Hypernormalization
It’s a Tuesday morning. Or a Wednesday. Truly it could be any weekday. I unload the dishwasher. Hold up a fork. Inspect it. Shiny & clean. I put it in its spot in the drawer as video after video of a man doing a Nazi salute floods my phone.
‘Have you seen this?’ my friends, nieces, and most beloved ones ask. ‘What do we do?’
I close the dishwasher. I’m very proud of myself. I am doing a great job of keeping up with the dishes. Not letting any dirty dishes sit in the sink. If it’s dirty it goes right in the dishwasher. If the dishwasher has finished a cycle and is clean, it is emptied immediately to make room for dirty dishes. Nothing sits. Nothing attracts bugs. No need to touch gross dishes that have been sitting for days. My kitchen has never been so clean.
I get in the car. Drive to the gym. As a man I’ve never met, a man people who purport to love me voted for, writes words on a paper, and signs away my rights. And the rights of my neighbors and friends. I no longer am a full citizen with equal protection under the law. The weights I lift don’t seem so heavy today.
I drive home, open the front door, and my dog launches her full-blown joy attack. The sound of her feet tippy tapping joy dance. Licking the sweat off my face. How can I feel such joy & love as everything burns to the ground? I step outside & come back in. I need another joy attack.
It’s odd to me that it’s Monday again. Another day, another week. We continue to pay taxes & go to work. We continue to watch the sun rise & do dishes. All the while a man does a Nazi salute and his friend writes our rights away. At least the dishes are clean.
“These people who fight through every day like fucking gladiators. Who fight demons worse than you and I can ever dream of. Just because they want so badly to live. To hold on. To love. Because you can’t be this afraid of losing everything if you didn’t love everything first. Because you had to have a soul crushing hope that things will get better to be this afraid of missing it.” - Catalina Ferro
Reflections on Nov 6th written Jan 25th
I woke up on November the sixth. That isn’t right to say. I didn’t wake up on November the sixth because I did not sleep on the night from the fifth to the sixth. I got out of bed on the sixth and I remember being surprised. Surprised the sun still rose, people going about their lives, the world looked utterly normal. And I could not fathom. How was this normal? Nothing about this was normal. And we all went about our lives. There was no chaos. No uproar. No eruption. Nothing. Just a day. November the sixth
I learned three things that day.
One: how naïve I was. How sheltered I am being a white woman living in liberal city in a red state. Sure, like every woman I’ve experienced misogyny, sexual harassment, and sexual assault. Sure, I’ve experienced antisemitism. But I’ve discovered for myself a safe enclave where those realities are no longer daily issues for me. I have found an uplifting community and daily safety. I let this lull me into a false sense of security. I let this let me forget how it really is. And so naively, I believed that a brown woman had a shot. I was very terribly wrong. Every BIPOC woman I spoke to after the election and some I ignored beforehand, they all with one chorus said that a brown woman – impossible. Her gender and skin were two too many strikes against her.
Two: I did not realize until November the sixth that I love my country. I spent my teens and twenties actively trying to emigrate from this country. I desperately wanted to live anywhere else. I openly voiced shame for my country. As a teenager I remember feeling enraged at what my country was doing in our name. In the name of its citizens. In the name of freedom and protecting Americans. I didn’t really understand politics, but I knew the violence being persecuted thousands of miles away was not in the name of protecting Americans. When I moved abroad my voice grew louder as I actively tried to disown and distance myself from the country of my birth. How stupid people are. How misinformed. How gullible. Openly saying how we had the highest per capita incarcerated population – more than under Stalin. How test scores were falling. How school shootings were a travesty. America has a terrible reputation abroad and the highest compliment I felt I received was that I didn’t seem American. So it was a shock to me to wake up on the sixth of November and find that I truly do love this country. I didn’t think that I did. But I know my reaction would not have been so visceral if I did not deeply love this country, want the best for it, believe in it, love its people, want the best for every human being living on this land. I want this land, its flora and fauna, and its people to thrive. On November the fifth I had hope, actually. Naïve hope, but hope nonetheless. On the sixth, I had grief. Grief such as what you would feel when you received the news a loved one has a terminal diagnosis.
