another opportunity for growth.
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Dear ones,
This week was another doozy, both personally and politically. In my own life, I am sitting with some old wounds and also some fresh ones, the kind that are both overwhelmingly painful and also — with the right perspective — gifts from the universe. A friend reminded me of what I’ve known since I’ve been on my “healing journey” (the language is a little cringe, but the process is imperative), which is that we will keep getting the same obstacles in different forms until we demonstrate that we’ve integrated the wisdom to move through them in alignment with our values. That’s a lot of spiritual/self-help jargon, so I’ll put it another way: if you went through something awful (either legitimately traumatizing or somewhere on the harmful spectrum), the idea is that you’ll get another opportunity to respond better to a similarly activating situation. Better might mean with more compassion to yourself or someone else, with more strength, with less grasping; better is whatever is responding (rather than reacting) within the bounds of your integrity.
To be very clear, this is not suggesting that if you were assaulted, for example, that the universe will send someone to assault you again to “respond better.” This is a framework that helps us primarily on two levels: 1) if you cause some kind of harm or even if you were just tangled in a shitty situation, you can get an opportunity to do better the next time; 2) or, if you’re a victim of trauma that has taught you to react in states of activation (e.g. fight/flight/freeze), you can get chances to heal how you engage with triggering situations.
You can take or leave the belief that ‘the universe’ has anything to do with this, but I think the fundamental takeaway is that we can choose to confront challenges as opportunities for growth, or we can stay stuck. It’s a dicey proposition to ask already-harmed people to be stronger, do better— but what’s the alternative? It is deeply unfair that people who have been hurt have to learn some form of resiliency (and take on the responsibility) to overcome the aftermath of pain, but it is also the only path out of suffering. And it can take a lot of repeated similar situations to figure that out.
I would never conflate interpersonal situations with structural ones*, but sometimes the wisdom translates, and I’m thinking about the sort of Groundhog’s Day effect of cycles of systemic oppression too. In Missouri this week, an emergency rule was passed that would effectively ban trans people of any age to access gender affirming care. Activists and repression analysts have been sounding the alarm bells about the possibility of something like this happening for years now, primarily because the situation we’re in now mirrors historical moments that descended into fascism. What would it take for us at a societal level to integrate the wisdom of the past? To stop putting faith in president’s (this is all happening under a Democrat), and start putting faith in each other? To remember that an assault on the bodily autonomy of one group should drive us toward solidarity rather than division? To notice that all the reform in the world hasn’t fixed the reality of police violence, or the violence of global capitalism? What would it mean to stop expecting something different with the same behavior (voting, fear-mongering, business as usual)?
I am making big leaps here trying to thread together these phenomena, but I am thinking about harm and memory and how hard it is to really embody the lessons, to really make changes when we’re all scared and hurting…and it seems apt.
…And that’s the kind of week it was over here.
In lighter news, I’m writing this from the little magical bubble of Writing is Magic, the second round of the retreat I dreamed up over a year ago and finally started hosting. I am loving this little collective space of creativity, and I am pretty obsessed with the idea of doing an IRL version very soon. Stay tuned for that.
More soon, and lists below, of course. I love you. xooxox
love & solidarity,
raechel
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