Togetherness

Photo credit Carolina Matos

What if everyone you met or saw or walked past on the street loved you unconditionally? What if you loved them in the same way? Sometimes I practice going through my day looking at random strangers and thinking ‘I love you and you love me’ sometimes I imagine that they’re a long lost relative and we’re delighted to see each other at last. Then I notice what happens to my emotions, to my nervous system. I notice the calm and the joy and the hope that really it might all be ok.

Like most people, this way of being is not my default, particularly not now when everything seems to be becoming more and more divided, more hostile, and much more scary. My default goes more like ‘you’re probably very different to me and a threat to my existence, how can I stay safe?’ My body scrunches up, I might feel anxiety swirling in my stomach, all in all I might just want to go home. This is my flight response, for you it might be the same or it might look more like a fight or freeze response.

So, because it feels better, I make a decision, when I remember, to go into ‘I love you and you love me’ but what good is that, you might be wondering, when people are saying and doing horrible things that really do pose a threat to me and people like me? Don’t we have to fight? If we just go around loving everyone won’t we just get trampled? This has been our thinking as humans for a long time, it’s where our brains naturally go for survival reasons but what if, as well as being as loving and kind as we are, these others were also scared?

It seems to me that whichever side of whichever argument we find ourselves on, whichever group we’re part of, or identify with we’re all afraid for our existence and when we’re frightened we become children who need love and care and a safe place to express their fears.

When I see a post from someone who holds a different viewpoint to me I feel my nervous system fire up. I can’t help it, that’s automatic, but then I have a choice. I can let that nervous system response take the wheel, respond in anger or fear or with a kneejerk disagreement or I can sit with the part of me that feels triggered, calm it soothe it, hear it out and return to what I’ve read from a more neutral place. There might even be times when I can do the same for that other person if they also seem to be in fear. Social media is generally not the best place for this and so after calming my nervous system I can choose to walk away.

It’s sort of like a deescalation technique on a one person scale and I think it can give us hope in this undeniably difficult time.

If I want people to listen to me, I need to listen to them. In order to listen to them I need a calm nervous system. This makes me wonder if in fact attending to our own nervous systems, learning approaches that help us to calm them, and taking the time to use those approaches might actually be the single most important thing we can do for a more peaceful world.

Although it feels like a nonsensical pipe dream at this point, I do think a peaceful world is possible. Even though we’ve been categorised, or categorised ourselves into smaller and smaller groups, which are then pitted against each other, the reality is we are all individuals, all unique and at the same time, all human. I don’t share my exact views, hopes, fears and experiences with anyone else just because they also happen to be a cis-gendered, white looking, mixed race lesbian and I don’t automatically differ from anyone just because they aren’t.

I also don’t believe that if something is right for me, for my true nature that is, not my social conditioning, that it can be harmful to someone else. This leads to the bigger belief that there are solutions that support us all, even if we can’t see them yet. The first step on the path towards them is caring for our own nervous systems and frightened parts so that we can listen.

If you’d like to come and hang out with some fabulous women to listen and be heard, you’d be very welcome at our women’s circle, you can book your spot here https://www.healingwomanhood.com/book-online