From being free to being right

I was never someone who would pray or appeal to a higher power.

But I would talk to my cat, the trees, the sky and the mystery.

I felt a belonging in this world.

I was part of it and I loved it as I loved myself.

I was very young and at peace in my being.

Then I learned, painfully, that not everyone felt this way towards me (or themselves). People were hurt, and wanted to put that pain somewhere, and it was so easy for them to give it to someone gentle who had no practice in harming, fighting, retaliating.

Over the years, very slowly, reluctantly and our of desperation, I hardened and became unforgiving.

I began free and easy. I learned to be right, and to be hard.

I couldn’t understand the urge to hurt others and when I tried asking people why, I’d never get an answer, because they themselves didn’t know why they were cruel.

We were all as innocent as one another, yet some of us learned to bully, to torment and to close off our tender hearts. In this environment, I learned to be unkind, spikey and violent at the drop of a hat, to protect myself.

I learned to use my intellect to spot the threats, create masks and tactfully keep people away from my real soul.

I became manipulative; unwilling to hurt again, but desperate to connect while maintaining some semblance of safety, through control.

I learned to cut people out of my life, push them away and mistrust their intentions… trusting the wrong parts of them and overlooking the parts that were most worthy of my trust.

This is the bind we find ourselves in.

We lose touch with what’s good for us and what isn’t.

We’re taught to be kind, to be good, to socialise… But we aren’t taught to be these things to ourselves at the very same time.

We have little idea how to function with inner-outer harmony, and the social systems we’ve built aren’t designed for it.

We aren’t taught to manage conflict well, because we turn a blind eye to it all the time and sweep it under the rug within.

We need the kind of strength and power that is able to be gentle.

We need skill in our language and in sensing our bodies as we use that language, so that each word is resonant with our hearts.

We need to see the hurt parts of others and the risks their unconscious behaviours pose, but not more so than we need to see this within ourselves. And we need to relate through the patterns as we speak to the emergent being-ness within. To gently invite one another into change, or to fully allow there to be a disconnection without harbouring a sense of failure.

We need to be able to have casual dialogue around the things we’re most ashamed of. Yikes. But we really do. Because these disowned fragments of our humanity are digging into our souls every day, leaving us unavailable for the love, creativity and depth we desire in our lives.

We need to recognise, accept and even bond over the stickiness of navigating the world, so we can see our small shortcomings within a gigantic backdrop of sincerity, rather than the inverse.

And we need to build capacity for this beautiful, important, life-saving work. Willpower is needed, yes… but also guidance, support and collective commitment.

The process is multifaceted.

It works best when it’s playful — when all aspects of the human are invited.

I’ve experienced so much of this within indoor climbing culture, martial arts, dance and the like — settings where we can relate to ourselves and one another within the context of a shared task… When we have a way of moving and breathing in common, we can soften our grip on ideas of right/wrong and self/other just a little, and begin to experience a more comprehensive belonging.

Within this context we can practice a wider array of relational skills.

There is always a way.

There are so many ways to connect.

And it’s up to us to embody the essence of the new systems we wish we had.