Do You Feel Empty and Lost Inside? The Power of Place: Your Where to Somewhere

Does a place where you are from root you in you? What if you find yourself in a different place than your "place"?

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

What does it mean to have roots? In most cases the metaphor implies a genetic legacy, a cultural inheritance comprising a set of values and beliefs, or a connection with a place that comes from having spent one’s childhood there. In each of these cases there is an assumption that roots are passed down through family generations or are cultivated when a person is very young.

Radhika Borde

WHERE ARE YOU FROM?

People will ask: where are you from? If you are from the United States, you will usually respond with either a State that you are from (I’m from Minnesota), or a city (I’m from Chicago). Or a region (I’m from the South). Depending on how you look and how you talk, usually it is not really hard to pinpoint a general continent and even country that someone is from. But does the place that you are from make you proud? Ashamed? Happy? Sad? Rooted? A part of a legacy, a people, a place, a purpose in life?

Why does it even matter? Do we need “roots” that we can hold on to - do we need a definition of ourselves that includes a “place” that we call ours? But maybe “place” is too limiting - “place” can mean a physical place we are from, or maybe where we are now, or maybe what we want to be. But I argue we all want somehow to belong, to have a “group”, or not just engage in a community but be “from” that community in a way that defines us.

Case in point: I was once a part of a decently large community. A church community to be exact. I was part of this community for 50 years, grew up in it. It defined me, I was part of it, related to the people in it as my extended family. Then, one day, it all fell apart. Literally, within five days. Fifty years of engagement, over in five days. There were accusations of impropriety on the part of leadership, and as I witnessed and now intimately understand, in non-profit groups, especially church groups, these are held together by the expectations of the group based on a perceived morality. If that morality is perceived to be flawed, right or wrongly, the dominoes quickly fall.

This is not true in a business group or a political group. Leadership can be perceived to be unbelievably flawed, and no one cares because the expectations and rewards from such groups are different.

What’s really interesting is my personal experience is actually way more common than I ever thought. Loss of communities is common, more common than actually having one that lasts.

BUT WHAT IF YOU LEAVE YOUR “PLACE”?

On the other hand, being defined by roots can problematic if one has moved into another country, or another place within that country that is different (In the US, the “South” is about as different from “California” as black is to white), or another community different than the one you previously belonged to. Here is what Anastasia Piatakhina Gire (who is Russian and moved to France) has to say about her experience leaving her “roots” and relocating in an entirely different “place”:

We all come to our new country with some kind of luggage. Sometimes we bring with us some heavily charged suitcases, sometimes just a few books and a backpack. Even if we like to travel light, we still carry some pieces of our reality, the cultural, social and political realities of our country of origin, with us to all the places we go. How is this baggage influencing the way we feel and the way others perceive us in the country in which we have stopped? Does it really matter where we come from?

I would argue it is not just moving to another country where this is true. Joining a new community (say a new church, or a new civic association, or some new group) is difficult to fit in, to feel like it is home, to “belong” and find a sort of comfort of close meaningful relationships born out of a shared connection. But, as Gire asked, does it matter where we are from?

THE THOUGHT TO THINK

And here it is: do we need a place that defines us if we want to feel connected, less rootless, less unhappy? I argue our happiness DOES depend on how we perceive who we are ESPECIALLY regarding to our “place”. Do we need roots that help us locate ourselves, even if we are in another place? Do we need a community that speaks to our desire to “belong”? Some people will say an emphatic “NO” - especially those who have had the experience I have had. I would argue though - I watch those same people look for a replacement community, or start emphasizing their roots, their place, “their people” or find something that serves as a replacement because there is an inherent emptiness inside that demands it be filled.

My theory is that there are no vacuums in the world we live in. If something is empty, it is not long before it is filled - with something. I’ve worked in and with Nature (the environment) my whole life (agriculture) and I’m amazed by how all vacuums in nature, in the environment, are eventually filled with something. For instance, as an example, as a principle, the Earth always seeks to cover herself. I said that in the feminine as that is how I think of the earth: nurturing, constantly creating, looking for stability and equilibrium. When you plow the ground, if you leave it plowed and don’t do anything else, the earth will eventually cover the bare soil with plants.

I think WE ALL want to belong somewhere. I wonder if we are made that way - and all vacuums will be filled. Very very hard to be alone, rootless, a stranger in a strange land. We all want some sort of connection - but many of us want freedom as well.

Where this is highlighted is when, like myself and my experience, a person suffers a loss of a community, or becomes estranged from a family, or loses close friends, or ends up hating their heritage for whatever reason. When this happens, the overpowering drive is to replace it somehow, with something. Something to call “home”, someone that might make you feel “rooted”, or an identification that roots you in a posture of belonging - like “I’m Italian”, or “I’m American”. Even if you hate being an “American”, I argue that you can’t “not be it”.

SO WHAT NOW?

We all come from somewhere. That somewhere defines us, like it or not. It’s not the only thing, genetics, parental influences, location(s) growing up are powerful in the way they shape our thinking, the way they shape us. Growing up my family moved all over the U.S., but I really grew up in Oregon and that experience shaped me. If someone asked me where I’m from, I’m from Oregon even though I’ve lived in Iowa longer than I lived in Oregon. I’ve traveled the world, and I’m struck with how I’m confronted with the fact that I am an American, like it or not.

I have to decide: will I be proud, or will I deny? This is the thought to think - where am I from, how does it define me, and when I truly acknowledge the reality of where I am from (country, family, or community), that is part of the beginning of identifying who I truly am. If I can accept it with all the baggage that it brings, I can begin to engage with long-term happiness

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