I don't really like humans...

I said this, semi-jokingly, during the recent Womb Surround.

I don't really like humans...

I like individuals. I love certain people. I love sitting with someone and discovering who they are, what matters to them, the particularities and quirks and beauty of being one human being. I love shared moments of stillness, moments of laughter and moments of devotion.

But humanity?

Sometimes I struggle...

Perhaps it is the sheer complexity of being human. Of having a body, a nervous system, a history, needs and longings. Of being shaped by all that came before us, while also shaping what comes after us.

Perhaps it is watching the ways we hurt one another, often without meaning to. The ways families can become tangled in patterns that have travelled through generations. The ways our deepest needs to be seen, received, welcomed and loved can go unmet, even when the people caring for us love us deeply and are doing the very best they know how.

And yet, something has been changing in me these last decade or two...

I notice that when I sit in a Womb Surround, or in a women's circle, or in intimate connection with my family and the people I love, there isn't the same tensing I used to feel. I don't find myself bracing in quite the same way.

There is more room to breathe.

And I think this is connected to something I've been feeling into more and more lately: family systems, relationship, belonging, and what health might actually feel like.

Our journey into life is relationship. From conception onwards, we are in relationship with a particular womb, a particular body, a family system, a culture, a land, a time and a place. We are dependent, and yet we are also part of.

We arrive already in relationship. And it is through relationship that we are shaped.

From the very beginning, we are learning what it is to be human through the relationships around us. We are learning what happens when we cry, when we reach, when we need something, when we make a noise, when we delight, when we become angry or frightened or curious. We are learning, without necessarily having words for it, what seems to bring closeness and what seems to disturb it.

And so, little by little, we can begin to shape ourselves in response...

Be good. Be quiet. Don't make a fuss. Don't need too much. Don't be too much. Be helpful. Be easy. Be normal. Be a good sibling / student / citizen!

Sometimes these messages are explicit. Often they aren't. And often nobody intended to give them to us.

Our parents and caregivers are human too. They have their own histories, their own adaptations, their own nervous systems, their own wounds and capacities. They may love us enormously and still not have been able to meet everything we needed.

And perhaps one of the deepest things we can learn isn't simply I am not loved.

It can be something much more subtle...

There is something about me that doesn't quite fit here.

Perhaps I am too sensitive. Too loud. Too quiet. Too intense. Too independent. Too needy. Too different.

And so we learn to adapt.

At a yearly gathering with my family recently, I was delighted to be part of a team facilitating community care workshops and listening circles. Together we explored what it means to hold psychological safety, to repair when things break, to listen beneath the noise, and to take responsibility for how we meet one another.

Naturally, I've been thinking about all of this as part of the many conversations we had, as well as in the laughter we shared.

Because safety doesn't mean the absence of discomfort.

A healthy relationship, family or community isn't necessarily one where everyone agrees, everyone is comfortable and nothing difficult is ever said. Perhaps it is one where there is enough safety to be uncomfortable and remain connected.

I can disagree with you. You can disagree with me. Something I say might be difficult to hear. We might misunderstand one another. There might be tension. There might even be rupture.

And still, there is enough capacity in the relationship for us to speak, to listen, to repair, to remain present.

We don't have to become the same in order to belong.

And this feels important because sometimes we confuse inclusivity with conformity.

We think someone belongs because they fit in.

I know for me, I've often felt like I don't belong, nor do I fit in. Not the right heritage. Not the right colour. Not the right cultural references. And yet I've also spent plenty of time trying to fit in. Learning how to behave, how to speak or not speak, how to mask. Learning when to be quiet, when to make myself smaller, when to become almost invisible.

And somehow, even all that learning to fit in didn't create a sense of belonging.

So perhaps belonging asks something different of me. Of us...

Perhaps it isn't about becoming more like everyone else. Perhaps it is about being able to remain fully ourselves while being in relationship with others.

Can I be different and still belong? Can I have needs and still belong? Can I say what is true for me and still belong? Can you be uncomfortable with me without making me the problem? Can we meet one another in our differences without needing to erase them?

Perhaps belonging isn't the feeling of I fit here.

Perhaps it is something more like...

I can be here. I don't have to disappear in order to stay.

I remember the very first Womb Surround I took with Ray Castellino.

I left with a felt sense I hadn't quite known before. There was space for everyone.

Not that everything was harmonious. There were moments of challenge, moments of tension, perhaps even those tiny ruptures that inevitably happen when humans are together.

But nobody got left behind. Nobody got left out.

