Sleeping with Bread

"During the bombing raids of WWII, thousands of children were orphaned and left to starve. The fortunate ones were rescued and placed in refugee camps where they received food and good care. But many of these children who had lost so much could not sleep at night. They feared waking up to find themselves once again homeless and without food. Nothing seemed to reassure them. Finally, someone hit upon the idea of giving each child a piece of bread to hold at bedtime. Holding their bread, these children could finally sleep in peace. All through the night the bread reminded them, "Today I ate and I will eat again tomorrow." (Linn, Dennis et al, SleepingWith Bread, p.l)"
You simply ask yourself, in the last day/week/month what gave me consolation and what caused me desolation. You can also phrase the question in any of the following ways:
For what am I most grateful? Least grateful?
When did I give and receive the most love? The least love?
When did I feel most alive? Most drained of life?
When did I have the greatest sense of belonging? Least sense of belonging?
When was I most free? Least free?
When was I most creative? Least creative?
When did I feel most connected? Least connected?
When did I feel most fully myself? Least myself?
When did I feel most whole? Most fragmented?
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When did I have the greatest sense of belonging?

Two places/moments I'd say for this week.

One was on Wednesday when my staff cornered me in a high traffic area to ask if I'd been promoted and failed to tell them.
I didn't take them seriously enough--so they reiterated their concern:
"No, really Mel--did you get promoted and just not tell us?"
I had to laugh, in part because I was uneasy.
...see......I've been asked to promote and I had this fear that the boss managed to get it done without my permission...that would suck.
And then they pointed out to me that the agency newspaper had me listed as a 20 year employee, belonging to a DIFFERENT (main site campus where all the politicing goes on) program.
Wanna see a group of people get protective and possessive real fast?
That's where they went in short order.
No, I've not promoted--and if I do I won't give up this program that I helped to found. There's a chunk of me here. But I got this huge sense of 'belonging' and a deep abiding sense of responsibility to all of them. That was a really cool and affirming feeling.

Second place of the greatest sense of belonging--one of my A.A. meetings that I attend regularly.
I managed to get reminded how I'd intended to get the heck OUT of that meeting cuz the people in it were making me nutz. LOL Wisepersoninmylife suggested I keep going back until I ceased feeling nutz. (thanksverymuch, big fella..........NOT) It's now one of my favorite meetings, go figure! When I got reminded of how unruly and 'off' it was I also got a warm fuzzy from one of the old fellas (who has a spot in my heart) when he thanked me for sticking around and helping it become a great meeting.
Shucks...........and I was thinking it was cuz I asked HIM to show up to help get the meeting turned in a different direction that it's turned out to be one of my favorite places to sit my rear in the chair at!! (and still do think it's more about HIM!)

........Least sense of belonging?

Oddly enough--it was at work.
Didn't I just say I felt a huge sense of belonging there?

Yeah, well....first the sense of not belonging came.
I'm glad it was followed up by the other incident.

A whole bunch of staff were congregrating around the back door cuz it was decent outside and it was Wednesday meeting day. They take breaks from clinical meetings--who wouldn't need a break from all the psychobabble? LOL
I opted to grab something from my car at that same moment in time.

Ya know how conversations STOP suddenly--yeah, well, theirs did......
And it was one of those awkward silences.

I know I'm their boss.
I know it's a natural thing to feel a bit........intimidated by your supervisors presence.
I don't know that I like it.

I can accept that's a part of the deal.

I don't have to like that sense of 'not belonging' in some of the arenas that I used to have carte blanche to, ya know?