Let's wrap up our investigation of belonging with some list journaling
It's like regular journalling but takes less time and is often, more revealing.
February is always a short month, even when it’s a day longer than usual. So it feels pre-emptive to be saying this, but this is the final week of our investigation around belonging and its connection to visibility.
List journalling
To do that, we’re diving into a favourite activity of mine; list journalling.
List journalling is like normal journalling but rather than writing in long-form prose or poetry, you journal in lists. For instance, list five things that have inspired you lately.
I like this approach for a couple of reasons. Firstly it’s a quick way to excavate patterns, or corners of our minds that need illuminating. Secondly, as you’re making your list, it shows you where your edges are. Will you include something or not? Is there discomfort in naming something? If so, why?
In this way, the list acts as a teacher, or at the very least, a mirror.
So, as we draw to a close our conversation about visibility and belonging, let’s take some time with visibility lists.
Here are five questions to ponder
Three people who feature in my story or experience of belonging are:
Three places I belong are:
Three places I choose to share my story, opinion or expertise are:
Three things I value about belonging are:
One place I’d like to belong (or feel a greater sense of belonging) is:
Choose to respond to whichever lists speak to you, or work your way through them all (it doesn’t take long).
I’ll go first.
Three people who feature in my experience of belonging: My husband, daughter and son.
Three places I belong: In my home, at my book club, amongst my extended family.
Three places I share my story and expertise: Here on Substack, in interviews, and in School of Visibility courses and programs.
Three things I value about belonging: It calms my nervous system and puts me at ease, it gives me a sense of place which makes me far less likely to descend into existential crises about the state of the world, I stop questing for purpose when I feel that I belong.
One place I’d like to belong: In the writing community (hence why I’ve moved The School of Visibility® newsletter across to Substack. If you want to belong somewhere, the first step is to show up there).
Unpacking the list
Once your list is made, it’s helpful to read back over it and reflect on both what you’ve written and how you felt as you wrote it.
As I was completing these lists for example, I recognised an old pattern of feeling a strong sense of belonging at home but less so in the broader community. The list reminds me that this is still a stretch point for me.
I was also reminded how much I enjoy interviews and that lately, I haven’t pursued this form of conversation as much as I might.
So the list journalling makes two tasks apparent to me;
to find more places of belonging beyond the comforts of home and family, and
to reach out to be interviewed by more people interested in talking about the significance of visibility in all facets of life.
The other thing that stood out for me was the sense of place that accompanies belonging. It reminded me of a great many conversations I’ve had over the years with Aboriginal people where the first question I’ve been asked is ‘Who’s your mob?’ Their primary consideration always being to locate me in place. To know my country, my people.
As a non-Indigenous person, I always felt slightly uneasy with the question because I’ve never had a good answer. Are my mob the Nolans back in Ireland? We’ve been in Australia now for seven or eight generations. And yet, our place of belonging has shifted in that time. From Tasmania to Sydney to Melbourne and Canberra. We aren’t of place. We are of many places and have long been unrooted from our original, ancestral lands.
What replaced that connection, was a transactional relationship with place, a concept that dominates contemporary Western culture. Many centuries ago, as religion and societies shifted away from nature, toward worlds and philosophies constructed by humans, we lost our sacred relationship with the land and the belonging that accompanies it.
In that absence, I see how small my own sense of belonging has become. My belonging has become intertwined with ownership. Ownership of place; my garden, my porch, my lounge by the fire. My experience of belonging isn’t as clean as I would like it. It’s predicated on acquisition.
I remember an old Aboriginal man from the desert country once saying, ‘How small you become when you place yourselves in boxes.’ That reflection hit my in my solar plexus. Instantly I glimpsed what it must feel like to know yourself as part of the land. As an extension of it. As free to wander through country and know that you’ll be cared for.
There’s a rock I sit with sometimes. It’s in the middle of a labyrinth. It’s 2.8 billion years old (there’s a sign that tells me this). Sometimes I sit and journal there. Mostly I listen and record what comes to me. I listen to the land, the ancestors, the stories stored in the rock. Archives as they are, of time and place.
Sitting there, I experience belonging. I feel welcomed and at ease. I feel one with the earth, even in my Anglo-Celtic skin that was designed for cooler climates. I become self-conscious sometimes too. Inhabiting, as I do, a body that speaks of invasion to those who have always belonged to this place.
The rock isn’t interested in self-consciousness though. Its perspective is far lengthier than hundreds or thousands of years. It speaks in millions of years. It echoes a message it’s been sending throughout time to all who have learned to listen, ‘You belong. You belong. You belong.’
Hearing that, I’m reminded of a cave I walked into during a yatra (pilgrimage) in India. I was fortunate to visit many spiritual sites during my trip, each proferring specific lessons. In this particular cave, I had only walked a few steps in before the vibration struck me, ‘Ram Ram Ram’. It was reverberating from the walls.
[In the Hindu philosophy of Advaita Vedanta, Rama connotes the concept of the eternally blissful spiritual self. The root of the word Rama is ram- which means "stop, stand still, rest, rejoice, be pleased".]
My regular visits to the rock in the labyrinth, and my time in that cave in India, have gifted me with a specific experience of belonging. They’ve shown me that belonging is available everywhere. That it’s the birthright of humanity.
It’s people who create false divisions and artificial structures around who belongs and who doesn’t. The earth, on the other hand, is always inviting us home. Wherever we are. In whatever circumstances we find ourselves.
Always she’s reminding us; take refuge, you’re home, be at peace, you belong.
Q: What about you? Do you have a list to share or an insight on one of your lists? Share it with us here. This is your community. Your voice matters. You belong here.
Visibility resources
If the topic of belonging has piqued your interest, here are a few books that either have belonging as a theme or explore it quite explicitly;
‘talking to my country’ by Stan Grant
‘Sister Outsider’ by Audre Lorde
‘If Women Rose Rooted: The Journey to Authenticity and Belonging’ by Sharon Blackie
‘My Place’ by Sally Morgan
‘Hood Feminism’ by Mikki Kendall
‘Bad Feminist’ by Roxane Gay
‘You Belong Here’ by M.H. Clark (this one is a children’s book. I read it to my kids a lot when they were little to reassure them that they were in place, exactly where they belonged)
‘Braving the Wilderness: The quest for true belonging and the courage to stand alone’ by Brené Brown.
Got reading recommendations of your own?
Jump on over here and let us know!
To wrap up…
Finally, here’s an overview of what we’ve discussed this month:
Visibility and systemic inequality, a visibility meritocracy and small spaces of belonging
The interplay between our inner and outer worlds when it comes to belonging
Erasure and what we can learn about visibility from ‘The Postcard’ by Anne Berest
Visibility lists and resources (located above!).
I hope you’ve found value in the investigation of belonging as it relates to your willingness to speak up and be seen.
Be sure to come on over and let us know what it brought up for you.
Samantha x