Key of Belonging
the help that opens doors
Have you considered the help you receive to live your life?
Our human existence is made possible through the help of countless others. We are completely interdependent by nature. Yet our human myth of self-sufficiency alienates us from the wonder and magic of that truth.
While the most essential help comes to us without request, I’ve found that there is enchantment in the act of asking for and receiving help from the web of life. It enhances the experience of being alive…and it strengthens my sense of belonging.
I’ll give you a personal example. One day last week, I awoke feeling heavy and burdened. A tenacious cold virus had taken up residence in our household for several weeks. In addition to some uncomfortable physical symptoms, I felt oppressed by lethargy and relative isolation. I felt pulled toward a kind of depression.
That’s when I remembered to ask for help!
Misery was my signal that I was out of touch with life’s magic—I’d lost contact with my felt sense of belonging to life. So I turned to the “key of belonging,” a four-fold reality that’s central in the Wheel of Wisdom (image below).
Before I tell you about the help I received, I’d like to share with you one way to use the key of belonging to ask for help. Perhaps you’ll be inspired to try it…
Asking for Help Turns the Key
Ask for Physical Help
With eyes closed and palms on legs, breathe rhythmically and feel the earthy groundedness of your body. Ask the Muse of Somatic Belonging—the consciousness of Earth—to reveal a pleasurable sensation, no matter how small.
1. palms down on thighs Ask for Emotional Help
With one hand on chest and the other on belly, sense the flow of water within you. Ask the Muse of Intimate Belonging—the consciousness of Water—to soften your heart and connect you to tenderness.
2. hands on chest & belly Ask for Mental Help
Place palms over eyes and breathe air into the darkness. Ask the Muse of Social Belonging—the consciousness of Air/Space—to disperse stagnant thoughts and create an inner spaciousness to clearly perceive your current place in life.
3. palms on closed eyes Ask for Soul Help
Rest hands palms up and be still. Ask your Soul—the consciousness of Light and Infinite Belonging—to surround you with peaceful loving presence. Allow Love-Light to radiate from the core of your being into every cell.
Once you feel reconnected to this nourishment, you could ask for other help as well—like creative inspiration to address a problem, direction to navigate a situation, relief from a burden, or insight into a specific area of your life.
I’ve found that some help comes immediately, unless I’m resistant to receiving. Other help takes time to show up…but it does come!
Receiving Help Opens the Door
The help that arrives often looks different than expected. But if we can receive the help that comes, if we allow ourselves to be reoriented, a door opens.
That is the practical magic of asking and receiving.
On the morning I felt weighted and directionless, having spent much of the prior weeks in bed, I asked for help and allowed myself to receive it. I welcomed a subtle sense of belonging—in body, heart, mind, and soul. I let it re-orient me. The felt sense that I’m connected to something vast helped me perceive my situation in a new way.
After asking for help, new insights or ideas tend to “drop in” effortlessly, and I might encounter a wonderful synchronicity. Often I’ll experience a rush of compassion for whomever I’m struggling with—most often that turns out to be me.
It’s a Revolving Door
Last week, once I allowed myself to feel re-connected to the mystery of life, the next bit of help I received was heart opening—a wave of compassion for the person who was struggling. With neither self-pity nor self-shame I acknowledged that I was feeling bereft of the meaningful engagement I wanted. That simple act of kindness named a truth that further shifted my mood. Next, I received an influx of energy and inspiration to share this practice with you here.
However, those shifts didn’t last forever. The motion of life is an ever revolving door—a continual cycle of ebb and flow. Some days I could sustain a felt sense of belonging while I felt sick and unable to do what I’d prefer. That’s when I used my hibernation to reflect and allow feelings of grief, for all that’s passing away, to do the slow and quiet work of changing me. Other days, when I repeatedly sank into a hole, I asked for help repeatedly!
Whenever I asked, help arrived.
Help has come in the form of inspiring movies, thought provoking book passages, connected conversations, deep breathing, a purring cat, Christmas pancakes, pink streaks in the morning sky, and the fragrant beauty of a yellow winter rose.
Help is anything that re-connects me to a larger reality, anything that helps me appreciate or peacefully accept “what is.” Help is whatever re-awakens me to the magic of our interconnectedness and the boundlessness of belonging, which includes every experience we have and transcends every story we have about it.
Now that I’m feeling better, I’d love to know how you ask for help. Also, if you do try using the key, please tell me what happens for you!
So lovingly and precisely written - this rings true to my experience too. Thanks for creating such an articulate and experiential way of connecting with the reality of Infinite Belonging. So much more than metaphysical mumbo-jumbo, you show how Infinite Belonging is an existential fact that can be directly experienced: ask (opening the heart), let go of assumptions & expectations (opening the mind) and… receive. Something always comes. It’s a magic so everyday and ordinary that I keep forgetting about it! Thanks for the reminder, Helen, and for sharing a concrete way of making this helpful universe real again.