Part 12: Beyond Belonging

Tim Jurgensen

05 Nov 2024 — 11 min read

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.
— T.S. Elliot

According to Master Linji the miracle is not to walk on water or in thin air, but to walk on Earth. Walk in such a way that you become fully alive and joy and happiness are possible. That is the miracle that everyone can perform.
— Thich Naht Hahn

I don’t aspire to be a good man.
I aspire to be a whole man.
— Carl Jung

For me to be a saint means to be myself. Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am and of discovering my true self.
― Thomas Merton

The air was so thick it clung to your skin, the kind of humidity you can practically cut with a knife.

Despite it still being early, not even 9:00 am, it was already disconcertingly hot.

This enveloping warmth acted like an ominous harbinger, reminding you that the day had barely begun, so the heat would only unapologetically and somewhat unfathomably increase.

As foreign as the sheer heat and humidity felt to my body, I nevertheless found a familiar feeling in the sensation of sand in between my toes and the sound of the salty surf rhythmically crashing.

Like many times before, I stood here on the beach at the edge of an expansive body of water. This time, however, the body of water before me was one I had never laid eyes on before: the Arabian Sea.

We had arrived late the night before when it was already dark out. Until then, I had only heard the sound of the crashing waves from our bedroom window - but now, in the early morning light, I could bear witness to them firsthand.

I found myself in, of all places, Udupi — a small coastal city on the western edge of Southern India.

Still tired, Raghu wanted to sleep in a bit longer. A well-earned rest after our late arrival the night before following a strenuous day of roadtripping that had left us both quite exhausted.

While he rested, I ventured out to the beach alone where I presently stood.

Just me and a few stray dogs roaming the beach, all of us attempting to enjoy the peaceful early morning surf despite the thick, hot, humid air.

I had already been in India for nearly two weeks, and I had come to attend Sanjana’s wedding.

After spending over a week with her and her family in Bengaluru and participating in the tremendous festivities, Raghu (who had also relocated back to Bengaluru from the Netherlands) and I decided to take a road trip together through the southern state of Karnataka towards the coast.

Reminiscent of our previous road trip across the Netherlands, this one involved a vehicle instead of bikes, a hilly and tropical landscape rather than flat and windy countryside, and 500 kilometers rather than a mere 110.

If you had told me as I prepared to move to the Netherlands that it would somehow end up with me taking a road trip across southern India, I probably would have never believed you.

Nevertheless, here I was — experiencing that mysterious “now nostalgia” yet again.

Udupi was the furthest stop on our little road trip before heading back to Bengaluru.

It was the furthest point we’d reach, the farthest we would go, before inevitably turning around to make our return.

I reflected that morning on how this was true in more ways than one.

Someone recently asked me:

What has self-acceptance looked like for you in the time since your master’s program?

After graduating, I decided to stay in the Netherlands. Not only was this something that I plainly wanted, having fallen in love with the country, but so too was it something I needed.

This was reflected back to me by my therapist, who, having observed the tremendous upheaval and overhaul of my worldview firsthand, suggested that I take some time to process, integrate, and, frankly, to heal before considering a return home.

Indeed, my master’s program had turned my entire world upside down, permanently altering the manner in which I viewed myself and the world around me — so it would be somewhat of an understatement to say that it left me with a lot to process, digest and make sense of.

One of the most “inconvenient” things I have learned about both the spiritual path and the path to healing is that, unfortunately, insight is mostly worthless — on its own — in the pursuit of transformation.

You can devour all the books of great spiritual teachers, acquire endless insights about your inner self and aspects of your trauma, and hoard knowledge about psychology and personal development, but it does you absolutely no good unless you find a practical way to translate that insight into embodied forms of integration.

Integration, after all, is what differentiates the act of acquiring information and the act of transformation.

Staying in the Netherlands allowed me to focus on the integration - it allowed me the space to integrate the new insights I had amassed into my life, to get curious about their implications for how I showed up in the world and my relationships, and to consider how to translate my new cognitive knowledge into embodied terms.

For example, it was great that I finally intellectually knew that accepting the totality of my human condition was the most moral thing I could do. That my queerness was not inherently evil or morally threatening.

It was great, too, that I finally knew, on a cognitive level, that accepting the totality of myself was the only way to experience psychological and spiritual wholeness. That self-rejection was the source of my suffering and that my sense of belonging was directly correlated to my sense of self-acceptance.

But what did any of that mean on a practical and embodied level?

Knowing these insights did not mean that I suddenly “liked” my human condition or that I felt “good” about being queer. It certainly didn’t mean that I suddenly had a balanced sense of self-esteem after years of moralistic self-shaming and violence towards myself. Nor did it mean that I suddenly felt safe with myself, that I could trust myself not to abandon or abuse myself as I had religiously done for years.

Knowing these insights also did not mean that suddenly, I felt comfortable in the body I had chronically felt unsafe in. After years of silencing, punishing, and dissociating from my body and its internal experience, I certainly didn’t feel immediately comfortable reconnecting with its intuition, impulses, and sensations, nor did I feel immediately safe within its borders.

My self-acceptance had liberated me to belong, but that did not mean it had healed me.

This was the new frontier of my life post-self-acceptance: to begin to heal.

What I can say now is that religious trauma is no joke, but with the help of therapists and coaches, I gradually began to reclaim my life and my nervous system from the stranglehold of my fundamentalist faith and its apocalyptic construction of the cosmos.