Which brings me to three: The United States has a terminal diagnosis. It is an illness that was right there from the very inception. A country founded by white male slaveowners to keep their money and power in the hands of white male slave owners. The illness was there from day one. As much as we try to glorify this country as being founded on the principles of freedom, prosperity, and the right of every individual to have self-determination, the reality is a brutal, bloody, violent two hundred and fifty year history that has taken every opportunity to keep power in the hands of white men and out of the hands of everyone else. Including women. Especially women. What we saw on November the fifth was not a diversion from American values, but a return to them. The reason why liberals have such a hard time gaining traction in this country is because this country was not founded for them. It was not founded on the principles of helping the least among us, making sure no one is left behind, or ensuring the rights of every human being no matter their race, religion, creed, gender, or any other identifying factor. It was founded on the principles of holding economic power in the hands of a select few.
In re-electing Donald Trump and not electing Kamala Harris, the United States has fulfilled its obligation to its values – an old white man with a supposedly Christian alliance, actually representing a coalition clutching power, money, and resources.
In the reality of this dawn, in the reality of this knowledge, in the reality of these personal awakenings, now what?
Things I Need to Remember
What we talk about when we talk about self knowing
I keep forgetting these things. When I remember them my life is better. I hope this list will help you remember what is important for you to know.
My body is my home. It is the only home I will ever have. My body is not a thing. It is not a thing that needs to be weighed or measured or poked or prodded or shaped. It is my home.
My body has wisdom and knowing and experience in its muscles and bones. I can ignore this at my own peril.
My body is my playground. It is for my enjoyment. I get to enjoy my body no matter what shape it is in. I can enjoy this home and use it for whatever purpose I deem fit.
I have an unbridled sense of whimsy. I am not a serious person. In fact nothing is so serious that it cannot be looked at through a sense of ease, play, creativity, and joy. Whimsical solutions are better.
I am untamed. I lived untamed. In order to enter the next step of my life, I do not need to be re-tamed.
Important lesson I keep forgetting! Before every expansion there is a contraction. When I find myself getting smaller it is because I need to rest and recharge before a growth spurt.
Why do we need to wait until something bad happens (health wise or otherwise) to be like I pray for that person and I want them to have happiness and a great life. What if we just did that anyway before the bad thing? What if we all decided to have the life we want without having a cancer scare or something?
I believe in synchronicities and arriving to the right place at the right time. I believe life can be lived in synchronicities.
Fear
What we talk about when we talk about fear.
This has been scary for me to write. All week I have been wrestling with my fears as I write about fear. I have a great many fears and those fears have been preventing me from writing about fear. I have the fear of no one reading this. I have the fear of it being shit. I have the fear of it being shit and everyone reading it. But mostly I have the fear of an impostor worried that I will be found out for the fraud that I am. Who am I to write about fear? I am just as scared as everyone else.
Life is scary! Living life every day is scary. It sometimes feels like going through a day is just a game of navigating a series of calculated risks. It’s like driving through rush hour traffic in a densely populated city. Having to stop and go with the ever-changing rhythm of the cars around you is a delicate dance. Mess up the dance and you’re in a fender bender or worse. So, too, with fear. Fear is like a red light green light of signals instructing you how to live your life. It signals green zones, green actions, green places, people and things and red zones, red actions, red places, people, and things. Follow the rhythm of your fear to stay safe. Fear wants you to believe that if you do not follow its signals then the result will be severe harm to you or to someone you care about.
But that is not necessarily a bad thing. Fear is not negative, though it feels negative. Fear is actually an information system, a biological information feedback system. A survival mechanism. Fear exists so a person can react to potential threats and decide the safest course of action quickly. When a human being has a fear reaction their brain becomes hyperalert, the pupils dilate, the bronchi dilate, breathing accelerates, heart rate rises, blood pressure rises, blow flow increases, and the stream of glucose to the skeletal muscles increases. At the same time all non-vital organs, organs that do not help in the survival mechanism shut down. All this happens within seconds of being frightened. The body is incredibly efficient and enables a person to make an instant decision for their safety based on their fear response.
