the culture and it is shaping so much of our thoughts. Yeah. And I wonder if we start that process with ourselves, like, does that eventually make it easier for us to look at somebody else who we perceive as being other, maybe even causing us harm and then say, okay, so if I am in no small part the continually evolving result of my conditioning and a bunch of things have been planted in me, I'm not even literally consciously aware of, what about this other person or community? What if I offer that same lens of curiosity to them and say, well, what is the conditioning? What are the moments? What is the history that brought them here? And had I been through a nearly identical experience, would I be different from

them? Yes, for sure. I give an example in the book, and I've talked about a number of times this meditation I did for George W. Bush at the time. I think it was around the time of Katrina and the war in Afghanistan and in Iraq. And I started to do a meta practice for him, which is a loving kindness practice, because I realized I had this kind of outsized aggression or hatred towards him. And I knew that would just end up affecting me. It certainly wasn't affecting him, not on a conscious level, maybe on a cosmic level. And so I started doing this practice, but it was, I wasn't just repeating the traditional phrases of, you know, may you be well. I sort of created my own practice where I imagined what it must've been like to grow up as him and to

bring kindness to my exploration of his life. And it was a really profound experience. I did it for quite a long time every day. And I would imagine what it was like to, you know, be born into the family he was born into and grow up the way he did. And what I knew of his life, I pieced together. And there's a metapractice that the late Thich Nhat Hanh used to encourage where you imagine someone as a five-year-old. So sort of expanding that out into his entire life. And there was a moment, and I remember exactly where I was sitting. I remember the feeling of it, where it really hit me, not just as a conceptual idea, but I felt sense that I would be George Bush, that if I had lived his life, I would be exactly

him. And it's like the arrogance of thinking that he shouldn't be any different than he is melted away in that moment, that there was a certain presumption to think that anyone who is different than me should be different than they are. And that doesn't mean we don't work to help people see things more clearly if they're being, you know, if they're engaging in harmful activity or if we perceive them as having a misdirected or misunderstood thought. But it really allows us to approach that with so much more compassion, understanding, less distance and less really domination and hierarchy

because we're not sort of bringing our, you know, privilege of seeing things from a different perspective that has been afforded to us, maybe even because of our suffering. Yeah. You know, on the one hand, I'm nodding along and saying, yeah, this makes complete sense to me. And until we can approach circumstances, even brutal, brutally hard ones where harm is presently being engaged in with some level of curiosity and compassion. Nothing changes. I see that. And yet at the same time, from like a day-to-day lived experience, like when you're in this, it's a brutally hard proposition. And at the same time, we're asking people who may be feeling like I'm suffering, maybe even through many degrees of separation through the actions of another individual community to do the work, to understand them, to open to them. And that's something that

there's a lot of tough conversation around because people, the argument is like, I'm being harmed now. And now you're asking me to do the work, you know, to actually understand why somebody else is the way that they're doing it so that we can sit down from a place of curiosity and openness and compassion. Why is that on me? And yet it's complicated. Yeah. And, you know, I think that there's a much more kind of selfish, self-advantageous aspect to it, right? Because what left me was that anger, that hatred, but also that sense of arrogance and domination. If I'm really committed to transforming these forces of hierarchy and oppression, domination and destruction from this world, then I want those first to leave me, right? And so there's something really in it for us as the practitioners of this process or really embodying that is not so much about, yes, it's generous once we do engage with other people and it should be really seen as a gift that we offer to others when we can meet them with more compassion and curiosity, as you described.

But I think the first gift is to ourselves. on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet-black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later require,

charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun on january 24th tell me how to fly this thing mark walberg you know what the difference between me and you you're gonna die don't shoot him we need him y'all need a pilot flight risk when you started to dive into this a big part of what we're talking about also here is cultivating our ability to see more clearly, both ourselves, like our own inner worlds, and also like the outer world around us. And meditation is certainly a big part of that in all its different forms. I think it's interesting that you're also very focused on the body. You know, this can't be a purely intellectual or neck-up exercise.

That belonging, as you write, it only happens through the vehicle of the body. Yeah, you know, this was a huge process, learning process for me. So I'm very head-centered, you know, I understand things often first conceptually and then learn to embody it. And it was disconnection from the body that I experienced really as physical pain and suffering that brought me into it. So I've had cancer multiple times in my life, including stage four cancer. And that came with a lot of pain and treatment and difficulty. And the process of coming into contact of deep healing in the body also showed me how disconnected I was from the body. So I would never sort of want to get into blaming people for their illness. There is some kind of, I believe, and have experienced psychosomatic connection between illness and the mind and the body being connected.

