Finding Home & Belonging

When we listen to stories, we tap into the collective unconscious, a repository for archetypal stories that are like fertilizer for the personal unconscious, nourishing what’s underground, unseen, and unknown. Fertilizing seeds of longing that were planted long ago, and at some point, awakened by your desire. These stories are fodder for your nighttime dreams, which, like a kindly old aunt, are gently prodding you to awaken from the egoic slumber. “Awake my child, to who you really are, the love is inside you, and your light like a star.”

All of life conspires to guide you toward a life that feels like your life and away from the emptiness, the unfulfillment, and that endless longing for something we can’t name. And as such, we aren’t quite sure what to do about it. How to reach it.

How do we define that which we have never known or experienced? How do we articulate something missing for centuries, buried so deep in the unconscious that no one remembers when it lived and breathed and walked with us?

But every once in a while, we encounter that unnamable something, catch a glimpse of it in someone. Yes, there’s something about them… what is it? We can’t really describe, explain, or put our finger on it. What is it? We can’t say for sure but feel it falling as gently as a spring rain upon parched ground, and we know, we know deep inside, we feel it in our bones, “I want that.”

What are we searching for? What’s the longing? Why is the inner child crying endlessly and begging to go home?

For a long time, I was distracted by the outside world. I thought I needed to change my career, so I changed jobs and eventually got a PhD in an entirely new field, but that didn’t make it go away. Then I thought it’s a house, a place in the world, if I could just find it, then I could relax, and she would stop crying. But eventually, I gave that up search too.

It wasn’t until I went in, and went deep, that I discovered I was running from myself. And when I came home, the cacophony of the external world fell silent. I walked through a portal to being. And this stillness grew. The peace like a warm soft blanket around me. That something that felt as though it was missing, that which I longed for for so long, the unnamable, always at the edges, finally burst forth.

And I was home.

I wondered for a long time after meeting my twin flame, how do I get back to that stillness and silence that engulfed me when I was with him. His parting comment was encouragement to, “do my art.” I tried, picture after picture, painting after painting, poems, books, dreams, but that feeling was fleeting, only surfacing for a few moments at a time, then disappearing. It felt buried and I couldn’t figure out how to free it.

Then, I stumbled into it, quite by accident. It was an ordinary day. I almost quit in a moment of guilt for playing on a Monday, but didn’t. It came to me that it wasn’t about greater skill to execute paintings more perfectly, as I had thought it was. But it was about letting myself play, explore, experiment, and follow the whisper of little inklings that surfaced. Use this color, put this here, or there, and it stayed with me into the next day. Drink this, eat that, and I did.

It was like learning how to truly hear. Hear myself. Not just hear but hear and respond. Listen. And the peace wore on. Seeping into my cells. This sense of play, fun, permeating all of my work. I finally felt excited.

This, this, right here, this is where I belong. This is my life.

Pamela Alexander, PhD assists clients in the exploration and unearthing of their soul’s longings. They learn to cultivate the wisdom of their dreams, honor their hearts, find deeper meaning, increase stability, and discover purpose. Email psalexbus@gmail.com to see how you can utilize the power of dreams and soul work to live a the life you were meant to live.