Bye March!
“It’s difficult to be optimistic when we’re in pain, but pain is a natural motivator for change and growth.”
Happy New Year I say to you, this first full week of April! I haven’t posted anything since 2019 because, well, 2020 happened and 2021 hasn’t proved to be draaaastically different just yet. Ironically, my last post was about overcoming procrastination! HEY, I’ve drafted tons of things! It’s just that none felt remotely sufficient in addressing what we’ve been experiencing.
Bear with me as I try to articulate the many layers of trauma, we as a species, are experiencing. Things that shouldn’t be controversial: #BlackLivesMatter, #NativeLivesMatter, #TransLivesMatter, #StopAAPIHate – all of the hashtags that serve to amplify a single message: bigotry, xenophobia, white supremacy, income inequality and social injustice will no longer be tolerated.
we have an opportunity to channel our collective pain of the last year, the last four years and last 400 years into action by working together to figure out how to bring our diverse city into a new era of equality, respect, inclusion, visibility, justice and safety for all people. We as a state, as a people, need to validate the hurt that has happened in our world, country and communities. How can we do that if we are too afraid to address the conflict within ourselves, our relationships, our industries?
I grew up in the reddest part of Brooklyn where anti-Asian and anti-Muslim racism unfortunately wasn’ rare. April is Arab American Heritage Month. If you live in Bay Ridge, please know majority of your neighbors love and support you! The ones who don’t haven’t yet learned to love or accept themselves and thus project their self-loathing onto anyone and everyone around them. Let’s normalize holding accountability and stop enabling the assholes of society.
We need both individual and community care if we’re going to survive, much less get closer to a ‘more perfect union’. If this is stressful for you, I get it! Change is scary for many of us. Expanding our view takes WORK. Confronting our shit is HARD. If it were simply mind over matter, not one counselor would be in business. Let me be clear, bigotry is not a mental illness. Hatred is an emotion that grows if you feed it, much like our other emotions. Reminding yourself over and over how much you hate that person/place/thing is just feeding the pain and strengthening the connections to those memories and feelings in your brain.
I’m not implying you’re actively choosing or enjoying this pain, but it might be what feels most comfortable right now because it’s what you know. Nevertheless, your nervous system may be recovering from stress in such a way that it’s firing up the same neurons and neurotransmitters over and over until you get the clarity you need. It’s kind of like beating a video game boss before you can begin the next level.
We hate confronting our hang-ups so we refuse that narrative, searching for a more palatable one. The right partner, home, aesthetic, job, routine, whatever, won’t ever make your life perfect or allow you to check out of it. We don’t really get to stop and “just be comfortable” because part of the gift of being alive is seeing another day to make meaning with. Therapy helps you figure out how to live a life you’re not counting down the hours on, because my friend that is a trauma response and you don’t have to keep re-living it!
I help creatives, introverts, empaths, highly sensitive people and deep thinkers of all kinds overcome the anxiety arising from misalignments, trauma and limiting beliefs so they can get unstuck, living their truth proudly. Over the last year, I had the privilege of seeing a number of my clients who I had been working with for some time actually thrive during the then emerging global pandemic because they had been practicing new ways of thinking, living and caring for themselves. I mean, tragedy IS what we’ve been prepping for as overthinkers! Now we had the tools to overcome! Then, we all sat quarantined in our homes watching horrifying racial injustice. It’s not easy being creative when your brain is in fight-flight-freeze-fawn mode. Many of the people I work with have a talent that the world needs, especially now, but feel overwhelmed, afraid to be seen, and/or unsure of their value. Let’s reverse this negative feedback loop so you can connect with your purpose, your people, and your wholeness.
I want to take a moment to honor the lives that have been lost, the work that has been done to protect us, and all of the essential workers, first responders, healers and educators that have been the glue holding us together. Please remember to slow down, listen to your body and take care of yourself.
Until next time,
Be well!