So, you know, we can see that when we're stressed, we get more colds. And many scientists and doctors are seeing the connection between many stressors and different types of illness and cancer being one of them, that's not well understood. And so when I started to really need to make that connection and life-death kind of context, it really brought me more in touch with the body. And I could see how much tension I was holding in the body and how my meditation practice was often disconnecting me from that. You know, I was following the breath at the nostrils for many, many years and really wasn't even aware of what was going on. So there was a sense of stillness and a fair amount of peacefulness that was coming just from being quiet and being centered. But there was also a lot of holding, a lot of tension in the body. And when I started to actually pay

attention to my body as part of my practice, there was a lot of opportunity for release, for relaxation, for understanding the ways in which traumas and pain and difficulties from my life and from probably previous to my life epigenetically, who knows, were showing up in the body as pain, as illness, as tightness, as holding. And so, yes, making that connection has been so key to my understanding of what it means to be on a path, a spiritual path. Yeah. I mean, whether it's capital T or little t trauma, I think the research is clearer and clearer that we all have something and it lodges in our bodies. And if we only try and dislodge it psychologically, it doesn't really work. And I wonder if, especially in this broader conversation around belonging, right?

If we never get in touch with what we're feeling, with what our body is feeding back to us and how it's telling us, like giving us signals all day, every day. How do we actually really get to the point where we know ourselves well enough, where we can feel like I'm comfortable with myself, I belong to myself, I'm good with that, and then be able to turn out into the world and say, like, how can I find that thing in a greater community as well? And yet it's understandable because if a lot of those signals that are coming from the body up to the brain include some form of pain, it makes sense that, you know, we would compartmentalize that without even thinking about it. And yet unwinding it is sort of like it's, it sounds like in your model, especially, you know, unwinding it is a big part of us getting back into our own sense of belonging to our cells before we can then turn that out to the world. Yeah. And we, you know, we're talking about pain and illness and sort of the, those big signals from the body, but it's also a matter of getting in touch with pleasure and joy, which we're also disconnected from in terms of the body and really starting to imbue that into our daily lives in a way that encourages that sense of freedom that comes from

a body that is not always in tension or pain and even in pain can experience joy and a sense of freedom. That's such a great point. It's all parts of the spectrum. We've got to allow it all in, which brings us around to one of the things you write about is the notion of really being yourself. It's the final imperative that you describe in your steps to belonging is showing up. And also part of that is exploring from an ethical standpoint, who are you? Which is not something that most people really examine in any meaningful way these days. I feel like it was such a central part of education in past traditions and in still different traditions. But in Western culture, so often the notion of ethics and character is just, it's not something

that we study on any sort of formal basis. And it's not a process of self-inquiry or contemplation that many of us explore in a meaningful way. It's almost like it's at some point along the way it fell away and we're missing out by not engaging in it. Yeah. And we are also seeing its distortions, right? Younger people are kind of, I know this is a problematic word, but policing each other in terms of what they say and how they behave and what they do. That really has a lot of them talk about tension in the body, really tense and fearful of how they are in the world. And it's not a true ethics, right? It's really this idea of perfectionism, really, of how we should be in the world and that we can't make mistakes and that we can't have misunderstandings. We can't see things from other people's perspective

and where they're coming from. So it's sort of a pseudo-ethics that is masking a lot of, again, domination. Yeah. I feel like technology, you know, on the one hand, I'm not a Luddite. I love technology. I use it all day long, every day, But it's a double-edged sword. It can take that sense of the need to be perfect and then the fierce and immediate and sometimes mass scale judgment if you're not. on a level that makes it nearly unrecoverable, which is a brutalizing experience for so many who are just looking for that sense of, I want to see who I am. I'm going to make missteps along the way. And eventually I want to find that place where I feel good with myself. And I find a community where I feel good with them too. But it's like, if the ideal is perfection and you're trying to run those experiments in public where like thousands or millions of people are watching that is a really really hard environment to go inside knowing that

it's going to be external along the way and you may be judged or canceled or ostracized and and the culture doesn't allow for exploration and growth and redemption. Yeah. And you see some people pushing against that with a real sense of community care. And so then, you know, circling back to being embodied and being connected and knowing ourselves and trying to understand where other people are coming from becomes, you know, a possibility. The pendulum keeps swinging. where other people are coming from becomes a possibility. Yeah. The pendulum keeps swinging. We're always evolving. Right, right. You mentioned that cancer has been a part of your life a number of times now.

