Category Archives: personal growth

Holding Awareness

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What an aberrant week.

Eating, sleep, movement, and mental activities are all deranged a little, and more than a little resistant to intentional redirection. The only function fully intact, if not heightened, is talking and connecting with people. Text, email, social media, FaceTime, in person. Many pages of journaling. Lots of music, no book input in any form–that is definitely aberrant. Fascinating.

I wrote last night about the work of connection across difference getting harder. It starts now. Already I feel the apprehension, the tension of engaging with both Blue and Red friends (not yet in the same gathering–that’s next level at this point). I have some general impressions of both groups formed over the years, not yet articulated formally on this blog– generalizing is not an ideal way to approach humans, especially individually. Still, if I’m going to talk politics with anyone, I will benefit from clarifying some things for myself–identifying and monitoring the assumptions I make and querying the assumptions that others may make about me.

I spent an hour today replying to comments from this month–thank you for your patience, dear readers and friends. I wrote to Donna, “Those of us in bridging spaces and mindset have our work cut out for us, no question. The path turns harder uphill and more rocky for the foreseeable future. And, this is what we have trained for. I feel excited, like an athlete looking to PR a different movement every couple weeks (which I’m actually doing at Ethos regularly! [emoji string])… Ya. Keep going. Slow and steady. Bend that long moral arc.”

I have trained for this, yes. And the terrain before me is both familiar and new. I have my usual equipment and skills. The path ahead will require new tools and movements. I may get hurt; I will fail to anticipate weather and obstacles. So I proceed with cautious confidence, awareness, and respect. I’m making my way slowly through Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, as I borrowed it on CD from the library and my only working CD player is in the car. Might there be parallels here? I’m an experienced relationship and communication ‘hiker’. Engaging and connecting across difference through the next presidential administration may be my Pacific Crest Trail. So, I will pack smart and walk with fellow proficient hikers. I bet we meet some pretty awesome folks on the journey, see some breathtaking vistas, fall down, sustain some cuts and bruises, and get our egos handed to us at least a few times. The learning and connections will be worth the costs, I am convinced, especially if we can help others on the trail, too.

This hiker is tired tonight, friends. So:

I Hold Awareness for Us of our own energy, tolerances and limits–these are dynamic.
I Hold Awareness for Us of the call to connection.
I Hold Awareness for Us of every person’s full humanity and value, no matter who they voted for.
I Hold Awareness for Me of the resistance that my words, attitudes, and admonishments may evoke. I will monitor my own reserves and boundaries. I will rest and find alternate routes when needed. Connection across difference does not necessarily need to occur in explicitly political conversations.
I Hold Awareness for the paths of possibility before all of Us.

Holding the Energies

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Photo by James K. Min

How fascinating.

How are we feeling today? Am I the only one who finds it hard to describe? That’s disconcerting, as I can usually find the exact words I want to express anything. I realized by this evening that it’s not just emotions I feel; it’s not just physical sensations. It’s energies, not just one but multiple. So let’s see if I can articulate any of it well enough that anyone can relate? Here we go:

Existential
Deep, at one’s core, relating to one’s existence altogether. Donald Trump’s rhetoric is one of dehumanization. He compares people who oppose him to animals, refers to humans as objects, receptacles for bullets and things to grab. He incites deep seated fears and resentment within and among myriad groups, which has erupted in sudden and severe violence enough times to make us all fear for our very lives. It’s fight or flight–survival threat alertness energy. It’s his energy–agitated and tense–that resonates with and amplifies the like in us all and divides us with the unmitigated force of the Colorado River if someone bombed the Hoover Dam. I wonder how high his supporters’ stress hormones were before he won, as he convinced so many that their lives as they know them would end lest he rise to power? I know mine is markedly higher now afterward. This is sympathetic stress in action–in both advocates and the resistance, for existentially divergent and convergent reasons–fear of one another.

