You don’t have to go back in time to find your way home.
At some point in time and space, a barefoot human sat in the dust of early earth, near a fire that crackled beneath stars we still see today. They flexed their toes in the soil—not for warmth, but for connection. The ground was familiar. It didn’t ask for credentials. It offered stability. Safety. Home. There were no borders. No binaries. No need to earn belonging—it was already theirs. They were part of a tribe. A people. A story. Just by being human.
Somewhere along the arc of becoming “civilized,” we began to drift. Belonging became conditional. Earned. Marketed. Measured. We built walls, drew maps, labeled ourselves into boxes so tight we forgot we were ever part of something bigger. We began to believe we had to prove we belonged—to a place, a group, an identity. And some of us were told, again and again, that we didn’t.
Now, at any moment we could speak to someone across the world, but many of us feel more alone than ever. We scroll through curated lives, hungry for something real. Algorithms tell us who we might know, what we should buy, who we should be. But they can’t tell us where we truly belong. They echo our preferences, not our humanity.
And yet, beneath the noise, our wiring hasn’t changed. Our bodies still long for tribe. Our nervous systems still seek safety in closeness. We are ancient creatures with modern devices—yearning not just to be seen, but to be held by something steady. We crave eye contact. Laughter that doesn’t echo off a screen. The quiet comfort of knowing someone would notice if we were gone.
Belonging isn’t something we have to hustle for. It’s not granted by trend, title, or tribe. It’s something older—something we’re born with. The problem isn’t that we lost it. It’s that we’ve forgotten how to feel it.
So ask yourself—where do you feel most like you belong? Not where you’re accepted because you fit, but where you’re welcomed because you’re real. Who are the people who see you without performance? When was the last time you felt safe enough to exhale without shrinking yourself first?
You don’t have to go back in time to find your way home. You just have to remember what your body already knows: that you were made for connection. That you belong—not just to humanity, but to the Earth that has always held us. The same ground beneath your feet today once cradled the soles of those first humans. You are still part of that lineage. Still barefoot, in a way. Still human. Still part of the story.
Journal Prompt
If belonging is your birthright, how are you honoring it?
How do you speak to yourself?
How do you move through the world around you?
How do you treat the Earth that holds you—and the people who share it with you?
Are your actions rooted in connection…
or in forgetting?
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