And a part of that also being yourself also includes an acknowledgement of the fact of our own impermanence. Buddhism, as you describe, identifies these three experiences in life, illness, old age, and death. And it's something that is very much a part of not just even acknowledging, but really playing with and exploring in a detailed and nuanced way in a way that horrifies most folks coming from sort of like a more Western-oriented thing. And yet it's something that you say is so important to us and can be maybe framed differently. Yes. I mean, you know, we're really working against the forces of mainstream media and the dominant culture here, but really allowing for illness, old age, and death to be the natural parts of life that they are, rather than these seeming

mistakes or problems, you know, and we see it everywhere. You know, this is sort of a mundane example, but I'm constantly amazed by how many women still dye their hair. You know, this is toxic chemicals. People who, you know, only shop at Whole Foods and only eat organic, you know, putting these toxic chemicals right close to their brain. And this tendency for especially women to push against aging in that way, illness and including disabilities being sort of hidden away, not spoken about. Was it so long ago, maybe our parents' generation, we used to whisper the word cancer? You know, the ways in which our entire society and culture is only designed for able bodies and able minds. So all of that really, I think, culminates in this fear of death and this

idea that death is sort of a mistake, that it's a problem rather than the only thing we will all definitely experience. It's the only common denominator amongst all of us that are bored. It's not even about normalizing it. It is normal already, but really bringing it into our explorations and conversations in a much more regular and reverent way, I think, would benefit us all. I think it's so interesting that we are so terrified of the conversation and all the signals that we get say, don't go there. It's a dark thing. It's a scary thing. And yet, like you say, the minute we arrive, the only guarantee we were made is that someday this is also going to come to an end. This being us, everyone around us, like everything around us. And maybe it's my age at this point. Maybe it's being further, far enough into life, you know, had my own struggles and knowing many

people that have had theirs and like knowing people who are no longer here with us. I think it brings you closer to the bone. And I think you can react one of two ways to that often. It's either abject terror and a fierce devotion to trying to lock down every aspect of your life for the rest of your life to try and make it as certain as possible, or just surrendering to the fact that we're not promised another breath.

So what might we do with this one? And scary as it is, owning that, I feel, is incredibly empowering in a lot of ways. Yes. Owning it, talking about it, really connecting to it on a visceral level. You know, death contemplations are an important thing. Really, you know, considering, okay, I'm going to lose this person if they don't lose me first. And to talk about that with children, to, you know, we sort of shunt away death and we don't have great processes for mourning in this culture. You know, we sort of have leftover remnants of shivas and wakes and things here and there, but there really isn't clear spaces and ways for

grieving that are shared collectively the way they are in a lot of traditional cultures where death is sort of less hidden away in hospitals and nursing homes and in these scary deathly places. Yeah. And bringing it back to the conversation around belonging, right? It feels like if we can get to a place where we really, we own, like we acknowledge, we make this like something that is a part of our lived reality. Imagine how that would affect that grudge that you've been holding with, you know, like that friend for the last five years where you actually can't even remember what started it. You just know it's there. Like if you're like, you know, I don't know if I'm going to be here tomorrow. Maybe it makes sense to reach out now. Like maybe it makes sense to step into community. Maybe it makes sense to open my heart. I mean, it feels like that acknowledgement of our own impermanence really plays into in a powerful way, our willingness to do the work and to step back into all the things that would allow us that sense of belonging that we all say we yearn for so much, especially now. It feels like a good place for us to come full circle in our conversation as well. So in this container of Good Life Project, if I offer out the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? To live a good life for me is to, from moment to moment, really connect to my heart. And I mean by that, that being in touch

with this present moment is precious and beautiful, even if it's filled with pain or loss or difficulty, that if I really meet it with an open heart, I can connect to the completely delightful opportunity it is just to be alive. I hear a truck rolling by right now and I'm thinking, I could think of it as annoyance or I could think it as an amazing thing. That we have trucks delivering things to distant places and human beings invented that, you know, we created this possibility, all these possibilities. Yeah. So to be just open and curious to any moment, whatever it offers me is to be in time of good life.

Thank you. Hey, before you leave, if you love this episode, say that you'll also love the conversation we had with Rev. Angel Kiyoto Williams about what we leave outside the room when we seek to fit in. You'll find a link to Rev Angel's episode in the show notes. And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app. And if you found this conversation interesting or inspiring or valuable, and chances are you did since you're still listening here. Would you do me a personal favor,

a seven second favor and share it? Maybe on social or by text or by email, even just with one person. Just copy the link from the app you're using and tell those you know, those you love, those you wanna help navigate this thing called life a little better so we can all do it better together with more ease and more joy.

Tell them to listen. Then even invite them to talk about what you've both discovered because when podcasts become conversations and conversations become action, that's how we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. We'll be right back. Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you

8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS are later required, charge time and actual results will vary.