How Are We the Same?

Like everyone I know, the triumph of an openly white supremacist, bigoted bully in America’s deeply flawed “democratic” system has left me reeling. I am vacillating between shock, fear, anxiety, depression, paranoia, and rage. I am witnessing many people get physically ill, along with the great impact to our mental health, emotional stability, and hopes for the future. Nearly everyone I know and love is directly harmed by the ideology of those who are preparing to seize power, which leaves me grappling with many big questions.

How can we make sense of this turn of events? How can we continue to build a new paradigm of environmental sustainability, respect for the earth and all sentient beings, interdependent community, and interpersonal safety in this political climate? How can we explain this to our children?

Since the Civil Rights Movement, there has been a dizzying and painful pendulum swing between protecting and expanding the rights of oppressed peoples and repressing and subjugating us – while the deeper roots of that oppression have never been addressed or healed. From JFK/LBJ to Nixon/Ford. From Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan. From Bush to Clinton to GW Bush to Obama. This pattern cannot continue. We must find a way to understand one another on a deeper level, to develop empathy and find compassion for those with whom we disagree politically, so that we cannot be divided and manipulated based on the identities that separate us, as a tactic by the wealthy to remain in control. We need to build connections in such a way that there is no “us” or “them”, only “we the people”.

And so, I have been looking into myself for the ways in which I agree with Trump supporters, the ways in which our hopes, dreams, fears, and pains are the same. Here is my attempt to elucidate some of these similarities, in the hope that doing so may help us find common ground on which to connect and move toward a world of safety, healing, and stability for our children’s children.

We are both full of rage at the “leaders” of this country for neglecting us and our needs, and for favoring the needs of others over those of our families.

We are both fearful of the future, sure that our current trajectory leads to nowhere but destruction and greater suffering.

You felt as scared and bewildered the day Obama was elected as I did the day Trump was – like your world was suddenly crumbling, that your family was in danger, and that the country was being taken over by people you could not trust.

We both feel the impact of a struggling economy, and believe that certain communities have been most neglected and deserve to be better represented and championed by the government while others are receiving undeserved advantages.

We both feel negatively impacted by religious extremism, and fear the continuing rise of these violent and reactionary forces to undermine our freedom and safety.

We both feel personally persecuted by the changes happening in our culture, and wake up in the night in fear of our current trajectory and the unforeseen repercussions yet to come.

We both feel unjustly persecuted and that the anger and violence directed toward us in unwarranted, while also feeling that our own rage is fully justified and under-expressed.

The truth is – we are all in deep pain and suffering, carry the wounds of historical and personal traumas, and live in a state of anxiety and fear encouraged and promoted by a broken culture of disconnection and dehumanization.

Rather than focusing on silencing or neutralizing the power of any individuals, let’s focus on moving beyond the ideas of white supremacy, misogyny, and environmental subjugation. When these myths are finally broken, we will heal from their consequences without continuing to be on this pendulum swing of reactionary outbursts. We will be able to have black lives matter to every person, every day. We will be able to address rape culture as a species, grappling with the impact of our genetic legacy and cultural baggage together.

This work existed last week, and it will exist four years from now. It is our work in the world as healers and visionaries. Let’s draw on our shared dreams of liberation to bring sustenance to our communities, taking care to work toward the future while also finding ways to bring beauty and wellness to our present realities. We will only achieve sustainability and health by being sustainable and healthy. So reach out to someone you care about and share your love with them, today and every day. Let’s practice viewing all people through the eyes of compassion, acceptance, empathy, and unconditional love, so that all people will learn to view us that way as well!

Curating my social media exposure as a form of self-love

Better Safe Than Sorry by Teacher's Media

The never-ending onslaught of offenses, catastrophes, violations and disasters that pepper my social media news feed is a testament to the state of our world. As a life-long progressive activist, I am largely exposed to the posts of folks with similar views and politics. I stopped watching television news years ago, filtering my exposure to current events through the interpretations and actions of reporters who are activists and change-makers. This decision meant I no longer yelled at the screen or turned it off in a fury over the biased, offensive slant of patriarchal, capitalist, racist, sexist, homophobic "news" reporters. It did not, however, protect me from being affected by each horror in a never-ending loop of traumatization. While I freed myself from exposure to the infuriating biases of the news media, I have still been bathed in the injustice of each atrocity. Often I go through several days of depression, anger and grief upon learning the details of yet another violation. From Orlando to Oaxaca, the domestic and international reign of terror, force, control, violence and dehumanization never ends. And while I don't click on each article, analysis, protest announcement, or petition, I see the headlines and learn the basic facts of dozens of such events every week. And then there are the ones that I read in-depth. The ones that touch me too deeply to avoid, the ones that catch me at a moment of weakness, the ones that keep coming up over and over and over as I scroll down the screen. 

