Being in the Body Post-Election

Last week, I asked my students in my weekly contemplative writing classes to write about their feelings regarding the election from their bodies. The most potent pieces came Wednesday morning, as folks had either stayed up all night, most of the night, or gone to bed and woken to the news.

The fact is, the over-whelming majority of my students are liberal. But a lot of students were able to feel how human our reactions are. This anonymous piece in particular struck me with the universal human level of fear in the body. 

I offer this as a model for being present, for watching not only the body but the mind itself. Regardless of whether you are celebrating right now or in deep despair, tap into your body. Fear consumed most of us pre-election, and if the results had gone the other way, the "other side" would right now be feeling a similar way post-election.

Finally, one of my favorite parts is where this student opens up questions about neurotic smallness (childhood survival, which was useful but she now sees as disempowering) versus the kind of smallness that can open us to all of the present moment - simple actions like picking chard from the garden. These two smallnesses are often conflated with each other, but the second can offer serious liberation and deep relief in times like these.

I breathe into my body through my feet.  The sun is a vibration of continuance, the yellow leaves of a neighbor's tree shimmer and wave.  The sky lightens into a bright blue.  I find comfort in the fact that my garden is still growing, people are still walking their dogs down our street, I can still hear traffic from nearby streets; the world continues despite last night's outcome.  Or at least it seems to continue.  The world of people and politics and the world beyond people and politics.  I pick chard, red and green, my hands and cuffs soaked with morning dew.

Light & Shadow

This is a piece by an anonymous student, written a few months ago. Since then she has noted the person involved apologized and owned he was projecting. And still, this whole piece is not about her righteousness - rather about the layers of shadows and light and projection we work with from an early age through any level of realization in adulthood.

When she shared this freshly-written piece in class, we all had a good guffaw after she described her son's interaction with his shadow. How powerful it is to laugh at a child, then to realize we are still doing the same struggle, even if more covertly, now, as adults.

Seeing what is in the shadows - seeing the shadows themselves - is crucial for, as she describes, "not producing harm in (their) wake."

Please enjoy these reflections.

Light & Shadow

It feels so much better to shine my light than reveal my shadow.  My shadow moves with me always and yet my awareness of its presence is not so constant.  

Sometimes when out walking in the sunshine my three-year-old son, he will see his shadow following behind and try to stomp on it, yelling, “GO AWAY, SHADOW!”  He says it makes him uncomfortable that it is following him.  Until this moment, I didn’t realize how profound that was.  I didn’t see the connection between his reaction and the inner shadow – and how forcefully I sometimes wish for the very same thing.  How I want to stomp with frustration and say:  “You again?  How could you still be there following me?  Won’t you EVER go away and LEAVE ME ALONE?”

Former Friends

Photo by Mandoline Whittlesey

 

Today I woke haunted by those who are no longer.           

People who passed through my past

ghosts before they were gone:

a Jessica, a few women named Amy, one Virginia, and many more.

As if they are states I once visited

but no longer possess a visa for.

They litter my contacts in voicemail and email:

I type in someone new,

and there they are, their former selves

smiling at me.

They are not smiling at me.

I am not smiling at me.

Last night I dreamt of a host of them,

a gaggle of them approaching me in anger. I felt shame like a virus,

gangrene infecting my leg, bacteria spreading

organically, as if this is always

how it ends.

I know forgiveness.

I know how to give it for another.

Where can I cauterize my self-inflicted wounds,

these dangling ends that stir in me

amoebas of what could have been

invisible spikes

of what I thought

was a beautiful and safe cactus?

My own mind became dangerous, found land mines

in these interactions. I cannot seem to let the hair triggers go

drop the reflex to defend

let myself really never understand

let myself know that I will never really know.

The Underbelly of Obsessive Thinking

Here's something I have known about myself for decades, and it trips me up every time.

When I do something to someone that hurts their feelings, I get concerned. This is natural, of course. I worry I could have done it better, found a way to make it less hurtful (yes, I am, after all, a Midwestern woman), or avoided hurting them altogether.

Then it gets complicated. Turns into obsessing. Quickly.
From this point on, my thinking contorts into a manifold, manifested obsession. It's a bit hard to track, seeing as how it is so complex and a bit dark and full of shame/blame, but it looks something like this, with all these thoughts turning and churning over each other in no particular order: