Dance like the world is watching
I have just spent the last 12 days participating in a live online summit via zoom, curated by the Pocket Project, a community led by Thomas Huebl whose focus is on understanding and working with trauma, both individual and collective. The larger context has been the COP26 conference in Glasgow, a critical and pivotal moment in history where the powers that be have come together to decide on how to change the course of our planetary demise. Just a small task….I’m sure you’ve been following along. Some say it’s too late to make the drastic changes that are necessary, others hold onto hope that the goodness of humanity will come through, and even though change is inevitable we might still have a home to pass onto the generations to come. It’s in our hands.
This in depth understanding of trauma is new to me. I realise I have held it objectively under the banner of ‘some kind of crisis that happened to someone else,” and I remember someone suggesting to me years ago when my Father took his own life that I had in fact experienced trauma, which at the time surprised me. I was, I thought, held safely within a religious paradigm that wasn’t focussing on dwelling so much in the pain, rather heading towards and clinging to the silver lining, whatever that may have been. I realise now my disconnect from that story and the reality of the pain and implications that his decision directly had on me. I now see that many of my reactions and responses around personal loss since that time are the same that I experienced over 25 years ago. I’ve been carrying trauma, and have come face to face with it.
When the penny drops it’s like a lightning bolt that hits you at your very core, and then in that moment in time you are invited to wake up as it were, to face the reality of your own pain, and rather than try and bury and deny it allow it, face it, and offering yourself compassion and self-care let it inform and reform you on your journey. It turns out this is where healing and transformation takes place. Every world religion holds fast to the wisdom that out of suffering and death comes life.
As I have been learning and engaging with this way of thinking I am realising that I too carry trauma not just from this and other personal experiences but also collectively, for example what I carry in my own DNA that is connected to the trauma of my ancestors. Not only that as I find myself living in a world where the prognosis for our planet isn’t good, and as I engage with this reality I feel in my body a sense of anxiety about what will be. Rather than allow the fear of the future to numb me, to turn a blind eye and carry on as usual I am learning to face the reality of the hard news, and noticing the way my body responds, the way my nervous system reacts, I can turn towards the crisis and ask myself how can I be part of the change, to let my trauma responses guide me into participating in writing a new storyline, my own and the planet’s. I am able to ask myself what it is that I can do that will contribute to a new way of living and being.
And I’ve got a list!
For me the first step is awareness, (knowledge is power once I allow myself to move out of the bliss of ignorance), but following hard on the heels of this is action, more specifically what I can personally do. So I will continue to recycle, compost, make my own cleaning products, grow vegetables, buy local, (buy less?), walk wherever I can, use my car less (one day buy an EV), turn off the power switch behind the TV, microwave and toaster (who knew how much power you could save?), and make as many other changes that I can along the way to join with our global community who are doing the same. It’s small scale stuff, yes, but it’s actually the stuff that movements and revolutions are made of.
In closing here, and at the close of the final session with the Pocket Project we were asked to consider ‘What if we lived in a world where ecosystems were more valued than things,’’ to ‘imagine that’ and ‘wonder what would change’.
I’ve been hanging out with a few hundred strangers from all over the world for the past 2 weeks. It’s been a sacred little bubble. I felt the deep connection to those people and also the sense of belonging to a new kind of community. I will miss it! I will miss them. Before we said our goodbyes, online, and on gallery view we were invited to dance together! I felt my anxiety levels raise and instantly wanted to leave the room, but I faced that feeling, stayed, and danced like the world was watching. And it was cathartic.
I take great solace in the knowledge that I am not alone in my little corner of the world; rather I (we) belong to a great, beautiful and diverse global village which gives solidarity and strength to continue the quest to be the most responsible human, and the best ancestor I (we) can be.