Most recently I became ensconced in articles and protests and community responses to the deaths of 50 mostly Puerto Rican, mostly LGBTQ young people in Orlando and the campus rape of a woman at Stanford. In both cases, the more I read and the more details I learned, the more triggered I became, and the more these atrocities took me over. In some ways, my rage and grief about these incidents connected me to others, reinforcing my sense of solidarity and community with folks committed to dismantling the systems of oppression that cause such violence. On the other hand, I lost sleep, lost peace of mind, and increased my sense of vulnerability and fear. 

While I believe it is crucial that we understand the big picture of how oppression, power, and violence function in our world, I am rethinking my exposure to each new example of these larger forces. This is what I know: powerful men are allowed to violate whomever they wish, however they wish, with minimal consequences. Women are raped with impunity. The US legal system is set up to maintain the wealth and power structures of this country, to target oppressed people and protect privileged people. The particular details of the Stanford rape trial reveal nothing new about the objectification of women and the perversity of rape culture. And yet, I am infuriated by the media's lauding of the perpetrator's athletic prowess, their use of his friendly, innocent, cute headshot rather than his mug shot, his refusal to acknowledge any guilt or offer any apology even after being found guilty, his father's letter in his defense, and the insult of a 6-month sentence to "protect his future". 

In the case of the Orlando massacre, I already know that queer people of color are targets of hatred, that gun violence is rampant, that anti-Muslim sentiment and cries of terrorism are prepared by the media and politicians regardless of any facts, and that internalized homophobia is deadly. After learning of this massacre, I participated in a vigil in a tiny town in the South where I was able to offer a Spanish-language reading of the names of the dead for a mostly monolingual-English community mourning ceremony. This felt like a meaningful contribution, and an important honoring of the lives of those who were killed. And yet, what about the days I spent in a fog before and after the vigil, the disconnection I felt from my own sense of love and belonging? And what about the angry days and restless nights I spent after reading about the victim-blaming trial and light sentencing in the Stanford rape case? 

Choosing to learn about these current events did not hone my analysis of inequality or increase my capacity to offer love and healing to the world. So, I am left wondering what this anger does for me. It does not make it any easier to face each day or to sleep at night. It does not make each personal brush with these power structures less troubling. It does not connect me more strongly to the vast majority of us who are oppressed by these truths. It does not explain my life's purpose more clearly. In fact, reading the details of these events is triggering and painful, causing greater physical harm to my body, already ravaged by decades of over-production of stress hormones. And it causes me great psychic strain, uprooting my emotional well-being as I read the troubling details of yet another instance of police brutality, war crime, or climate chaos disaster. 

As an activist, I have always believed that it is important to know what's going on in the world of social justice, to be informed about current events and to have an opinion about politics. I now believe that my understanding of rape culture, gun culture, and the impact of patriarchy, capitalism, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and all the other forms of inequality is sufficient to inform my actions and activism in the world, and that learning the details of each new atrocity is actually perpetuating the violence on myself. When I consent to expose myself to each offense, I victimize myself. And while it is a privilege to choose not to know about every oppressive act, I believe that we all deserve it. Rather than sacrificing my own mental health because of the sickness of my communities, I want to uplift myself and those around me by spreading love and light in the best ways I know how. I may no longer be able to discuss current events with outrage and incisive political analysis. I may no longer be able to earn activist props for the stories I share on social media. But I will not forget what I know about the power structures of our world, or lose my conviction that they must be dismantled. I am curious to see how this will affect my mental health, my ability to support others in my communities, and my critique of the dominant culture.

