A Christmas wish unfolds as Charlie Mackesy reminds me in The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse:
“You can only see the outside but nearly everything happens on the inside.”
Standing at the check-out counter, looking around, I can glimpse some of what is happening within. I notice how each person I meet carries traces—imprints—that need held. Some wear their pain on the outside—the disconnected person behind register, the child crying and acting out in the store. I ask myself, “What is happening on the inside of this person? What is happening within me as I watch?”
And then I begin to think about belonging. What does it mean to belong in a world where so many of us carry unseen wounds—wounds we treat as taboo? Wounds that “don’t belong.” Wounds we can barely accept in ourselves, let alone allow in another.
These are the wounds of abandonment in all its forms: abandonment by family, by society, by our communities, and eventually the abandonment of our own selves. The truth is, so many of us have bodies and emotions that are overlooked—parts of us that are not held, accepted, or loved.
Being held is like a flower opening to a visiting butterfly—the moment of meeting becomes nourishment. The butterfly brings what the flower needs to keep blooming. What if we greeted what is hurting in the same way? What if our presence could say, “I see you hurting. I am here. You don’t have to go through this alone.”
When we look inside ourselves—or into another—with this kind of gentle knowing, shame can begin to soften. Over time, wounds can even turn to nectar. We feel safer. We begin to experience belonging, no matter how messy our journey has been.
I wonder what would happen if we offered this kind of holding to one another, if we met each person not with judgment but with the gentle curiosity of someone noticing the unseen, the unheld. Perhaps belonging begins there, in the silent recognition of our wounded selves, and in returning the same recognition to the wounds of others.
Can you imagine a world where we truly hold each other with love—just hold, just as we are? Where our tears would replenish the oceans, rivers, and streams of the earth, nourish the soil where it has been depleted, and our voices, finally aligned, would create a wind of harmony that flows through every moment afterward—a movement of joy, freedom, and the courage to live fully for one another in peace.
For when you are truly held in love—in every aspect of your being—you are healed. You belong to yourself. And you will never want to leave that feeling again. When you are held this deeply, no harm remains; only peace exists. And that is my Christmas wish for everyone.
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