In doing so, I have learned that healing is a lifelong, never-ending process; that there is no “arrival” or “completion.”

Nevertheless, I got started.

While talk therapy and EMDR was helpful for a time — I eventually realized I could not ponder or think my way into wholeness and healing.

Whole healing meant healing my whole self.

And so, at some point, my healing had to include more than just addressing my mind and its deeply ingrained cognitive structures — it had to include my body, too.

And so, I started taking dance classes as a means to re-negotiate my relationship with my body.

My dance classes transformed my life more than anything else as they helped me find my way back into my body and feel, slowly but surely, back at home there. These classes helped to give my body a voice again; they taught me how to listen to it rather than silence it and how to compassionately witness it rather than punitively judge or punish it. While I certainly still have a long way to go - slowly but surely, through dance, I have gradually built a greater sense of inner trust, safety, respect, and love for the body I once only viewed with suspicion, fear, and resentment. And the more I have cultivated a sense of belonging to my body, the more I have joyfully discovered a newfound belonging to the world.

Besides dance classes, I also sought out another integrative modality, one that employs the innate healing wisdom of our bodies, nature, and human connection: a guided psychedelic trip with a trained integrative coach and facilitator. This beautiful experience was one of shedding, release, and expansion. It was one of the most intense experiences I’ve ever had — but also one of the most therapeutic and meaningful, as it helped me come back home to my truest self and helped me relinquish some heavy baggage that simply was no longer mine to carry.

And yes, as you may be wondering, I started dating. Although this has had its highs and lows (as to be expected), it has mostly felt like remembering something I had long forgotten. Which is to say, it has felt like the most natural thing in the world.

If you had told me four years ago that I would be where I am now—out to the world, reconciled with the Mystery and myself, feeling increasingly at home in my body and being held by an irrevocable sense of peace concerning my wondrously brief human condition —I genuinely would have never believed you.

I only wish I could tell that 13-year-old version of myself that Pema Chödrön was right when she said: “When the resistance is gone, the demons are gone.”

I wish I could tell him that it gets better and that life isn’t what we thought - it’s so much better and more complex and beautiful than we could imagine. I’d tell him he never deserved to feel so unsafe, and I’d tell him to hang on — to keep searching because, despite what he feels, there is space in this world for him to belong as he is, and it will all be worth it in the end.

As is true for all of us, I know that my healing — the relinquishing of my weapons of self-rejection — will be a lifelong project that will likely take on many forms. Nevertheless, I feel so grateful for Henri, my family and friends, my therapists, dance teachers, mentors, and guides who have helped me get to where I am today: a salvaged self in pursuit of wholeness.

Two years went by and there I stood on some beach in southern India.

This place was the furthest possible place I could be from where it all began, not only metaphorically but also literally, as I physically stood on the other side of the globe from home.

Not only would Raghu and I soon be returning to Bengaluru — but I would also be making a return of a different variety.

In the week prior to coming to India, I had accepted a new job.

Upon my return, I would be joining the Center for Action and Contemplation and it’s mission to “introduce Christian contemplative wisdom and practices that support transformation and inspire loving action.” **

The circumstances that led to this opportunity are a story all their own, but what I can see now is that my self-acceptance not only paved the way for me to begin to heal but it also created the opportunity to contribute to a more integrated world by joining others already championing this sacred work.

Before joining Raghu back at the Airbnb, I decided to join the stray dogs and take a dip in the crashing waves.

“Maybe it will help cool me off” I thought.

I was sorely disappointed when I discovered the water’s likeness to lukewarm bathwater. Nevertheless, I decided to try anyway - “When in Rome” I said to myself.

Slowly wading out into the water, feeling the wetness hug my legs and thighs, and peering down into the rippling and surging water — I was confronted by how reminiscent this was of my baptisms of time past.

Pondering the baptismal parallel of the moment, I thought, “How fitting I am alone.” If there was any commitment to make now in life, it would only be to myself, and the only witness I would need is the world.

Could I have the courage to show up in the world as I really am, to continue to make my whole self available to love?

This would be a very different commitment than any I had made before.

This time, I wouldn't be pledging to obliterate or abandon myself for love; no, this time, I would be pledging to, as Rumi said, “not to search for love, but to search for all the barriers within yourself that prevent you from being able to receive it.”

Taking a deep breath in, I dove into the water, cleansing the sweat off my brow and yielding to the invitation to come and be sustained – and I surrendered my journey-weary body into the enrapture of the great expanse — perhaps this was an outward expression of an inward change after all.

I resurfaced, this time with a renewed sense of belonging — both to myself and thereby to the world. Baptized into the miracle of my life, in all its complexity and mystery and wonder and joy and sorrow and fullness — baptized into the sacred unfolding of it happening right here and right now in the present moment.

Unrefreshed by the unsettlingly warm water — I emerged with a renewed commitment to the invitation before me: to heal and to help, in the hope that in so doing, I might just contribute, even if just in some small way, to a world where everyone belongs.

“Time to get going,” I said out loud, these words heard only by the strays — both the dogs and the self within me that, after all this time, had finally been found.

*Yielding To Yes operates independently of the Center for Action and Contemplation and does not reflect the views or positions of the organization. All opinions expressed here are my own.