The Anatomy of Change

Grow by Aororak

Over the past year, I have experienced more major life changes than during any other single year of my life. Some of these changes are so new and raw, I am not yet ready to share them with any but my most intimate circle. These changes are tender new shoots, barely peeking out of the soil, so delicate and fragile that it’s hard not to hover over them, monitoring them constantly. Are they still there? Are they okay? Did they get bigger? Change color or shape? Do they need more water, or sunlight, or better soil for their roots to grow? Are they going to survive this tenuous time, so vulnerable and small? The fear that change brings up has been a barrier in the past, a reason not to reach toward my dreams quite so fervently. Perhaps if I keep one foot, or even half my body in the old reality, it won’t hurt so much if these new buds don’t flower. Then, if a deer eats them when they’re only a few inches tall, or an unexpected late frost kills their roots, I won’t have to be so sad, because I can just go back to the way things were before they ever existed. Although this deadening of the spirit may create some degree of distance from my pain, the cost is alienation from all emotions. In this way, my joy is also diminished, my hopes mitigated and small, my dreams tiny “safe” fragments of their true selves. And, it turns out, these “safe” pieces aren’t really all that safe after all. Losing the fragments hurts too, in a different way. Then I feel the ache of never having given my true dream a chance to live, while simultaneously mourning the loss of the fragment into which I’d half-heartedly invested myself. And so I decided to be all in, unleashing a whole new level of fear and anxiety.

Through the highs and lows of being fully committed to my dreams, I am acutely aware of the unpredictable, uncontrollable, uncertain nature of life. This year I have traced the trajectory of change through its many seasons –dreams and fantasies, births and new life, periods of growth and development, and transitions and deaths. As a person who craves control, and has spent many years harboring fantasies of a superhuman ability to actually achieve that control, this has been a rollercoaster ride. Accepting these facts – that life is change, and change is inherently unknowable – means confronting the deep feeling of fear and lack of safety at the center of my being. In reality, this fear isn’t about any particular change. It’s about feeling inadequate, doubting my ability to protect myself, unsure if I’m strong enough to survive the vulnerability of the unknown.

Image by Proggie

As I’ve become more familiar with the anatomy of change, and its accompanying anxieties, the only antidote I have found is to witness and accept it. When I am in this state of fear, which is often a daily occurrence at the moment, I visualize my anxiety as a wet, shaking Chihuahua, barking incessantly, hair standing on end. This tiny creature is scared and vulnerable, and in attack mode. Ze is so mixed up that sometimes ze doesn’t even know that ze is scared, because ze only feels anger and defensiveness. But underneath that high-pitched bark is a deep fear, and a real vulnerability. Being the tiniest of dogs in a world of giants, lacking the usual doggy defenses, ze is understandably afraid. So I imagine scooping zem up in my arms and holding that trembling body, feeling the rapid heartbeat pounding against my chest. Just holding zem with sturdy arms, breathing deeply to slow zir heart rate, and speaking to zem gently and compassionately.

I, too, am tiny and fragile. I’m in new territory, wholeheartedly pursuing my dreams, all in. I, too, need to be held and seen, and spoken to with calm understanding. This simple act of picking up my shivering, defensive self and offering comfort and support is a powerful salve for sometimes overwhelming anxiety. And learning these skills is crucial, because this is where I plan to spend my life – in a state of transformation, re-evaluation, challenge, and change. Because this is where I grow the most, learn the most, and the place from which I can taste true liberation. Because freedom is not feeling safe, but rather feeling capable. It is not to be problem-free but to be a problem solver. Freedom means accepting that life is change, change is constant, I am never in control, and trying to be only limits my potential. Freedom means journeying to the edges of my capacity and stretching out over the chasm, learning from my mistakes and successes in turn. It means celebrating the process rather than the results, and shining my light on these new shoots with humble affection, feeling the fear and joy, marveling at the potential power of these baby plants, and being fully committed to the ups and downs of following my deepest yearnings wherever they lead.

Trigger, Trigger, Trigger

The deeper I’ve gone into my healing process and the more traumatic experiences I’ve begun to integrate, the more extreme my triggers have become. This is called a “healing crisis”, a term I only learned a few months ago. I’m so grateful to know this phrase, to have a name for what I’m experiencing. As I’ve grown further into this place of crisis, I’ve come to appreciate its importance in my healing journey. At times it seems like something must be wrong for my day-to-day life to be even more challenging than it was two or three years ago, when I first began this intensive healing. And yet, this is similar to the detox process experienced when a person stops smoking cigarettes and develops a horrible cough. Long-hidden pieces of my Self split off from me due to trauma. Now, they can see the possibility for healing and integration and are rising to the surface loudly and insistently. And as I have slowly learned to stay present more and dissociate less from my emotional truths, my triggered states have become increasingly intense and uncomfortable.

