At peace on a beach in Honolulu, listening to the endless sound of waves breaking across the shore.
I feel the warmth of the sun with a comforting breeze and see the dance of the clouds across the backdrop of the great blue sky.
Hawaii has always felt like home, but not the hometown in which I grew up.
Of course, my parents’ home was my sanctuary where I felt seen, accepted and appreciated just as I was by my loving mom and dad.
But outside of my family home, as a third generation Chinese-Canadian, I did not have that same sense of belonging that I feel in Honolulu.
In Hawaii, people of diverse and mixed ethnicity are seen as normal.
Even as visitors, we all belong. People who don't know me only expect me to speak English and I am treated like a local as if I was born there.
That is what our local communities should aspire to in our own way. We need to nurture a more integrated harmonious society without prejudice based on appearances.
I long for a world where every individual feels a beloved part of a greater whole — where everyone hears and feels the words, "You belong here."
This is one of my life projects — to co-create a world where every being feels a deep sense of belonging.
This will require a new global mindset in which people recognize our limited narratives and world views that pigeon-hole other beings as so different and disconnected that we see "others" and ourselves alone and separate.
"Wherever you go, there you are" is attributed to Buckaroo Bonzai and Jon Kabat-Zinn who used it as a title for his book on mindfulness but it was first said by Confucius.
We travel the world in search of a place where we feel at home — content and at peace, but we seek peace and happiness in all the wrong places.
Ultimate peace and happiness are not rooted in any place so much as in the composure of our minds. We each must expand our mental models and world views to see from ever greater perspectives. We each have to release our tight holds on our opinions, points of view, habitual thoughts and assumptions, and limited sense of self.
We are each more than we appear to be to ourselves and others. Every one of us is more than we think we are.
We ought to continually ask, "What am I not accepting?"
We must accept the world and our lived lives as they are at this moment - moment by moment, even if our thoughts and feelings do not like them and would like things to be different.
Not one of us sees all there is — even what is right in front of us — as it really is.
Our physical senses are limited by our human physicality and our brains' automatic interpretations of the stimuli they perceive. We judge and categorize what we think we sense, composing or sustaining our comfortable narratives.
Like good scientists, we ought to recognize that our current theories of how things work, how the world is and who we are are incomplete.
When we cannot accept something that doesn't fit our world views, we must seek to expand our mental models and with that create an ever greater sense of self.
Dr. Davidicus Wong is a Burnaby family physician and has written for Glacier Media since 1991.
To learn more about how we each construct the stories of our lives and how they influence our thoughts, emotions and relationships, join Dr. Wong for the next online talk of the Burnaby Division of Family Practice’s Empowering Patients public education program.
At 7 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 19, Dr, Wong will present “Emotional Wellbeing and Resilience Practices” to prepare you for the busy and often emotional holiday season, covering key emotional health skills (including emotional awareness, mindfulness, managing stress, and managing our thoughts and feelings); recognizing the symptoms of stress, anxiety, mood and other psychological conditions; and where to find help when needed.
For more information, you can visit the Burnaby Division of Family Practice's website.