Lymphatic
‘Pale, flabby, sluggish.’ Extruded fluid from body tissues collects in the lymphatic system and returns to circulation at the heart. But it does not flow in a steady, pulsatile rhythm like blood in vessels. It meanders, passing through various filters (lymph nodes, spleen) where the complex work of the immune system defends us against pathogens. It’s like a vast network of languid rivers and tributaries, dense with waters that can both sustain and harm us. I feel this energy today–slow, almost listless, though purposeful. It feels like a compensatory response to the agitation of existential threat, a forced slowing to maintain function and not run around chasing my tail in futile worry and catastrophization. It feels like a conserving energy, feeding a reserve for future deployment. I have wanted to defy it these few days, to rev and run. Now I think I will listen and heed.

Fierce
Oooh, but there is a rumble. That clarity and conviction I mentioned at the beginning of yesterday’s post smolders and growls in the deep of my soul. Very early yesterday I thought with Bring It energy, “Well SHIT, now I really have to walk this talk of connection across division and relational leadership.” Tonight, while that commitment strengthens, another familiar and recently dormant energy arises–that of advocacy. Solidarity, shoulder to shoulder, rising, force of nature, powerful energy. And let me be clear: It is power to, not power over. It is non-adversarial change agency energy, though its vector opposes another. Think matriarchal elephant moving felled tree trunk for the herd to pass, not charging bull rhino.

OH I’m so glad I embarked on this verbal exploration tonight! So tell me, does it speak to you? I’m curious how it lands on those who voted for him.

There is much to consider in the coming days, months, and years… generations. How will we harness, expend, and renew the energies that sustain us and our just causes? How will we conserve our energies for full mission propulsion, rather than wasting any on unnecessary and counterproductive friction? How can we marry humility, generosity, and kindness with fierceness, conviction, and intensity? This middle space of integration–the liminal margin where infinite possibility lives–this is where I intend to root down.

I Hold the Energies for Us that help us engage in accordance with our values, our strengths, our gifts, and our aspirations.

I Hold the Energies for Us that resist mutual alienation and destruction.

I Hold the Energies for Us that allow our best inner natures to emerge and shine, for the benefit and advancement of all.

That’s enough for now, my friends. May you know your own energies and how they serve you, tonight and going forward. See you here tomorrow.

Holding Space

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“Between stimulus and response lies a space. In that space lie our freedom and power to choose a response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness.“

This quote is most often attributed to Viktor Frankl, psychologist, Holocaust survivor, and author of Man’s Search for Meaning. I see it also as a central tenet of stoicism, though I’m not sure stoics would agree. Regardless, this is where I land tonight. Donald Trump has won the presidential election. I hold space for us all tonight, breathing deeply, grounding body, mind, and soul in my deepest core values, life purpose, and the Infinite Game. I know exactly what I’m here to do, and I intend to persevere with clarity and conviction. But tonight is not the time to push my own agenda on anyone.

I write this blog for a general audience, and try to be cognizant of any reader’s political leaning or other identity. Tonight, however, my thoughts are with those who wanted the other result. I see, hear, and feel the pain, fear, despondence, shock, numbness, disbelief, rage, and so much else–so much, so much. For those who are happy with the result, I hope you can also hold space for us. We are in grief. I hope we can self-regulate and not lash out and off-load. And if we do, I hope you can hold space for that too–space for empathy, compassion, grace, and shared humanity. It’s what I would want (indeed admonish) us to do if you were in our shoes.

I hold space for us to RAIN the hard feelings, as Tara Brach teaches–Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture–if we want. I can also simply sit (stand, hunch, squat) with us, hold it all with us, be with us. We don’t have to do anything else right now.

The future is uncertain, no matter how fervently we may believe we know the ending today. What is certain is that we will all have to live it together. How will we be with one another–what will be our response to this most intense stimulus? We can figure that out later; it will emerge and evolve, maybe explode, who knows. We will get there when we get there.

For now, the space. We can settle here a while, be still, breathe. Whatever you feel tonight, I validate it. Whatever you need right now, I hope you have it in spades.

I Hold Space for Us tonight. I breathe my deepest breaths, over and over, with and for us all. I hold arms outstretched, palms up and open. I hold posture upright and supple. I hold mind and heart open. I Hold Space.

Until tomorrow, friends. See you then.