Wrathful Diety #6 by Art O.T. Grid

This has been a years-long process, including developing names and visuals for the fractured parts of my Self that surface when I’m triggered. At first I focused on identifying when I would enter a triggered state and mapping the patterns of what tends to trigger me, and how I feel, act, and recover from these states. I then began learning tools to help bring myself back to the present moment as quickly and gently as possible. As this healing crisis has intensified, I’ve been challenged to greet these triggers with compassion, acceptance, love and concern rather than the dissatisfaction, impatience, and judgment with which I once viewed them. This is my opportunity to practice, to hone my ability to care for myself. I’m getting better at navigating it, but there have been a few instances of staying triggered for many days at a time. This is a frightening and disorienting experience, a type of soul-abduction where split off pieces of myself are “in charge” and I feel and act like someone else.

This is the deep work that my soul is here to do – to heal the cycles of abuse that have affected me on a cellular level, and which have been passed on through so many generations. At the moment I have many more questions than answers. In my moments of fear, or when I have been commandeered by an unintegrated aspect of myself, I worry that I am not strong enough to get through the crisis and detoxify from this life-long poisoning.

And yet I instinctively reach toward healing, my deepest yearnings calling out to me to keep going. And so I walk along, step by step, in a circuitous and spiraling pathway to empowerment, liberation, safety, and joy. Tasting each of these delights in small ways, I am strengthened in my faith that there is another option for me – that I, and each of us, can be liberated from self-oppression. And so I call upon all my resources for support and guidance as I continue through this healing crisis slowly, gently, and reverently. I am astounded by the support I have in my life and by the possibilities for healing that unfold before me.

Thread by Thread

There is a black hole inside of me - an emptiness that can never be filled. This is the gaping hole left by my need for emotional connection that was not met by my parents as an infant, a child, an adolescent, an adult. This is a hole I refused to acknowledge, refused to admit was there; a hole I covered over with "I don't need anyone" and "I don't feel anything," covered over with numbing and overachieving, covered over with denial and judgment. I could not acknowledge this hole because its very existence would prove that I was unworthy of love. After all, if I hadn't received what I needed as a child, there must be something wrong with me. Children who do not receive the love and affection they need blame themselves as unlovable and unworthy, rather than understanding the caregivers they adore as imperfect and flawed. This is my story, this may be your story, this is the story of so many.

Drawing by Kalil, CC BY-NC-SA

I love my parents and they love me, and this black hole exists. They loved their parents, who also loved them, and this black hole exists in them as well. This black hole of disconnection from emotion, self-protection from genocide, from pogroms, from war and poverty and oppression. As I witness this pain, I feel it's impact and mourn the many losses it has caused in my life and in my family. I also confront the way this pain oozes out onto others, onto those I love most. This sense of rejection I carry with me creates a self-protective barrier to connection. I have a reflexive tendency to pre-reject others, to avoid the possibility of being rejected myself. This unconscious closing off is a tool to prevent further damage, which feels like it could be fatal to this tender and exposed heart.

And yet, gradually this is shifting, changing, opening up. This blog was a major shift - a revealing of my soul and a reaching out for connection with friends and acquaintances. Through this and other means, I have begun to weave a strong web of connection and love, creating a fabric over this black hole, a fabric that grows sturdier every day. Each strand of connection, each experience of vulnerability met with compassion, each need I express that's met with care creates a new thread, a thicker strand to weave into this fabric, mending the hold in my heart. This black hole with always be there, a consequence of childhood lack that can never be filled, but eventually this fabric of connection and acceptance and love will be woven over it completely. For now, the edges have a soft and thick fabric around them, and the center is still fully exposed. Travelers on this road to my heart may still fall into this uncovered depth of pain, but the road becomes safer every day. The strands reaching out from my heart, the threads that allow me to connect proactively with others, grow longer every day. Today I accept the limitations of where I'm at and the size of the hole, and enjoy feeling each thread being woven by many hands into a resilient fabric of love. Thank you for contributing a piece of that thread - and for allowing me to reach out and weave some of my love over the holes in your heart as well.

