Finding a sense of somebodiness
Even when you're feeling completely lost
Contemplations
What was your life’s blueprint when you were 17? What did or did not change?
How did you find your sense of somebodiness? Your innate sense of worthiness along the way?
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If you can’t be a pine at the top of the hill, be a shrub in the valley. Be be the best little shrub on the side of the hill.
Be a bush if you can’t be a tree. If you can’t be a highway, just be a trail. If you can’t be a sun, be a star. For it isn’t by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are.
— Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Two Fridays ago, I had the pleasure of leading a mindfulness practice to a group of almost 150 high school juniors and seniors in upstate New York at the third annual MLK Youth Summit. The event was organized by a local organization, Sullivan 180, which is dedicated to turning around the health and wellbeing of folks in the county after the area was rated one of the lowest in the state.
I was heartened to see a diverse group of young people across the county come together and be given a space to dream. That in itself — that act of giving them that space, in believing in them when they themselves might not was a radically compassionate act.
The day was themed around Dr. King’s speech “What is your life’s blueprint?” A speech he gave six months before he was assassinated to a group of high schoolers in Philadelphia on October 26, 1967.
I found it funny, divinely timed, and ironic that the theme of the event was around this idea of finding your path, your passion. Last year after I got laid off (from a full-time job I didn’t want to begin with), I went into a deep state of searching and reflection in terms of what do I actually want to do with my life?
This past year has been a period of transition for me. It has been a ping pong between all the many forms of me: Kim Thai, the meditation teacher; Kim Thai, the writer; Kim Thai, the Emmy-award winning producer; Kim Thai, the human; Kim Thai, the cat mom; Kim Thai, the wife.
I have never struggled to find work — this is combination of privilege, luck and hard work. And the last month I’ve been striking out, not because there aren’t jobs or projects out there for me, but in many ways, I feel like I have been failing. I have been ready to run, but have been stuck because I don’t know where I’m running.
At the Youth Summit, I was invited not just to lead a mindfulness moment but also share my story to all the students to help them figure out their sense of “somebodiness” that Dr. King spoke about:
“I want to suggest some of the things that should begin your life’s blueprint. Number one in your life’s blueprint should be a deep belief in your own dignity, your worth and your own somebodiness.
Don’t allow anybody to make you feel that you’re nobody.
Always feel that you count.
Always feel that you have worth, and always feel that your life has ultimate significance.”
His words were a powerful reminder to me and I was also at a loss — how was I supposed to help these young people find their way when it felt like I didn’t even know mine?
Not to be a Buddhist about it but…
Thầy (Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh) and Dr. King were friends back in the ‘60s. In fact, Dr. King nominated Thầy for the Nobel Peace Prize even though the two had only met twice. When I started prepping for the Youth Summit, I found myself wishing I could have listened to their conversations — a shared vision filled with aspiration and a deep hope for a peaceful and compassionate world.
I have written a lot about emptiness in the past. In many traditions, teachers might share emptiness through the form of interdependence. Or as Thầy says, we “inter-are.”
I remember watching my first video on emptiness, when Thầy said “empty of what?” I furrowed my eyebrows and knew I had much to learn. Since then, I’ve been a bit obsessed with this powerful teaching because it is at the heart of Buddhism — this idea that we are nothing because we are everything.
Another monastic gave an example of how calling an orchid, an orchid did not do the incredible flower justice to fully encompass all that it is, was and will become. Think about the sun that is in these flowers, the soil, the water, the other plants, and all the plants that came before this one.
I had written a big long boring thing about me to share with the kids, but wanted to meet myself where I was. And I realized in that moment that I wasn’t just one of those jobs, labels, credentials, I wasn’t just one of those “personas” — I was all of them.
I shared myself authentically and reminded these high schoolers that they could be a lot of things, that they could have a lot of blueprints, that it was OK if they didn’t know what their blueprint looked like, that it could and will change — that it was all of it and none of it all at the same time.
I found that when I shared my “failures” and my challenges, I connected with them the most. I shared that when I decided to major in mechanical engineering, I quickly failed out of all my classes and it was the first of many potholes I drove through in my career. And that I had thought I had landed my dream job only to crash and burn. I could see the tension in their bodies release just a tiny bit every time I shared, knowing that we are all human.
Now as I gain more and more clarity about my path, I am finding ways to embrace the inherit complexity of who I am, that I don’t need to actively integrate all the parts of me, I just need to stop separating myself. And that mindfulness and my breath was the key to helping me see all of me.
I know now that no matter what my blueprint looked like and what job I had — or didn’t — that I was still somebody. That my inherent sense of worthiness was not defined by anything that I did or owned.
That I was, am and always will be luminous.
Meditation
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