Longing for community can really be up for us at this time of the year. Feelings of loneliness arise, whether we are surrounded with people or if we choose to spend the time more quietly. Though feelings of loneliness can feel especially heightened during this time, these feelings can be resonant of a deeper longing we hold in our lives – a longing for feeling at home within community. Fortunately for us, we experience the gift of these yearnings as well as recurring pinprick in our relationships to point us towards seeking even more than what we have limited ourselves to having.
What is your experience of community? Do you feel at home within yourself? Do you find yourself longing for community, for contact with others that feels nourishing and filling? Or, do you find yourself filling yourself up with distractions like food, drinks, and empty activities? Do you allow yourself to feel your longing?
Most often, what we bring into our experiences in community is our beliefs and experiences from our early experiences in our families since our families are our earliest experiences of community. From those experiences we form our expectations – both positive and negative. We bring our experiences or lack thereof of being seen and mirrored, being held and loved, valued and cherished, and more. We bring our experiences of how we separated and connected with our parents or caregivers in those early years. We carry within any experiences and feelings of being hurt, unacknowledged, shame, and abandonment.
Cultural influences also impact our experiences of community. Did the surrounding culture value both the masculine and the feminine? Both independence and interconnectedness? Did it value your Being? Did the culture, both the wider culture and the familial culture, value the specific flavor of the divine naturally expressed through you?
Longing for a sense of community is at a deep level a desire to feel our connection with other souls. We may find ourselves attracting younger souls and older souls to teach, deepen and/or learn qualities that our souls are here to master. We may find ourselves seeking other souls who are of a similar soul age, where the learning is more mutual for the souls that meet.
Take a moment and check in with yourself. What is your soul longing for in community? If you are surrounded by younger souls and are finding yourself feeling unsatisfied or lonely, what types of soul relationships are you seeking? Are you searching for soul relationships that feel mutual? If you are feeling a deep desire to teach, could it mean that your soul is wanting to attract some younger souls to whom you could impart your knowledge?
What would you feel like if you have the community that you are longing for? Does it make you feel full and nourished as you imagine it? How would it impact your relationships that are currently in your life? How does it feel to bring presence and attention to your heart’s longing?
May we all flourish in the truth of who we are, and as our souls in connection with other souls.
Love,
Ruchika