On Romancing your whole ass life as a liberation practice

How do we find balance through impossible times?

[Paid subscribers, skip to the end for an audio recording of this post and meditation]

I haven’t had the energy to write or share recently. I have been traversing the absolute depths of the underworld in my creative and spiritual work. While it has been so beautiful, so meaningful, so important…a natural response to that depth and intensity is burnout.

This morning a song came on shuffle while I was sipping my coffee and my system was immediately flushed with remembrance. I remembered, romance. I felt the sway return to my body, the sensation of floating, and a memory of times in my life when I felt full, whole, and free.

It was an immediate somatic reminder that when doing the intense work that I know many of us are doing, we have to offer ourselves twice as much sweetness in order to stay even-keeled, healthy, and whole.

It’s understandable to get caught by a kind of martyr mentality—“If people are suffering I should also be suffering. Who am I to experience joy when so many are experiencing the unimaginable?” Lately, I’ve been questioning whether that perspective is true solidarity or something else altogether—like a reflection of our own internal feelings of shame, or an impulse response to a wider lack of agency left in us by these systems we’re living in.

Our bodies respond differently, based on our circumstances and natural trauma responses. Some of us need to feel like we’re doing something that has an impact and others of us might feel like we just need to feel okay. We are unearthing such profound questions about our humanity, and I think we should be really compassionate to ourselves and one another as we move through it.

I want to talk about numbness for a moment.

I’d like to consider numbing as less of a judgment of character, as much as a natural physiological response to being under-resourced. When our bodies are inundated with as much data, information, and imagery as we are these days, it can simply be too much. This doesn’t mean we should tune out, be unaware, or stop caring about the atrocities we are witnessing. It means that we have to actively and intentionally grow our capacities by leaning hard into joy, presence, and *internal liberation* as much as it is available to us. Then our containers grow and we are able to sustain the work that we do without self-inflicting harm, or shutting down and dissociating.

*When I say internal liberation I am speaking of all the tiny ways we might limit our own expression and feeling when we truly don’t need to. (A concrete example: the other day on a walk I felt the urge to lie down on the earth along the side of the path, but I was self-conscious of being judged by passersby’s. That is an example of an internal judgment projected outward. Who the hell cares if most other people aren’t doing what I’m doing—is it hurting anyone? Does it feel good and authentic to my system? Etc. Etc. Etc.)

To feel the depths of those lows we also need to offer ourselves the richness of being fully alive. What joy, pleasure, and sweetness are accessible to you at this very moment? The tendency is to feel guilty about privilege, and nose dive into a scarcity mindset. Instead, what if we practiced being aware of privilege, through moments of pause, recognition, and gratitude for the things we do have? Would our cups naturally begin to feel more full moving like this? How might our capacity for giving and generosity then expand to better support the necessary transformation work that our world so desperately needs?

I hear often that true movements should be rooted in love. I am beginning to sense that they should also be rooted in deep feeling, and no not just the feeling of the hard stuff. To notice only either the good or the bad is incomplete and unbalanced.

I’ve often said in the past that our capacity for joy is only as deep as our capacity to experience suffering. At this moment, I’m feeling into the opposite edge of that same truth. In this moment where we are so aware of and entrenched in the horrific and unimaginable, we need to work extra hard to both notice and remember that humanity is capable of profound beauty, sweetness, and love. This is the dance of balance that life allows us to practice.

We owe it to ourselves to lean into the romance of life, notice those small things, and offer gratitude every time we experience something that sparks levity, peace, or healing.

Invitation to Practice:

I invite you to take a moment, wherever you are reading this love note, to shut your eyes and breathe into your body.

I invite you to feel every inch of your own divinity. I invite you to notice your own aliveness. What are the sounds of your immediate environment? See if you can get quiet enough to hear your own heartbeat. Do you remember that you can touch your own skin? Notice where you are. Is there something that you can honor and cherish in this moment? Focus on the image and sensation of that gratitude. Let that fill you. Imagine water entering your body from your crown, washing through you, and cleansing your spirit. Now that you are clear, the water begins to fill you, slowly.

As that water fills you, reaching your highest point, it begins to overflow and pour out onto the Earth around you, nurturing the sacred soil beneath you. As you imagine yourself pouring, notice all of the fullness, and feel all of the sweetness. Now, bring to mind someone who you know needs support. Imagine their spirit being cleansed, nurtured, and held. Envision change. Feel the grief or sadness if it comes, but recall that it is connected to and being held by this sacred container you have built. Send them love in its most pure form.

With each breath just notice, listen, and feel the natural movement that is always there. When you are ready, open your eyes. 

Thank you for reading this, and for taking a moment to be with yourself. I am grateful to you for it.

Keep humaning my love 🍯💗

PS. Moving forward I will be adding mutual aid requests at the end of my love notes— my intention is to contribute to spaces where people can practice being proactive in their love and generosity as they can. If you have any that you’d like to share, feel free to email me or DM me throughout the week and I will compile them

MUTUAL AID/ COMMUNITY SUPPORT CALLS:

🤍 Donate to Sudan-led and run initiatives

🤍 Mercy for Jessie Milo Petition

🤍 Avaaz Call to Ceasefire Petition

🤍 Nyallah’s Recovery Fund