Practicing Belonging with Toko-pa Turner

What makes us feel like we belong? Ruby talks to author and mystic Toko-pa Turner about "belonging" as a skill that we practice when we are able to welcome home parts of ourselves that we have cut off in order to "fit in." 

Given than many of us drink to feel a sense of belonging in our intimate relationships, our careers, and our wider social lives, Toko-pa's teachings are extremely relevant to the Sober Curious path—especially a at time when a period of self-isolation in response to the coronavirus epidemic has many of us questioning what really matters, and who we even are without the distractions of our everyday lives. In this episode we discuss: 

-Our lack of belonging as a part of our core collective wounding.

-The meaning of belonging, why we feel outside of it, and why so few of us feel like we belong.

-What’s behind the epidemic of loneliness and alienation in our culture.

-The competencies of belonging – and how we can relearn this skill.

-Exile from the self as the root of our addictions.

-Drinking to fit in – when we feel like parts of ourselves won’t be accepted.

-Recovery as a journey of recovering and re-integrating the lost parts of ourselves.

-The “difficult and harrowing project” of welcoming all of our pain and wounding back.

-Quitting drinking as one of the “initiations by exiles” that can re-claim an authentic sense of self.

-The power we gain back when we sacrifice, or “give up,” alcohol and the false belonging of the drinking culture.

-Dreamwork as a way to give context to the troubling events and emotions we experience in our waking lives.

-Toko-pa's own journey addressing her problem drinking in her 20s.

Learn more about Toko-pa and her work HERE and download her Dream Drops digital course HERE. You can get your copy of Belonging HERE.

This episode was created in partnership with Seedlip. Use the code SOBERCURIOUS for 20% off your online order at seedlipdrinks.com and follow @seedlipsocial on Instagram.