Drawing by Kalil, CC BY-NC-SA

The Only Way Out is (Slowly, Gently) Through

Photo by Kalil, CC BY-NC-SA

For the past two years I have had the words "the only way out is through" emblazoned on the door to my room. Over time, the meaning behind this idea has morphed greatly for me. Originally it represented a forceful, tenacious, tough approach to my transformation process. It meant diving into a too-cold swimming pool, from a too-high diving platform. It meant bracing against the inevitable belly flop at the other end of the jump, taking an awkward and painful leap because there didn't seem to be any other way to get where I was going. This approach came out of a sense of desperation - a sense that I needed to "fix" everything that was "wrong" with me as soon as possible, regardless of the collateral damage of this approach. This version of "the only way out is through" looked like tightly shut eyes, a clenched jaw, a furrowed brow and hands curled into fists. The energy of this approach was a determination to get through the process as fast as possible, insistently confronting everything between me and healing.

As I've worked toward self-acceptance and continued to cultivate self-love, I've gradually shifted in my approach from force to invitation, heading away from a model based on fear and control towards a theory of change centered in tenderness, kindness, gentleness, and patience. This looks like slowly and carefully building a path toward healing through a forest, one hand-carved step at a time. It involves daily reflection and relaxation, with a lot of attention given to rest and recovery during and after I lay each step down on the path. It means having the opportunity to experience the process while it's happening, and appreciating the beauty of the landscape around me. It means connecting deeply with the essential humanity of this forest of fear and trauma and pain and grief and anger. This may be my forest, my path through the woods, but it is also part of the larger human story. My journey towards myself is a part of the healing of the whole world. This approach feels much more vulnerable. Even though my earlier strategy had clear consequences of fear and pain, these were brief moments of vulnerability - only a few seconds on the diving board before closing my eyes and jumping off. The slow approach requires maintaining a state of vulnerability over time. It means acknowledging my desire for connection with myself and other people, and reaching toward it over and over. It means asking for help in gathering the materials that I need to build each step on the path. It means witnessing my limitations with my eyes open, and allowing others to witness me too. This version of "the only way out is through" looks like open eyes, an inviting smile, an expression of curiosity and hands outstretched toward those I love. The energy of this approach is calm, centered, present and loving, with a deep faith that I am worthy just as I am, shadows and all. This is a new place for me, a tenuous but beautiful space of unconditional love. I invite you to join me here today - worthy and deserving and wonderful, just as you are.

Molting

As I continue deeper into my process of self-transformation, I experience the death and rebirth process over and over again. Each time, I gain new insight into the transformation process itself, in addition to the personal growth that occurs. I have experienced several types of transformational processes, each of which mirrors that of other animal species. One example is the caterpillar to butterfly metamorphosis which involves building a cocoon, dissolving completely from a caterpillar into undifferentiated goo, reconstituting as a butterfly, struggling to break out of the shell, and then flying off in an entirely different form. One obvious example of this in my life was coming out as transgender and subsequently transitioning my sex through hormones and surgery. The end of a six-year romantic partnership was another version of this, although not as literal in its parallels.

Another transformation experience mirrors the lifecycle of amphibians as they develop from aquatic to land animals. This process involves a transformation in which one develops new capabilities and outgrows an older form, leading to new needs and to a change in one’s external environment. One example from my life is being born into an environment of unhealthy communication norms, gradually developing the skills of compassionate communication, and then seeking out a community of people committed to similar communication practices while no longer being able to breath in environments of judgmental and aggressive communication.

By W. P. Hay [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

My current experience of the death and rebirth cycle is different, however, and new for me. It more resembles the process of a crab molting and then growing a new shell. A crab outgrows its shell dozens of times in its life. Each time this happens, the crab must crawl out of this too-small shell and become utterly unprotected in service of its growth. The crab experiences a period of extreme vulnerability, during which it hides itself as best it can while eating the nutrients stored in its old shell in order to help it grow a new, larger exoskeleton. While the crab grows in size gradually, there comes a point in this growth process where the structure that supported and housed it no longer serves. At this point, the crab must take a major leap into the unknown, purposefully becoming exposed and tender in order to build a larger structure of support and safety for itself. This mirrors my current process, which involved steady growth that led to me outgrowing my old self-concept. The process of creating a new self-concept first involved discarding the old, even though a new one did not yet exist. This period of extreme vulnerability has been incredibly challenging, and yet so freeing. After a month of reassessing who and what I am, I am starting to grow my new shell, a larger and more expansive version of what I already had. I look forward to discovering many more types of transformation over time. Have you experienced other death and rebirth cycles? I would love to hear about them!