Belonging

From Fear to Freedom on the Path to True Community

By: Rev. angel Kyodo williams

Narrated by: Rev. angel Kyodo williams

Length: 5 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

A visionary voice for inner and outer change inspires us to come home to ourselves - to be of greater service in the world.

We all have a deep yearning to belong - to a community or a people that understands and supports us. “But at its heart,” Rev. angel Kyodo williams teaches, “belonging isn’t about being good enough to be included ‘in the tribe’. Quite the opposite. It is an inside job that requires self-reflection, redefining what we’re committed to: forgiveness, fierce love, and deep spiritual labor.”

In these six engaging audio sessions, the celebrated social and cultural visionary, Zen teacher, master trainer, activist, and author takes us on a journey of inward transformation, conscious action for justice, and unapologetic self-acceptance that reconnects us to our power by teaching us how to show up to our lives with greater courage and compassion.

“When you belong wholly to yourself,” Rev. angel reflects, “you belong anywhere you are.”

With singular depth and unflinching clarity, williams reveals a rich landscape of insights, practices, and life tools to help us embrace what we’ve been resisting, recognize our own value, and support others from a place of genuine inner authority and freedom.

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2021 Reverend angel Kyodo williams (P)2021 Sounds True

Insightful and Revolutionary

This audiobook was released in August 2021 and I’ve re listened it for 4 times and plan to revisit the materials more times and the practices prescribed.

Each time I re listen… I find myself contemplating deeper and deeper on Rev Angel’s message of … is it a true sense of belonging? Or is it membership in a club? If our interactions with some people, organization, culture, system is actually membership and the cost is to cut out parts of ourselves for the illusive sense of belonging, is it worth it? What if we’ve cut so many parts of ourselves already and it’s to a breaking point… ? Also, what is it that we are modeling to others (particularly to our children) if we continue cutting parts of ourselves in order to ‘belong’… which sometimes one might argue it’s paying up on a membership while others might say it’s simply the body trying to find safety in the current society and current culture.

I notice how paying up membership is incredibly painful at times … particularly when the personal sense of integrity needs to be silenced in order to belong (eg do the right thing, stand up for social justice and fearful of that membership in society being taken away in any second, etc).

This book is full of the wisdom to contemplate deeper into life and it’s relatable to all of us.

Highly recommended.

Great listen.

Like other Spiritual teachers, there Reverend has her own distinctive reading voice. It may be a problem for some, but I found it calming. I urge you to stick with it. The information and practices are worth it.

Full of deep insights and simple practices

My nephew introduced me to Rev Angel’s work thru the Great Radical Race Read last year. She brings a healthy and deep spiritual perspective for people like me—a brown woman who seeks to love all in this divisive and judgmental world. I’m glad she narrated this book and shared her point meditation and other practices to help us love and belong to ourselves first, then with all in our spheres of belonging. My most important relationship is with God who created me and keeps creating me to do good in the world, but I forget this quickly with all the distractions in my life. Rev Angel helps me get back to point, centered in presence, because all else is other than point.