The Widening Circle of Belonging
Imagine your capacity to love and belong as an ever-widening circle. At first, it hugs your own skin—your needs, your comfort, your safety. But life gently nudges you outward: to family, friends, community, strangers, the rivers and trees, and finally to the vast mystery that underlies all of life. Tracking the size of your “we” becomes a living barometer of your stage of growth.
Fear as a Gateway
Early on, our “we” clings to what feels safe and familiar. We instinctively guard against anything strange—because difference can feel dangerous. Yet that very fear of the “other” carries its own teaching: when you notice resistance, you’ve found the next edge of expansion.
Pause. Notice the moment your heart tightens or your mind spins stories about someone—or something—you don’t yet include.
Is it a co-worker with opposing views? A neighbor of a different faith? A wild creature on the trail? Or the unfolding life beneath the forest floor?
That tightening points directly to where your circle still stops.
Three Simple Practices to Grow Your “We”
This isn’t a theory; it’s an embodied practice. Start small, build steadily:
Feel the Boundary
When something or someone feels “other,” pause. Sense the edge of your comfort—physical, emotional, mental.Breathe into the Stretch
With each exhale, invite that “other” into your field of safety. Let curiosity replace judgment, empathy dissolve fear.Offer Genuine Kindness
Send goodwill first to yourself, then to the circle just beyond you, and keep moving outward.
If it feels too much at once, bless a single act of their existence: a bird’s song, a child’s laughter, a neighbor’s quiet labor.
Weaving an Organic Tapestry of Belonging
Over time, these moments weave together into a seamless tapestry. The rigid lines you once relied on—insider versus outsider, human versus more-than-human, sacred versus profane—begin to soften. In their place blooms a spacious welcome: every being, every story, every drop of awareness is part of your “we.”
Embracing the Aliveness
This is not mere sentimentality. It’s the practice of realizing that the life animating your breath is the same life humming in the hummingbird, pulsing through your cells, unfolding across the cosmos.
When your circle finally embraces that aliveness without exception, you taste freedom from the fear that once held you small. In that freedom, love flows through you without barriers—touching all with the simple truth that none of us is ever truly “other.”
Reflection Prompt:
Today, notice one moment when you instinctively draw the circle inward. Pause, breathe, and offer kindness—then watch how that boundary stretches ever wider.
