Today’s eclipse was something I could not see,
But it was something I definitely felt…
A sense of excitement, a surge of energy, and a residue of disgust…
It’s one of the hardest times in the history of our country.
I feel ashamed I didn’t speak out more about Charlottesville
When something so atrocious happens, I notice my heart turns off.
If something is too overwhelming, or I’m not sure what “to do”
I just shut down.
It brings up in me a sense of helplessness
When I don’t know what action to take, I take none.
This has never served me, or my relationships, and clearly isn’t serving our society, to turn a blind eye or to keep silent about hate crimes.
I have a privilege, disgusting as it sounds, to “turn off”
Simply because I’m not mature enough to actually FEEL what’s going on in the face of no clear action.
Simply because of the color of my skin, I get to “pretend” like “this will all work out”
I get to focus on the solstice…and less on the tragedy around us.
During this make-believe, who suffers?
There’s a great cost to running away from feelings.
A sense of isolation, a disconnect from power, and a loss of love.
A stagnation of sorts.
A true human cost — LIVES COST — for each time I don’t dive DEEP into the feelings and into the reality of what’s going on.
I cannot let discomfort or lack of direction be excuses for not feeling.
I cannot let false helplessness lead to resignation.
Like most women I work with, we’re wired to DO.
Driven, accomplished, assertive
But wow how I cave when it comes to BEING with all the feelings. The precise feelings that would motivate the right action.
I run away.
It’s not even that fear takes over. It’s that I shut down and go on autopilot — I don’t even register the fear.
So many white zombies…walking around. And I’m one of them.
This is what happens when we get resigned…
When we have “accepted something unpleasant that we believe we cannot do anything about.” (google’s definition)
Whether it’s a 45 year old woman resigned that she’ll never love or be loved
Or me in my little bubble of complacency “spreading love and light” and oblivious to how my silence makes complicit. (this is inspired by Layla Saad’s blog “I Need to Talk to Spiritual White Women about White Supremacy” — STOP NOW AND READ)
It starts in a false belief.
A false belief that it’s dangerous to feel.
A false belief that we aren’t interconnected and affected by this toxicity.
A false belief that things change on their own.
Whenever I talk to a woman I’ve just met who’s resigned about never finding love, or believes she’ll always carry the shame and disgust of her trauma, I want to scream “WAKE UP! You have a choice!”
Sometimes she opens a little bit in her heart, then it slams right back shut. Too afraid to feel. Too accustomed to a lonely normal. Tells herself it’ll be fine, her prince charming is coming.
And it dawns on me, oh my god, that must be what it’s like to see so many people stay silent, stay asleep, to the massive trauma that’s happening in our country.
To open up for one little Facebook post about racism, and then go on with our day. Tell ourselves it’ll be fine, our next president is coming.
How many times have people wanted to scream to me “WAKE UP! You have a choice!”
How annoying it must be to watch white people, myself included, shut back down. And we don’t even realize it. We don’t even see it.
[I see how this parallel is weak and probably offensive (comparing loneliness / the quest for love to violence and the quest for equality) — and that’s not my intention. My intention is to be real with the need for us all to wake up and especially white successful women like me.]
We cannot afford resignation right now (unless it’s from the POTUS lol).
We cannot afford the false comfort.
We must recharge our heart.
We must power it down and power it back up.
We must see the darkness that’s eclipsing the bright light of equality that wants to shine through, that is only natural to shine through.
I have zero answers and am totally naive in the subject of politics, again, because I have the unearned privilege of being resigned.
I have no actions. No advice.
From decades of stuffing my feelings, avoiding my trauma, pouring all my energy into my work…
It doesn’t feel good. It has to be revealed and healed. For this topic, I don’t know how. But that DOESN’T matter. We must acknowledge. I must acknowledge. I am part of this problem. I am not fully awake. I am still in the shadows.
