Muse of Social Belonging
ally in expanding your worldview & trust
DOMAIN: Ideas & Points of View
DRIVING QUESTION: Where do you seek security?
INVITATION: Widen your perspective and trust your place in the web of life.
This is the last installment in a trilogy of posts that introduce the Wheel of Wisdom’s three Muses of Belonging. Belonging, unlike fitting-in, is fundamental to existence. It is the source of your creativity and your capacity to live fully. Part one illuminates the role of the Muses and how they use “feeling messengers” to guide us toward an embodied sense of wholeness or belonging. Keep reading to meet the third Muse…
Muse of Social Belonging
Air is the element most closely related to your mental body. Like clouds, thoughts drift through your expansive blue sky mind. They cast shadows on your perception and sometimes gather darkly and block the light. In every moment of your life, your myriad thought-forms determine who and what you trust, and where you think you belong.
Your mind quite naturally looks for certainty as a means to keep yourself secure. Yet there is no escaping life’s inherent uncertainty, and countless mysteries are beyond mental knowing. Psychological fear or anxiety are indications that your expansive mind has become temporarily occluded by doubt and it’s time to reconnect to trust.
The Muse of Social Belonging beckons you to elevate your perspective beyond your internal cloud cover and become aware of that which is trustworthy. Trust is neither mental certitude nor unquestioned conviction. Trust is an ever-present sun that shines behind layers of fearful thought; it is reality beyond ground level appearances.
When your perception of reality is uncomfortably narrow, a range of anxious feelings can be seen as encouragements from the Muse of Social Belonging to elevate your mental position and view yourself and your situation from a broader perspective. With practice, the mind stays connected to trust, even in the discomfort of what is unknown. Then your Social Belonging becomes a reality you can always perceive.
Begin by loosening the grip of insecure thoughts…
Things to try when you feel anxious:
Try shifting your attention from thinking to sensing. Sense how your body naturally expands with every inhale and then relaxes with every exhale. Pay close attention to this movement for several minutes. Observe how it makes you feel.
In your mind’s eye, try adopting a bird’s-eye view. Imagine you can see yourself from high above your head. What does that vantage point reveal that you can’t see when you’re closer to the ground?
My Experience of the Muse of Social Belonging
She wafts into my inner vision like faint clouds in a summer sky. Telepathically, she introduces herself as the Muse of Social Belonging. Smiling gently, she invites me to see how my mind is creating my sense of safety, and also my sense of Social Belonging:
Safety is a mental interpretation of yourself in relation to the rest of the world. Your perception of safety is governing your perception of Social Belonging.
Observe how your mind tends to affirm your Social Belonging with people and situations that are familiar or agreeable, while it tends to deny Social Belonging with people and situations deemed foreign or disagreeable. What is foreign may be unfamiliar and what is disagreeable may be difficult, yet neither are necessarily unsafe. Although your mind may prefer familiarity and agreeability, they are not measures of your belonging.
When fear clouds your perception, when you think that you do not belong, become quiet. Form an intention to see above your mental weather and use your imagination to view yourself in a context that is far larger than what is familiar and broader than what you currently prefer. When you trust your place in life’s great mystery, you know that you belong.
The Muse of Social Belonging reminds me that I always have a choice to expand or contract my ideas about how and where I am safe and I belong. In those times when I feel estranged from the people around me or the circumstances I’m in, she calls me to an eagle’s perch—an elevated perspective of my life and place in the world—where my vision extends beyond ground level fears and I can recognize that I’m embedded in the vast tapestry of life.
The wider my worldview, the wider my sense of safety. The wider my sense of safety, the wider my perception of belonging. When we perceive our relatedness to the world around us we increase our sense safety and Social Belonging.
Most importantly, the Muse of Social Belonging invites the wise mind to consult the wisdom of the body, and to serve the wisdom of the heart. With practice, the mind learns to trust that which is beyond mental comprehension. That’s when it gets easier to trust your place in the world, to walk confidently on your own path, and to feel kinship with all beings.
Suggested Exploration
Intend to become aware of Air as a Sacred Element. You might try watching clouds for a while and consider that something invisible is moving the things your eyes can see.
Experiment with different ways of breathing: try breathing in short shallow pants, then slow down and deepen each inhale and exhale. Also try holding your breath for as long as you can. What physical and emotional effects do you notice as you experiment? How does breathing affect your thinking? Ask yourself: What’s happening to my breathing when I feel anxious or uneasy?
The aim here is to become acquainted with Air as a cosmic intelligence, and to notice how it invisibly nourishes and creates space within you. Like Water and Earth, Air can become polluted, yet its essence remains the same. Let Air show you something about the nature of your mind and the relationship between breathing and thinking.