Putting it another way, fear is a messenger. When fear rises up, it is trying to tell you something. It is trying to tell you go this far and no further. It is saying on the other side of this wall I’m building is something that can do you harm.
Which feels all kinds of intense and unpleasant but is actually great! Imagine if we listened to this system to make decisions! What if we used our fear feedback messenger system to make decisions. Not only could fear tell me the risks associated with writing this article, but I could use fear to decide whether to write it or not.
Now whether the thing on the other side of the wall is actually a threat varies. The fear can be legitimate like for example don’t dance on the edge of a cliff. But the fear can also be absurd like don’t dance ever because people will see you. Being seen dancing isn’t life threatening; dancing on the edge of a cliff is. In a similar vein, writing this feels life threatening. What if I write this and it is shit and everyone sees it and my reputation is ruined and I can never show my face in public or on the internet ever again as long as I live. Obviously, that is not the case. Part of the trick here is making fear your ally. Helping your fear calibrate appropriately to react with the relevant intensity for the associated risk.
How on Earth does one do that?
Well, it begins with understanding where our fears come from. One of my favorite facts of life is that children, infants, have two fears when they are born. That’s it. Only two. You would think that we are born with much more than two fears. Especially with how much we fear as adults and later in childhood. But the truth is that we are born with only two fears – the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises. The rest of the fears we have are learned. They are learned from negative experiences, and they are learned by watching the behavior of those around us, particularly our caregivers. When our caregivers fear something, avoid something, that is a very strong signal to avoid that which they fear.
This means that if a fear is learned, it can be unlearned! Our caregivers are not villains. They have their own histories that taught them the fears they have that they conveyed onto their children. Moreover, their goal as caregivers is to keep the child in their care safe. We are all taught our caregivers’ fears. We are also taught fear by experience – a painful, shameful, or unpleasant experience of any kind teaches us fear. Unpleasant experiences create aversions which blossom into fear.
So how can we unravel these learned fears. I don’t have all the answers, but I believe it starts with recognizing what we fear. So much of fear is unconscious. You walk around a hole on a familiar path enough times and it becomes unconsciously the way. From there, even if the hole is filled, it is difficult not to walk around it anyway. Being aware of your body and noticing fear reactions is the first step to unraveling fear. Notice when your body activates the fear feedback mechanism. Notice what triggers that mechanism. Then take the time to evaluate if the fear is yours or something you were taught. Evaluate if the fear is protecting you from something that is actually life threatening or just perceived to be life threatening. Little by little you can shift the boundaries of your fears and create a new reality.
Working with fear and making it an ally gives way to an entirely new way of life, an entirely new type of life. Imaging living a life that feels both completely safe and is authentic to you. A life where you don’t allow the fear other people have taught you to keep you from doing what you know is true for you. A life where risks are taken with the help of fear rather than in spite of fear. A life of healthy fear.
“I am free from fear, the fear that keeps me stuck.”
Radical Self Trust
What we talk about when we talk about decision making and choices
‘Mother knows best.’
‘Listen to your father.’
‘Respect your elders.’
These are the phrases we hear growing up.
And yes, to some extent, they are true. Our parents, our caregivers, have greater experience and know more than we do. They can show us the pitfalls they have plummeted into, how to avoid them. Where the rocks and steppingstones in the river of life are in order to safely traverse difficult terrain. I do not discount in any way the wisdom of our elders. Their songs. Their stories. How their words can guide us through life.
But also.
I believe each individual is born with an inherent wisdom. A personal inner wisdom. A wisdom that makes one person a great artist and another a great athlete. Skills and talents that a person is inherently coded with in their DNA. As a child develops, they show natural inclinations, they are drawn to certain toys more than others. They are drawn to certain stories, certain topics in school, more than others. This is their personal wisdom that shows where their talents lie.
