Every single person on this planet has a voice, now don’t we? We all have a voice and there is a whole social movement encouraging each one of us to exercise it and express ourselves so genuinely and so fully. “We want to see the real you!” They exclaim through snapchat filters and layers of conformity. I see it smeared across every social media platform out there and spewing out the mouth of the nearest self proclaimed influencer desperately clinging to relevancy and safety in self-care illusions. A big part of me is convinced that this is all horse shit, like most social movements these days. You know, the ones built on skewed interpretations of whipping humanity into shape. “I’m right and you’re wrong. Let me shame you and force you down my personal path to contentment.” Simply trends that will crash and burn as soon as humans get a real taste of authenticity, of vulnerability, of fucking real life shit. Because these are the key ingredients needed to create meaningful change in our human world.
We have plastered bubble wrap around every circumstance that makes us feel anything other than pleasant, or even numb. Let me swallow my suppression with yet another ginger shot, or sugar free white claw. Supressor’s choice. I hear the crowds cheering for honest conversations and unfiltered interactions yet we whine and pout when the opinion thrown our way makes us second guess our own. I know, I’m guilty of it, too. Trust me, it doesn’t feel good to find out that the beliefs that we claim we would die for are simply a perception we paint the world in to keep us believing that there is purpose to what we are all doing here. That there is a reason for existence. Guess what? We don’t get to know what The Reason is. Never will one all forsaken extraterrestrial magic orb float down and tell us whose predictions were right and whose were wrong. So why do we all shut down and emotionally react at one another when our beliefs are questioned? Newsflash darling, your reason for waking up every day and choosing to fight at least a little bit longer is good enough for me. As long as your ideals for existence aren’t causing harm to people, planet, or other species.
Human beings have decided long ago that we were put here to follow through with some soul mission that is independent for each one of us. Every other species around us was happy with what they were given. Food, land, tribe, time… that was enough. Humans really fucked shit up when they decided that they were the superior species. For some reason, domination floated to the top of their brainstorms and that is the ideal that they ran with. For God’s sake, they built everything on top of this faulty foundation; society, infrastructure, technology, etc. Domination lingers behind every decision we make and it is ruining everything that was naturally built before us. It’s even ruining the way we interact with other beings, forming more of a divide as more times goes on.
So how do we stop this doomed trajectory that we are on? Do your damn soul work. Wake up to the ways that society is manipulating us into suppression, oppression, and disconnection. These are all money making strategies to keep people consuming more and more to fill the gaping hole that our divide in humanity left behind in each one of us. I know that we aren’t taught how to feel into our experiences or introspect to recognize our conditioning. It can be difficult to know where to even begin! Psychotherapist and life coach Alyssa Nobriga tells us that, “everyday triggers become the breadcrumbs to our awakening.” This is where we start. Begin exercising your awareness each day and see what you learn from that. Go throughout your day and when you feel an emotional switch trigger within you, pause and sit in that recognition. You might not gain anything from this pause at first, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t important to keep trying. Think of it like strengthening a muscle. You won’t see results until you are consistent in this new routine. You are training yourself to pause when emotions arise and listen for their wisdom. What, in this reactive moment, is your body trying to tell you? Let me offer an example for you to follow the concept.
Imagine you are having a casual conversation over lunch with your romantic partner and they say something along the lines of, “Wow, you sure love those appetizers!” For some reason this comment has struck a chord within you because your entire mood has shifted, your cheeks are bright red, and you have lost your appetite. You might not know what the reason for this is, but all you do know is that you’re emotionally uncomfortable and a comment your partner stated made that happen. This could lead you down multiple shame spirals in which you might choose to take your partner down with you, or ice them out completely as you clam up within yourself. OR, you could choose to pause and notice the shifts that are happening in your body. Try your best to source where the emotional discomfort lies, and sit and listen. Your body might remind you of other times when you have been made to feel bad for what you are eating. Maybe a parent you grew up with unconsciously judged your eating habits and taught you that there is a right and wrong way to eat food. This lesson later caused you to develop an eating disorder in which restriction was your biggest priority. Maybe it has been years since this difficult time in your life and you have made long strides in healing your relationship with food. So much so that you are actually letting yourself enjoy the appetizers ordered at lunch. So, the comment made by your partner triggered an emotional uprooting, reminded you of pain that never got acknowledged. You are feeling this hurt now in a separate situation because that pain still lives within you. Your experience with that type of commentary has influenced your perception subconsciously. The difference is that your partner wasn’t trying to shame you for eating the appetizers or point out the quantity you were eating. Your partner wasn’t intentionally trying to hurt you. They were simply commenting on their delight in seeing you enjoy the appetizers that they ordered for the table. It wasn’t a personal attack whatsoever, but you might initially take it that way because comments like that have been used viciously towards you in the past. After all, every experience we have ever had creates a stored memory within our bodies. When our bodies remember something they don’t know the difference between a memory and the trigger. Instead, your body’s nervous system will bring it back to that original perceived unsafe moment and could potentially retraumatize you. It’s important to be aware of our triggers so that we don’t let them control our lives and encourage a distinct divide between us individually and the rest of the world. Your subconscious may react in a way that makes you believe that you are protecting yourself from the pain, but in reality it could just be pushing you farther away from the ones that you love.
A lot of us misunderstand one another and it’s usually because we don’t understand ourselves. We let emotional reactions lead our interactions and we begin forming a battlefield in which we fight for our safety. But, what if we didn’t have to live in defense mode and could instead feel safe in communication with others? Taking ownership over our own reactions and understanding where they come from is vital for healthy relationships to form. None of us want to feel like we have to walk on eggshells around another person because we are scared we might accidentally set them off. None of us want to be set off! We must understand our own responsibilities in communication if we want to foster a safe and authentic connection. This applies to friendships, relationships, colleagues, bosses, and anyone else you might interact with.
The reason that I emphasize the importance of healthy communication so passionately is because I believe that this is one vital way that we heal our planet. The desire for community is a primal motivation that kept us alive back in the days when we were living in unison with the land and each other. The way we lived back then didn’t send our planet into crisis mode, so I think we could learn a thing or two on how we did things oh so long ago. A push towards individualism and separateness is a strategic capitalist move and if we want to lean into a more holistic and unified way of living, we must first start with people. People need to heal from the world that we grew up in order to see that there is another way than what we currently know and we need to work together to do so. Let’s start with letting our guards down and begin viewing each other as an important ally towards a goal that could very well save the world we live in. It’s worth a shot isn’t it?
“In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted shortcuts to love. When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved his must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror. It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world.” - John Steinbeck in East of Eden.
With love,
KN
