Tag: disempowerment

Disappointed

One word keeps hitting me throughout these days of lockdown.

Disappointed.

I keep trying to push it back. Reminding myself that everyone has their own unique journey, that each person has their own truth, perceptions and understandings and the best, most constructive approach is compassion.

And then the word hits me again.

I feel such deep soulful disappointment right now.

This current global lockdown is a mirror of our individual disempowerment. Disempowered in the knowledge of our own bodies and our own health; where we can be imbued with such fear from outside that we surrender all autonomy, personal freedom and potentially medical freedom to the powers that be.

I know there is a huge swathe of society that has been suppressed through economy, racism and separatism and I really compassionately understand how much harder it is for these people to step into their power without permission and support. But I’m not talking about them.

I’m talking about circles of supposedly empowered leaders and advocates. People whom I used to hear daily, speaking up for truth and health and autonomy and freedom who have utterly surrendered to this suppression in one fatally easy step. These people have disappointed me. They were once people I admired and aspired to, whether in friendship, as peers, mentors, guides or elders. I feel let down by their willingness to accept control governed by fear, not only without a fight but with an inverse righteousness towards anyone who is challenging this horrendous power play.

I see clearly that I am having to let go, that this disappointment has pierced so deeply that those relationships will forever be tainted with it and many will not survive.

A new dawn has broken and there is a profound clarity within me as to which path I must take. I can still feel all the love and compassion for the fear these people are carrying but I can no longer hold them as aspirations or role models.

I have withdrawn myself from two significant women’s groups, which were my foundation stones on my personal development journey, to let go of these was something I could never have imagined. But I know if I cling to those bodies of fear for reasons of sentimentality, I will be absorbing that energy myself.

I will sit through this disappointment, allow it to suffuse me and move through. It is time for a cleanse like no other, to empower me to stand in my passionate truth and speak up for our global and personal freedoms.

WTF

So last week I had one of those ‘what the f*** just happened’ moments. The sort when I think everyone’s on the same page and getting on happily and then I get smacked in the face by someone’s reaction and am sent reeling into next month.

And, in typical style, I have been reflecting on it….

So as a very quick précis, my child and their best friend had a minor falling out, nothing out of the ordinary for their age and stage. My child was feeling vulnerable and upset about the situation so I asked the other mum if we could meet before school to resolve it all before facing the day ahead. No biggie. Or so I thought….

My child started to speak to the friend but was so overcome by upset they burst into tears and asked for my help. I checked in with the friend to see if they knew what it was all about and before either of us could speak another word the mother interrupted, shooed her child away and angrily stated ‘she wasn’t having this’!

SMACK!

What the f*** just happened? Weren’t we all just gently and kindly trying to help the kids work things out?

The mother went on to state that she didn’t want her child ‘put on the spot’; that they could ‘figure it all out at school’; that I ‘shouldn’t be involved’ (facepalm!); and it went on. I goldfished for a few moments before fury hit me, my child was by this point sobbing with distress that peace hadn’t been made before school started. Honestly, whatever the perception and judgement on my way of doing things versus theirs, what left me speechless was the total lack of compassion towards another small human being. I simply cannot imagine seeing a little one (mine or anyone else’s) in such distress and refusing to help. What has happened to compassion?

So that is what I’ve been reflecting on. I am still feeling totally rageful towards the other parent but that is my journey to process and release over the coming days and weeks. And for me to find compassion for her – oh the irony!

But actually I think there is a deeper and bigger issue at stake. I believe, in general, the population are feeling pretty disempowered, taking charge of their own lives seems to be becoming a foreign concept. This feels deeply frightening and ultimately dangerous.

What I saw in this dynamic and in other recent moments has been a lack of personal responsibility, not out of malaise, but, more insidiously, out of habit. This is how our recent generations have and are being trained throughout their childhood, to pass the buck of responsibility. This litigation culture means that it’s always someone else’s fault and there is inevitably someone who can resolve the issue for them, be it teachers, parents, police, the lawyers, the government. And by always passing the buck, there is never an opportunity to learn how to handle and resolve conflict before it becomes overkill. When I brought my child to that conversation it was not only a space for them to express their fears and worries on the friendship but also perhaps to hear some hard words in return; maybe the friend was annoyed, maybe my child had done something to upset them, but there is no shame in facing our shadows and deciding how to integrate that into our psyche.

The constant avoidance of these moments not only creates this desperate place of disempowerment, where our own strength to face discomfort and challenge is never experienced and therefore not integrated fully into our beings, but with that comes this lack of compassion that I witnessed. The fear of conflict overrode natural human kindness and actually created a greater and uglier conflict than was necessary. That’s what fear is like, powerful, pervasive and ultimately distressing. In this scenario it was so strong that the other mother believed I had no right to be involved in the situation, a reflection perhaps of her feelings, if she hasn’t the power to face conflict calmly, why should I be allowed to carry it? Disempowerment demanding further disempowerment to justify their own.

Urgh, it feels like a big ugly tangle of disallowed feelings and suppressed strength. In venting conversation with my friends, I questioned ‘what happened to just having a conversation about it?’ Have we really reached a point in our society where the gloss veneer is all that is permitted?

Dark and difficult conversations are so vital to understanding the complexities of existence and humanity. Please let’s keep exploring them, it is only fear that makes them truly unpleasant.