society – Soul Reflection

The Signs

So here is where I struggle. I struggle with false energy and by that I mean energy that is not authentic.

And then today I had this epiphany that perhaps I’m seeing things I’m not supposed to be seeing.

What if there is a natural layer of ‘etiquette energy’, where people communicate on a polite level with each other that is so intrinsic and accepted in society that we don’t even bother to scratch the surface of whether it’s true? What if the majority of folks live by these unspoken communication rules and that’s why they find it easy to have untroubled dynamics within their circles?

What if my hyper-vigilance, through trauma and/or personality, where I can gauge every nuance of energy within a room, where I can sense the raised eyebrows, the quiet sighs, the subtle step back as if there were neon arrows above their heads; what if I’m not really supposed to register those things?

I suddenly realised that maybe I would find the world so much simpler and easier if I just took the words and gestures as they are intended to be imparted rather than seeing behind each veil and psychological give away. Is that how most people live?

I can feel so drained and sensitive to all of these non verbal clues and I can interpret all the feelings behind them (not always without bias from my own triggers and history, I own that!) that I feel somewhat hesitant to engage in certain interactions and I can withdraw and step back from places that I had hoped to be welcomed. But perhaps I was welcomed, if I hadn’t read the signs.

And I don’t know how not to.

I don’t know how not to see the flashes of annoyance across the cornea, or hear the intake of breath, or the huff of disagreement. I don’t know how not to see their lack of interest in their shifting feet or their determined smile that hangs too long.

But I do wonder if perhaps I didn’t put so much weight to these subtleties that maybe I would be able to engage in a strata of society that has hitherto mystified me.

I wonder.

First published on social media on 24th February 2022

The Real Privilege

My husband beings home the money so that we can raise our children with one parent as their solid continuum. Except he hasn’t been able to bring home the money for four months now.

The government has ‘supported’ us during this time of COVID-19 with less than a quarter of our monthly expenses (and I mean expenses not frivolity; food, bills, mortgage). We have taken a six month mortgage holiday. And we have had to swallow our pride and ask for money from family. Yet I still know how privileged we are, the fact that we have family to ask, that they are able to give. We are the lucky ones.

Not so a vast swathe of, not only the British population, but in fact the global population. Many of whom will now be facing dire poverty, starvation, homelessness and all the mental and physical health issues that come with those. It sickens me to my core to imagine how people who work hard, strive hard to support their families and loved ones have had this purpose snatched away from them with so little consideration for their plight.

It sickens me to hear people advocate for further limiting restrictions to protect their fears of illness and death. Even if we didn’t know at the beginning, we know now. This virus is over 99.5% survivable. This has been a lockdown of privilege beyond all proportion. It is for those that can comfortably exist without monthly income or can work from their laptops at home. It is for the celebrities hiding out in their estates and telling us to be good and kind people by following their orders.

The people who will come out of this farce and injustice unscathed are the most privileged people on the planet and they seemingly couldn’t give two hoots about the rest of the world. I don’t think I could bear to hear another ‘leader’ of our world pretend to care about the masses when it is so obvious that they only care about their own reputations and well being.

We have been discussing white privilege in society for some time now, but it is the same people that make a show of fighting for this cause that are now silent for those lives decimated by lockdown and the suppression of our liberties. Token gestures.

I am angry.

How have we come to this place where we can so comfortably destroy infinitesimally more lives than we have saved and still be convincing the general public to turn on each other in the name of common decency?

I spoke to six strangers at the farmers market today who were not aware of their rights around the ‘mandated’ rules and regulations. They were all in fear of fines and reprisals despite not approving of or believing in the ‘laws’.

I am fortunate enough to be tapped into a world where we remind each other of the ‘other’ truths, the other possibilities and options rather than that of the mainstream media. An industry that is dictated to by just five or six billionaires, so divorced from real life, it means nothing to them. We have become their pawns, to manipulate at will.

It’s time for the rebellion, for the resistance.

It’s time to explore your rights and hold on bloody tight to them without relinquishing them to the privileged powers that be.

Rise up! Rise up! Rise up!

Collective Responsibility

When my children are present to another child’s unkind behaviour towards someone else, I teach them that if they stand by and witness this unkindness without action, then they are complicit in it. Their choice of action is to walk away, if they don’t feel safe or empowered enough to do differently, or to speak up for what they believe to be true, fair or kind.

Fortunately they are yet to really experience a scenario of group, collective bullying or indeed pressure, but it is this principle that I am hoping to instil in them; that even as a minority figure, they will stand in their truth.

