i can feel it in the right side of my head, somewhere behind my eyes…
I’m sitting in my living room taking an online continuing education workshop. The voice of the instructor is guiding us through a meditation to feel into our systems.
Grasping fingers claw into the bottom of my neck, stabbing their sharp nails into my sub-occipitals, a dull aching throb, as a bright and pointing sensation protrudes and expands out of my right inner canthus. Something unseen feels as though it is leaking out of my mastoid process and slowly oozing down my neck. The anterior portion of my right ear canal feels heavy, dead, numb.
I know this tension well. I’m feeling resistance. I’m thinking:
I don’t need to do this...
I already know about this...
I can’t get activated right now...
Observing is enough.
I’m patient with this one who is showing up in my head and my ear. I accept her part in my orientation to learning. I’ve felt her before.
I ask if it’s possible for her to give me a little room to be with what the teacher is sharing.
She’s uninterested.
I tell her “Ok. I hear you,” and I stay with her.
I cannot force myself into another orientation. She won’t let me.
This is the work I need to do in this moment, this is what I need to learn:
How to be with resistance.
I tell this sensation I want know her.
I ask her why she’s protecting me from experiencing more.
She tells me it’s her job to keep us in capacity.
She says, “I don’t trust you to keep us comfortable.”
A different teacher of mine shared a story recently about organizing and hosting a medicine retreat with her teacher, Dr. Gabor Maté.
This series of ceremonies was open only to professional healthcare providers. It was facilitated by profoundly experienced medicine people who came from multigenerational indigenous linages of ceremonial practice.
In a decompression meeting after, the medicine people and Dr. Maté agreed they would never host a similar retreat: the presence of protectors in the energetic field was so powerful it was almost impossible for everyone involved to hold the space.
For me, this story resonates deeply.
Oh how skillfully I can resist receiving the medicine I am seeking.
(The facilitators later changed their mind, of course.)
One of my favorite internet aphorisms comes from the controversial abolitionist writer Clementine Morrigan:
“Fuck the police means we don’t act like cops to each other.”
The Clementine in my head names this clearly when I encounter parts of me attempting to dominate within.
“Fuck the police means we don’t police the parts of ourself.”
What does she mean by police? She means repress, suppress, control. The maintenance of internal “law and order” by force and coercion. She means the imposition of a hierarchy of worthiness.
At the moment, the Clementine in my head is an ally to the one who feels like I am untrustworthy around capacity.
Together these two parts (among others) are trying to keep me accountable.
They’re trying.
In their own way, these one are advocates for consent. They are eager to point out the ones within who they think think they are me, they say look, there is one who thinks they know it all, one who is slipping in and take over, don’t let them! These ones, they say, are very skilled feints.
Alan Watts said it differently: “when the ego is about to be unmasked, it immediately identifies with a higher self. It goes up a level.”
These ones, the ones who think they are me - who think they are capital H Healers, Helpers, Holies - are commonly the ones those who resist distrust.
These ones who think they Know often subtly push my system beyond my own capacity and reinforce internal suppression. They do this in some of the same ways we collectively re-enact systemic forms of oppression.
These ones within me who think they Know focus on things like perfectionism, urgency, problem solving, and the prioritization of comfort over staying with the trouble. They promote determinacy, as this or that-ness.
Their opposition understands absolute power corrupts absolutely. Those resisting the ones who Know are calling for the medicine of humbleness, humility, and heart.
It takes incredible courage and capacity to lean into the work of self-investigation.
It demands endurance and patience.
My awareness of this keeps me in reverence when I’m supporting others.
When I am connected to the me that is not a part, I know that self-work is not something I can do alone most of the time. It’s something that has to happen in the context of belonging and relationship.
We will not be able to generate the world so many of us dream of externally until enough of us have learned to cultivate that world internally.
And most of us will not be able to generate internal self-regulation without the support of those external to us.
This is another intoxicating and quizzical and totally obvious truth: it is often impossible to learn to go within without the help of others, just as it is impossible to attend to the collective without attending to ourselves.
In this way, we serve as mirrors to each other, reflecting all the angles and tensions experience shapes in each of us.
We also serve as portals, as Kai Cheng Thom reminds us:
“Remember you are a doorway, a garden, a long twisted path that least to an ancient temple. You are full of wildness and wilderness, of secrets passed on by the spirit of the First Femme.”
So the work is yours.
The work is mine.
The work is ours.
We do it together.
We find ourselves in resistance. Resistance to ourselves, to our systems, to each other. These polarizations offer us insight into our wounding and also our wisdom. We say something the wrong way on accident. We act out accidentally. We have messy conversations and moments together and do our best to untangle what we can while finding ways to stay connected and practice repair.