There was honesty. There was integrity. There was repair.

The principles weren't simply things we were talking about. They were being lived.

And something in me went...

Ahhhhh.

Health is possible in a family.

Health is possible between humans.

I could breathe more deeply.

And alongside the relief, there was something else: hope.

Hope for humanity.

Not because I suddenly believed humans would stop being complicated or hurting one another, but because I had experienced another possibility. I had felt it in my body.

And perhaps that is one of the things I value so much about these spaces of gathering. They don't need to be perfect in order to offer us an experience of something different. A place where difference doesn't mean exile, where discomfort doesn't automatically mean danger, where rupture doesn't necessarily mean the end, and where there is enough capacity for everyone to remain human.

And this brings me back to my slightly contradictory relationship with humanity.

Because if so much of what shapes us happens in relationship, then it follows that rupture happens in relationship too. Disconnection happens in relationship. We learn to hide, adapt, perform and protect ourselves in relationship.

And yet, perhaps relationship is also part of what we need for the deepest integration of those experiences...

I know how naturally I move towards inner work. Give me something to contemplate and I will happily disappear inside myself for a while. I can reflect, notice patterns, feel into what is happening, understand where something comes from.

And all of that matters.

But there are times when something shifts in a different way when I bring what I am meeting within myself into relationship with another human being.

When I can speak something and discover that the other person doesn't flinch. When I can be vulnerable and they don't rush to fix me. When I can be angry or sad or confused and I don't have to make myself okay for their sake. When something difficult happens between us and there is enough safety for us to find our way back.

Sometimes it isn't another insight I need.

It is an experience.

Being heard. Being received. Being stayed with. Being able to remain myself and remain connected at the same time.

Perhaps this is part of what I have been noticing in my own life.

I've surrounded myself differently. I've found and created relationships and spaces where being me doesn't need to be hidden.

And my body knows the difference.

There is less bracing, more breath, more space, more ease. A little less need to protect myself from humanity, and perhaps a little more hope.

So I wonder what it might be like to notice this for yourself.

Perhaps bring to mind somewhere you experience a sense of belonging. It doesn't have to be perfect. Perhaps it is a person, a friendship, a family member, a circle, a place in nature. Somewhere you don't have to work quite so hard at being acceptable.

Notice what happens in your body as you bring it to mind.

Does your breath change? Do your shoulders soften? Does your belly release? Is there a little more space inside?

And then, rather than asking why you feel safe there, perhaps ask:

What don't I have to do here?

Do I not have to be good? Quiet? Useful? Strong? Agreeable? Normal?

Perhaps there is something you are allowed to be here that you learned somewhere else you couldn't be.

And then simply notice...

What does belonging feel like when I don't have to leave myself to experience it?

And if someone comes to mind as you do this, perhaps let them know.

Because telling someone I feel like I can be myself with you might be a small act of creating more of the world we want to live in.

At the end of October, we will gather again for another Womb Surround. Four days to come into relationship with ourselves and one another, to be held, to tend to what is here, and perhaps to remember something about belonging that the body already knows.

And Passages continues too, as a way of gathering with women across the turning of the year. Of walking together, remembering together, witnessing and being witnessed.

Both are invitations into relationship. Into connection. Into the possibility that we don't have to do this human life alone.

And if something in these words has touched something in you, I'd genuinely love to hear from you. Perhaps a recognition, a memory, a question, something you are noticing about belonging, family, relationship or what it means to be fully yourself among others.

I always love discovering where these words meet another person's lived experience.

I still don't know that I like humanity very much.

But I have become much more interested in what happens when humans gather differently. When we make room for difference, when we stay present through discomfort, when we take responsibility for our impact, when we repair, when we don't ask one another to be less in order to remain connected, and when we create enough space that nobody has to be left behind or left out.

Perhaps we don't need perfect families.

Perhaps we need more experiences of relationship where our bodies can discover:

I can be here. I can be myself. You can be yourself. And we can still belong together.

Maybe that is part of how health travels.

From one relationship to another. From one family to another. From one circle to another. From one human nervous system to another.

And perhaps, slowly, it gives us a little more hope for humanity.

My wish is this:

May we each find, and become, the kind of relationship where there is room for all of who we are.

May we remember that belonging doesn't ask us to disappear.

And may we keep creating spaces where we can breathe a little more deeply, stay a little more fully, and meet one another as the beautifully imperfect humans that we are.

With love and a blessing for whatever this turning of the year is bringing you.

Fayenen Xx