"The great work before us is to learn to understand what around us and about us and what within us must live, and what must die." Clarissa Pinkola Estes
I've been here before... this gestation process of wanted, yet unwanted change. A murky in-between place where the path forward is unknown and foreboding, yet the known past feels hollow and wrong. Uttering the words "I just wish things could go back to normal" holds no meaning, for the 'normal' I was willing to withstand and settle for previously brings sobering discomfort and a recognition of irresponsibility.
My first true deep awakening wasn't until 2014. The previous six years had included losing my father to stage 4 cancer in his sixties, facing my own stage 4 cancer in my thirties, losing my beloved grandmother, and then divorce. The cumulative effect forced me to surrender. I had finally shattered enough to allow what had previously been mere whispers to escape from larger cracks within me and yell WAKE UP! A switch flipped and I found myself floating in unchartered territory... wanting to be in this new space as it represented the possibility of becoming unencumbered from all the weight and dissatisfaction of my unconscious habits of 40+ years... and not wanting to be there because it represented a daunting and unknown path that held no guarantees and, most certainly, some uncomfortable truths to be faced. Thankfully, I stayed in the muck rather than seek a new shiny object to soothe and distract me. I grew. I became a better version of myself and showed up better in the outside world as well. And I found a sense of freedom from knowing and understanding myself more intimately - the good, the bad and the not-so-pretty.
And so, six years later, I find myself at such a crossroad once again. A culmination of several horrific acts in a short period of time seeping through cracks in such a way that I am finally hearing the long-standing issue of racism on a deeper level. The yelling forcing me to wake up this time coming in the form of billions of people across the globe in response to the flagrant killing of George Floyd. Yelling directed at me from a white woman not much older than me vehemently blaming me for the unrest and referring to black people as n*****s, her target simply because I was standing on the sidewalk of Lake Street with a broom and squeegee to clean up the vandalism of the previous evening's riots. Yelling coming from deep within me letting me know, in a palpable way, that I can't go back. There is no comfort 'back there.' There is no acceptable 'normal' to which to return. There are people I care about and people I don't know who need me to show up better.
This is the work of self-awareness. It's hard. It shines a light on a lot of unconscious behaviors and thoughts from which we often distract ourselves in order to feel better. But distraction perpetuates not knowing ourselves, which prevents change on both an individual and community level. Doing the work will inevitably evoke feelings of embarrassment, shame and guilt, which, if allowed to run amok, can become yet another distraction to keep us from doing the work. Moving out of discomfort always requires us to become more uncomfortable first. When you feel discomfort, ask yourself why you feel discomfort. When you feel defensive, ask yourself why. Get curious with yourself and others. Question your beliefs and opinions. Stay open to hearing another perspective and pause to consider it before jumping in to defend your own. Do your work with someone who can both challenge you and hold space for the messiness that is sure to ensue as you awaken to new knowledge about yourself - knowledge that will likely be unflattering. Do it with someone who can help you stay accountable while withholding judgment on your pace of progress. But do it. Do the work.
Self-awareness breeds understanding, compassion and stronger communities. Self-awareness breeds justice, equality and freedom.
"In a culture where the predator rules, all new life needing to be born, all old life needing to be gone, is unable to move and the soul-lives of its citizenry are paralyzed with both fear and spiritual famine." Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Thank you to my friend, Courtney Cushing-Kiernat, for the use of her photo taken in Uptown in Minneapolis amidst the George Floyd protesting.