We get tired.
We rest.
We try again.
I’ve been reading about planetary formation this week.
I wanted to remind myself how young human life is in relationship to this land we find ourselves on. How new we are in the scheme of things. I was seeking perspective, seeking scale.
I’ve been thinking about how Earth was made from impacts. Numerous collisions with asteroids and other celestial bodies. Impact after impact after impact.
We are like the planet we belong to. Impacted. We cannot avoid impacting each other. We are all taking hits. We are crashing into each other’s soft spots. We are trying to survive.
We are trying.
When I ask my system about survival a quiet clarity echos to me from some deep place way back inside me, it sounds like a drop of water dripping in a cave, it sounds like humming.
In this echo, I hear those who have been here or perhaps those who will follow reminding me:
There is something in you that never had to survive.
Something in you which always thrived.
Something in you that has always been and cannot be damaged.
If you’d like to, take a moment to see what happens when you attempt to receive these words. Maybe even say these phrases aloud?
There is something in me that never had to survive.
Something in me which always thrived.
There is something in me that has always been and cannot be damaged.
When I say this aloud to myself, I feel something settle. I feel a moment of breath.
And then I notice all the ones who agree and all the ones who don’t.
The ones who agree are an encouragement, and the ones who perceive distortion in me make it challenging for me to believe in my wholeness.
When I check in with them, I often learn these parts of myself are afraid they’d be destroyed or sent away if I were to fully embody my agency and gifts. Other times they just feel unseen and ignored.
These ones want to survive too, so they work hard to refute my connection to whatever it is that deeply sources me.
They fear change. These ones might even try to destroy or repress or put away other parts of me that don’t fit into their thinking, including parts of me that seek new information or perspectives.
They say they are doing what they are doing to prevent hurt.
How often do we do harm in the name of preventing harm?
This one who is with me in class, who is resisting taking in more information, is one of the ones who fears change despite her good intentions.
Even though she means well, even though she is trying to protect me, she is inadvertently enacting the same control she’s seeking to eradicate.
It’s a very old story.
I ask her: What would you get take care of if you didn’t have to be in charge of managing this system’s capacity alone all the time?
She seems a little surprised by the question, as if she had never considered it.
I watch this one pause and take a breath.
She is noticing me now, noticing I’m not one of the ones who wants to tell her what to do.
“Oh,” she says. “I could trust it’s ok to get the rest and support I’ve been needing.”
and now, some additional notes:
Lucent’s custom facials have become one of my favorite forms of care in the last few months (sooooooooo relaxing)! If you’re looking for an esthetician to support your skin health, I can’t recommend Stacie enough! She takes a holistic and health-focused approach to care, and she’s offering folks who work with me a $100 discount on their first session. Let her know you came from me when booking. :)
In my humble opinion, nobody is doing choretube like Nami… I think I linked to her channel before in one of these newsletters. I know I’ve talked about her with some of you in session. What can I say? I’m a fan. A devotee, even! So soothing and relaxing for me to watch her do chores while my own dishes sit untouched in my kitchen sink. Nami has genuinely taught me how to live on my own more comfortably. I am grateful for the peace she brings my life, and I’m inspired by the way she makes such cute meals for herself. 🧽
Perhaps in an unconscious ode to my ASMR queen and her commitment to enjoying all manner of beverage, I went to QFC after work recently and bought this wine. I’m not someone who knows about too much about wine, and also I have been really enjoying this bottle. It’s big and red and solid. It tastes like the leaves changing colors on the trees outside my window. It doesn’t make my head hurt later (this is important to someone in their mid-thirties). Perhaps I also like it because I have a soft spot for Paso Robles. One of my best friends (Julia Belle) is from Paso. Here is a picture of me, Julia, and our other best friend Lily hanging out in that part of California when we’re maybe 19 or 20 years old. (If either of you are reading this update, I love you both and all the ways we’ve all grown. 💕)
Like new music? Here is something for you: current. This is a playlist I’m going to update every month or so until I don’t feel like it anymore! Some standout tracks from the current (ha!) iteration: Phonk Children (which samples Children, later on the playlist), Lotte Kestner’s cover of the National’s Fake Empire, and Vapor. This playlist is not and unlikely to ever be the kind of music I play in session. (For the most part.) Save it for when you want to find something out of your box and not curated by the algorithm? If you listen, let me know what (if any) tunes you like. 💽
If you’re on Instagram and you want to read more things I’ve written, I post different essays from the content I share here. I also repost weird / funny(-to-me) memes and share music or playlists in my stories. @ghostpointzero
With care, from my center to yours, until next time…
laura
laura