10/09/2024
So much of our cultural norms are based on shame of having feelings in front of another human. Sustainable living means close proximity and sharing resources, cooperation, which means letting down then walls to our hearts, finding common rhythms with our nervous systems, allowing people into and beyond the shame, showing ourselves vulnerably and fully.
This takes practices and container building, consciously tending the field between us. Otherwise communities become entirely depleted, private fiefdoms ensue, silent battles are fought, hearts close and people shut down and feel unsafe.
The group work, the tending of hearts and clearing cultural wounding is key in sustainable living. Reconnecting hearts and bodies to the Earth, one another and Self.
In my visits to around 100 communities, only one was doing any of this work, and they had a super shaky container. My data is a bit old, things have changed, but I still see a need for this work in the world.
We currently live as individuals, believing the problem is ourselves, but the problem is the culture. Shifting the focus to understand we are all toxic, all have wounds from living here and now. And we all have responsibility in the healing.
I see how individuals use shame as an excuse to set boundaries that keep them separate, afraid of dysregulation and showing the pain inside of them. We need sacred containers where people can show up and be dysregulated and others can hold them and allow healing of trauma, releasing the cultural wounding.
Shalom Mountain Retreat and Study Center is the best I personally know. But I think we need something more available, more immediate, more efficient than a full weekend and way less costly.
What if we had neighborhood studios where paid staff and volunteers show up to hold space and anyone can walk in off the street and hit a heavy bag with a baseball bat? Cry and be held with love and compassion? Be listened to, and supported at getting into the feeling in your body vs the thoughts in your head.
What if we had teams of well regulated people go into ICs and churches and schools and lead container building workshops and teach skills for healing trauma in groups?
Yesterday a Doctor said Clifton was emotionally regulated at school when I mentioned some nervous system distress he reports happens daily. Masking his distress is not regulation in my book. His distress is being read unconsciously by every other being in the room. It's a disembodied culture that thinks hiding distress is healthy. Real regulation is expressing sound, breath and motion in the moment to release the trauma from the body. Holding that in is killing us as people, but it also is why we are killing the Earth.
This work is so important in the world and it's my passion, and I continue to be amazed at how few people even understand how important it is to the health of the planet. How do we convince people to go into themselves to heal, trust other humans to love them, feel the shame, anger, grief, fear and even joy they have repressed?
We as a culture shame children early and often for emotions as well as anything else that comes from the body- s*xuality, bodily fluids, burps, farts, sounds, even most motion. We bind people to their heads, cutting off access to their bodies. The deepest wisdom is in the body, the most joy and aliveness, finding other well regulated, transparent nervous systems is ecstatic to the few of us who have actually experienced it.
I am curious what this post brings up in your body/mind? Do you feel the possibility of something else, a new way of living with others? I'm curious if people even understand what I'm trying to say, so many haven't. Comments are very welcome!
