We are all afraid. A passing shudder. Paralyzing life stopping panic. Middle of the night terrors. Pre-event butterflies. Deep belly rumblings. Loose bowel, over the chasm, heart stopping horror. Even enthusiastic anxieties... This is something we share as humans.
Whether it be for threat of our lives, or those of our families, or perceived threats to how we think our lives should proceed, we all have experienced the loss of our stability, our sense of peace, and our carefree view of our day and what is to come. Fear is about the future, It is what we think is coming.
We are genetically arranged to handle sudden danger, but through our life experience we have overused that system with a variety of life stresses. Many of us lived our lives feeling outside of belonging. Drifting, like an untethered astronaut, into the abyss, or at least it seems that way. In times of stress, worry, anxiety, fear, terror, panic, the question that we could ask ourselves is: Where do I belong?
It is the connections that we have to family, community, country, planet, spirit, ancestors, totem animals, or God, that gives peace. In which tree is my nest? In what sphere do I travel? Where do I belong in the world? 
For some of us, or for all of us, some of the time, we fear this question. We fear that we do not belong......anywhere. But of course we do. First, we belong to the question, then we belong to the life that seeks the answer. The answers. The answers that we spend our lives discerning.
Perhaps our task, each day, our task TODAY, is to answer, just for today that question. Today where do I belong? We need to be kind to ourselves, and both look and answer gently. Today it may be: my garden, my job, my family, my home group, my church or my God. But it can also be to the homeless man I see and feel touched by, the imagery that came to me in a dream, and, the sky, the people who smile at me or that I smile at today, or the bug I stepped over on my walk, or just the air around us. Whatever the answer is....let it be so, gently, and just for now.
Fear! The antidote is belonging. Longing for belonging.. It gives meaning. It gives metaphor. It gives a container, and in that we are held, like a baseball player rounding home plate..... SAFE
Today's word: BELONGING...... find your spot......just for today.
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