So what do I do when I feel I don\u2019t belong? I\u2019ve read your blog last week that \u201csense of place is a tangible, sensory experience of the physical environment, or an embodied sensing of a physical place<\/em>\u201d, but please make it practical. I moved to another town to be with someone who supports me financially, but he hits me. Do I belong in this relationship, in this place? Or, we have to moved to another country so that my husband can study further and now we have to move again, but then I won\u2019t be able to pursue my career any more, and it feels so far from my family. How do we make this decision? How do we create a home for us, find a place where we belong? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps\nI should have mentioned that in my opinion, the sense of first belonging is in\nyour body \u2013 to experience a sense of ease in your body and a sense of\nacceptance of who you are in the body you have \u2013 in the body you are. If that sense\nof first belonging is not established from birth and re-affirmed through a\nsense of unconditional acceptance, also through adequate and appropriate touch,\nit\u2019s difficult to do it in a reliable way later \u2013 but not impossible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So\nif you have a feeling that you don\u2019t belong, I would first explore the sense of\nbelonging in your own body. But our bodies do make meaning of a certain place \u2013\nthrough smell, texture, the quality of light, moving through a space, touch,\ntaste \u2013 and the kind of relationships we form in that place. Sometimes we\narrive at a point in our life, that who we are and who we want to be, does not\ncorrespond to the place we live in \u2013 or in narrative terms, where the landscape\nof action doesn\u2019t support the landscape of consciousness\/ identity (see there I\nwander into theory again\u2026). And then perhaps, it\u2019s time to move on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Narrative\npsychologists Jill Freedman and Gene Combs define landscape of consciousness as\n\u201cthat imaginary territory where people\nplot new meanings, desires, intentions, beliefs, commitments, motivations,\nvalues, and the like that relate to their experience in the landscape of\naction. In other words, in the landscape of consciousness, people reflect on\nthe implications of experiences storied in the landscape of action<\/em>.\u201d Real\nand vivid stories should make meaning, and this meaning is developed in the\nlandscape of consciousness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nwould imagine that there should be some kind of equilibrium between place and\nidentity, between the bodies we are and the spaces we move and make meaning in.\nIf that is teared and disrupted then a new space should be found to make new\nmeaning in. Different kinds of violence (physical, emotional, economic,\npolitical etc.) can also lead to different kinds of displacement \u2013 uprooted and\ndislodged by force, which is often very traumatic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ncrucial component that should be explored when trying to figure out if you\nbelong in a certain place, is the quality of relationships you are in. If these\nrelationships do not support making sense of your life in a specific place,\nthen perhaps it\u2019s time to move on\u2026 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So what do I do when I feel I don\u2019t belong? I\u2019ve read your blog last week that \u201csense of place is a tangible, sensory experience of the physical environment, or an embodied sensing of a physical place\u201d, but please make it practical. I moved to another town to be with someone who supports me …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":426,"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424\/revisions\/426"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}