so often, when i hit the pause button and attempt to embody my emotions, i struggle to identify what is going on inside me. maybe because it’s more a pulling back of layers than trying to hit a target…
i feel insecurity, that’s for sure. i live with the fear that if i say or do something wrong, i’ll lose access to love. it’s an exhausting place to navigate from. beyond the counterproductive and toxic nature of perfectionism, it’s also a self-absorbed place to navigate from — it centers any particular interaction around me, my words, my thoughts, my behavior. but when i make the circle bigger, inclusive of other people and elements, i realize it’s not about me. which doesn’t mean i’m not a part of the whole, but that the state of things doesn’t revolve around me. and what a fucking relief.
the fierce individualism of our culture is not just exahausting, it’s a complete and total mindfuck. it totally ignores the nature of life and well, nature. none of us does anything alone. even the functioning of your individual body is the product of innumerable beings working in harmony to make you happen.
as science catches up with ancient wisdom, we learn more and more about the ways in which who we are and what we carry is passed down to us through our genes, our blood (not to mention generational wealth and privilege). i reflect back on my coming-of-age years and how insistent i was on my own individuality, insistent that who i was was a product of me and totally within my control. i can’t exactly fault myself for my naive hope that i was in control and nothing else. but honestly, the older i get, the more grateful i feel to not be in total control of my life and its outcomes. because i have absolutely no fuck what i’m doing 90+% of the time.
i remember being in a yoga class (dropping wisdom from a yoga class def makes me feel like a cliche white lady but here we are) and the teacher saying: “what if, instead of viewing life as a problem to be solved, we viewed it as a mystery to be unfolded?” *insert mindblown emoji* i mean, how silly it is that a simple shift in perspective can flip reality on its head.
i want to be clear that my point here is not deny life’s problems. problems are 100% real and suck lol. i’m a human, i don’t like things not going my way. also, pain is very real. tragedy is real. and terrible, awful, unjust things happen on a daily basis. i’m not trying to simply paint the rainbow over here. because if i were to paint the rainbow of life, it’d surely include the colors that represent the shit of life as well as the beautiful.
i can’t make sense of anyone else’s life, not even my own. but i get glimpses. i get moments of understanding, understanding that this web that’s been woven since the beginning of time is much more complex than i could wrap my mind around in one lifetime. and beyond that, i don’t even think it’s meant to be understood in our heads. and sometimes, when the stars align, i can feel that understanding in my body, visceral and potent. i can feel the interconnectedness, and it both excites and terrifies me.
cause us humans are not exactly killing it right now. to be more specific, those of us occupying the “United States,” cause i have no interest in calling out anyone other than the people i’m in forced community with.
okay, but back to feelings, to sensing and understanding them. on an episode of the podcast How to Survive the End of the World, one of the guests spoke an Octavia Butler quote to power along the lines of, “writing is a type of therapy.”
and so as i sit here, prompted by the need to express i know not what. as i feel the internal knot begin to detangle, i remain uncertain about what resides in me, why certain moments stick with me more than others, why the rumination continues on and on, or what to make of all of it.
going back to the yoga teacher quote, instead of relating to my feelings as something to figure out, maybe my role as a human is to simply experience them, to let them pass through me and to engage with them as fully as feels appropriate.
will i forever live in fear of losing love? maybe. is that bad? i don’t think life is that simple.
with the rise of self help/improvement/care at the forefront of our western internet experience, with the insistence that we can make our life what we want it to be, that we can discipline and manifest our way to our best lives, i question what is lost in this selling point? by no means am i discouraging someone from living their “best life,” but i question how this is measured. i wonder if it’s yet another motivator to be a better productive capitalist. is our self-care routine simply another external measurement of our success?
i wonder the ways in which empowerment is co-opted, emptied out, and fed to the mainstream. this isn’t an argument against trying to manifest enough money to retire when you’re 40, it’s an exploration of the why behind it.
i don’t think i can truly engage with goals that do not include the collective at this point in my life. even the care of my self ties in with my ability to be of service to the collective.
but also, to be clear: i, like the rest of all beings, am divine and deserving of the most potent of loves.
okay, i’m starting to feel a bit self-righteous and discombobulated, so i’m going to close this one out. love y’all ❤
becki's a practicing human 