When we stand by and witness injustice or errors of behaviour then I believe we bear collective responsibility for those actions. Though I would clarify that there is a difference between feeling disempowered to create any impact and the abdication of responsibility.

And so it is with our government, media and health service. Those organisational bodies that were created to serve the population; to inform us fairly; to empower us to create our best lives; to represent our values and beliefs; and to work with us to form our supportive and symbiotic society.

Are they doing this? Have they been serving us well during this time of suspected pandemic? How long have the collective been allowing them to furrow their own paths to the detriment of the populous?

Too long. Too long have we complained about governmental power, about media manipulation and god-like doctors who have long been divorced from the true and ancient art of healing. And yet we have accepted it all. We have stood by and witnessed ill treatment, gross negligence, abuse of power and the manipulation of language to engender fear and control.

We are collectively responsible. We can continue along this path, accept ever increasing restriction and removal of freedom or we can use the power of action to force accountability. Have we forgotten that we, the population, are far stronger, far more powerful and far more collectively wise that these small, tight circles that think they can control us?

Stand up, speak up. History does not need to be repeated. We have learned our lessons. Our collective power is unlimited, let us use it for inspirational and progressive change. Now.

Values

I was recently challenged to ‘contribute’ more to my family through the means of bringing in income. It was directed at me with the implication that all I do is live off my husband and swan about.

Naturally, I felt hurt and insulted.

I work hard. Most days the only time I get to sit down between 6.30am and 8pm is in the car to and from the school run and at supper; my mind is constantly flitting from one ‘to do’ item to the next and wondering how many I can multitask simultaneously. Oh and yes about once a week I will meet a friend for a coffee or a catch up, my rest time, because my job is all-day-and-all-night-every-single-day, so a coffee break every now and then is just basic essential care.

Many articles have crossed checked the monetary value of a SAHM (Stay at Home Mum) and have discovered that to replicate their input into the household would require a vast outlay of money on separate personnel. But I don’t want to compare my job to gold coins, I want to shift the perspective to our core values, money is certainly a necessary commodity but it is not the ultimate need.

In relationships we discuss whether or not we have similar values, rarely does this simply mean how much finance each partner will contribute. More often than not these values include honesty, respect, communication, parenting choices and family relationships. Do the values marry? If so, these are signs of potentially strong and life-long relationships.

For me, wholesome values are not just in partnered relationships but across the board in friendships, work peers, community connections and of course within our parent/child dynamics.

So when my ‘value’ as a SAHM was narrowed into the crude description as to whether or not I brought home gold coins, I felt a deep grief for all that I provide to my family, for all the non-material value that is unacknowledged and underappreciated across our societal norms. I felt that grief ripple out to all those individuals who offer their voluntary acts of service to our community to care for the young, old, infirm, environment and animals, who are whitewashed into the background because they don’t bring gold bullion back home. How distorted have our societal values become when my job, to shape, nurture and guide our future generations, is dismissed as luxurious and frivolous?

For me, I hugely value the consistency and security my children receive to help their confidence flourish out into the world; to enable them to stretch their bungee ropes to distant discoveries and bounce right back again when they need. I know that my choice to stay at home is solely built on nurturing their human potential.

That potential is not about shaping them into the best lawyers or doctors, but to help them know their own happiness now and in their future, to help them have the courage to stand up for truth and honour, love and respect. And all that is a multi-levelled task; it covers presence, diet, response time, emotional well being, sleep, health & friendships.

My daughter recently described her future to me, when she would leave school, what her career would be, how many children she would have, the usual musings of the young and fearless! But what I heard in amongst her description what that she would take a career break to have children; she has chosen a career that she can step out of and return to when she wishes because she values what me being at home means to her and she wants to offer that back to her children too. It has been important to her, it has been of value.

There is a wonderful analogy in Heidi’s Children where the grandfather is on his deathbed and asks little Marta to go to the high pastures and pick him fresh strawberries. She does as he bids but, with the encouragement of her friends, instead of returning straight home, she sells them in the town and brings home money which she is told will bring her grandfather greater happiness. The grandfather is furious, for he had been looking forward to the succulent, refreshing strawberries all day, and he demands Marta bite the coin to see if it brings the same satisfaction.

This…

This is where our values are mistaken at times, there is no monetary replacement for nourishment, kindness and love and the most glorious thing about these is that they are absolutely free.

So next time someone challenges me to bring greater value to my family, I might just remind them that I gift strawberries not gold.

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.