In dialogue with Sebene Selassie, teacher, author and speaker who explores belonging and identity, deep diving into these topics in her forthcoming book, You Belong. Sebene offers up paradoxes for us to grapple with, inviting a reckoning with culturally created separateness and the ultimate truth of our belonging. Sebene and Chela explore many themes of belonging including the pathology of productivity, punitive self-development and the complex and messy territory of social justice, spirituality and cultivating community. Sebene brings thoughtful, deep and fiercely compassionate insight and practice to what it means to lead and to belong to all of this.

Listen in as they talk about…

• What it means to truly love your Self, how without this core awareness and practice, we end up loving the wrong things
• Patterns of mind and habits entrenched within our nature and our conditioning and how these contribute to a sense of disconnection, comparison and competition and what’s fundamentally needed to find a place of belonging with and in all things.
• The ways in which learning and growth are cyclical, ever coming around and deepening and the traps of approaching development or spirituality through a punitive lens
• The nature of compassion and how fierce compassion may be being expressed through revolution, dismantling and even destruction.
• Identity within leadership and allowing ones own identity and relationship with leadership to evolve over time

 Thank you, Sebene, for your wisdom, insight, generosity and hope!

More from Sebene:

To belong is to experience joy in any moment: to feel pleasure, dance in public, accept death, forgive what seems unforgivable, and extend kindness to yourself and others. To belong is also to acknowledge injustice, reckon with history, and face our own shadows. Full of practical advice and profound revelations, “You Belong” makes a winning case for resisting the forces that demand separation and reclaiming the connection—and belonging—that have been ours all along.
Get your copy here.

About Sebene:

Sebene Selassie is a teacher, author and speaker who explores the themes of belonging and identity through meditation, creativity and spirituality. Born in Ethiopia and raised in Washington DC, Sebene began studying Buddhism 30 years ago as an undergraduate at McGill University where she majored in Comparative Religious Studies. She has an MA from the New School where she focused on race and cultural studies. For over 20 years Sebene worked with children, youth, and families nationally and internationally for small and large not-for-profits. She has been teaching classes, workshops and retreats for the past decade. Sebene is a much admired teacher on the Ten Percent Happier meditation app and is a three-time cancer survivor of Stage III and IV breast cancer. Her first book “You Belong: A Call for Connection” will be published by HarperOne in August.

Find Sebene here:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sebenebselassie
Instagram: @sebeneselassie
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebeneselassie/From this episode: