If I could not find belonging in my story of my father, in my grief, where could I find it? If I belonged nowhere and to no one, then what was I? Who was I?

I cannot remember a time when I wasn’t aware of the fact that I had multiple selves, or a divided self, and that I needed to behave differently with the different groups of people that made up my life. All people do this to some extent, but some must be more skillful at it than others.

When I encounter strangers from my tribes, they are startled by my attempts to communicate. They do not recognize me as one of their own. They laugh, charmed and perhaps a little disturbed by the discrepancy between appearance and sound. When I explain myself, they think me a curious hybrid. They speak to me, always, in English.

Sometimes this difference is not even substantive. Sometimes it is a shift internally that the listener cannot see, but the thinker can feel. Sometimes it is a new emotional relationship with the thought.

So I have become impressed by those thinker-‘repetition’ moments, now understanding that, yes, it matters what the thinker says, but it matters more what happens for them because they say it.

We also have seen the power of repeating a question. And we know about the importance of using the thinker’s own words if we refer to their thinking. People think in their own specific words, not just in their own language.

Language brings forth the world that you live in. if you want to change, it’s profoundly useful to observe how you language yourself into being and in your relationships.