Embodied Living: Safety, Belonging, & Dignity

Safety, Belonging, and Dignity are inherent, biological needs. Yet, there are so many who do not have an embodied sense of these needs.  Many have experienced a rupture in one or more of these needs due to trauma, oppression, & power over systems. Eventually, we must realize that though safety, belonging, and dignity are essential to our very existence, they are not granted to us by our social structures and we must learn how to provide them for ourselves. We must realize the pain of the protective, survival strategies that we developed in response to these ruptures and the impact that they have on the way that we move through life. We must learn how to develop boundaries that protect us from harm without shutting out the parts of life that are nourishing & beautiful. We must learn how to move out of reactionary survival strategy and move into responses…