But caregivers, parents, teachers, the world at large do not always encourage these talents. For one reason or another they do not notice, do not tend to, or ignore altogether the talents of the child in their care. There is the idea of creating a ‘well rounded’ child instead of tending to a child’s unique abilities. I have always found this strange. People generally are not well rounded. They are lopsided. It is rare to be equally gifted in sciences and languages and math. A personally generally leans to one area. It is unnatural to force their focus in a circle to be equal in all topics when they have a natural proclivity to one or two, not six or eight. By making someone well rounded they become mediocre in all topics rather than strong in their natural one.
There are also parents who want their children to fulfil a goal they never achieved or got to pursue. This superimposes a parent’s inner knowing overtop of their child’s. A child wanting to please their parent, to receive their love and praise, erases their inner knowing to try to accept their parent’s knowing for them.
Organized religion also instructs us to not trust our own inner knowing. Instead, adherents to a religion are taught to follow the leader of their congregation, the rules in a book, their parents, and for women they should follow their spouse. One religion that is quite popular in the United States instructs women to ‘die to yourself’ and supersede what is natural to them with their spouse’s instructions, their church’s teachings. A guru will do the same thing. He will instruct you in the ways of the spiritual tradition he follows and will tell you that he is a channel for wisdom. That you as a novice cannot possibly know. That a novice cannot possibly receive the wisdom of the deity or know what is best for them. The guru also supersedes their will overtop of their followers’.
Quite quickly, a person’s individual inner knowing is lost due to their socialization as a child and the instructions they receive as an adult.
As a result, every choice in life requires a group consensus. We’ve all been there. We ask friends, ‘What do you think?’. We scour the internet for advice. We listen to podcasts. Sometimes in desperation we ask perfect strangers. We are so used to asking everyone around us instead of looking inward and asking ourselves. It feels impossible to decide, especially the important decisions, without first asking everyone you know.
Should I stay with my boyfriend? Should I dump my girlfriend? Which job should I take? Where should I live?
All of this becomes impossible to decide.
We’ve been conditioned, especially women, not to trust ourselves. So the act of trusting our decision without consulting anyone else - that is a radical act.
One of the keys to these decisions is the illusion of a choice being something that needs to be chosen logically. Instead of looking inward and using the wisdom that we have from childhood and knowing. There is a difference between a decision and following one’s inner knowing.
This powerful knowing is similar to how our cells work. Cells don’t need to be told their function. They are created knowing their function. A cell inherently knows it is a blood cell or a liver cell or a brain cell. It does its function. It replicates itself. It repairs itself. Damaged cells are discarded to be replaced by new cells. Our cells are constantly working to repair and fix. Our cells want us to be healthier and better. Our cells know what is best for us. Our cells don’t make choices, they know.
Children know how to do this. If you ever have seen a child grabbing what it wants, it does so decisively. They don’t do it by committee. They don’t ask for a group consensus if this is right or not. If this is the next right step. They fling themselves forward with the hope and trust that their feet or their parent will catch them and grab exactly what they want. Children follow their inner knowing inherently. Children know their function just as their cells inside them know their functions. It is only later that children forget.
So what is Radical Self Trust? Radical Self Trust is returning to the inner wisdom and knowing that we are all born with. It is accepting that you know your truth, your wisdom, your path better than anyone else. It is the practice of looking inwards for an answer before looking anywhere else. It is the process of abandoning living by group consensus. This is not easy. We have been conditioned and socialized to accept others’ words, plans, ideas as true for us. So returning to our own truth requires a great deal of work. But, personally, I believe the work is worth it.
Instead of living a mediocre life of consensus to what everyone else thinks is right for you, you can live a fulfilling life of what is right for you.
Living Your Life
What we talk about when we talk about living life really.
“ …I have my phone pressed hot against my ear. Chelsea and I are trying to talk, but there is too much to say.
“I think I’m running out of time, honey,” I say finally. “I’m not trying to be dramatic, but here’s what I worry about: What if you are too?” She knows what I am saying. She is working harder than anyone I have ever known, but her selflessness has caused her to surrender too much of herself to ‘someday’. And now someday has come, at least for me.
Whenever I have fallen apart she has reassembled the pieces. I know she wants to reach through the phone and pull me back into our bubble, where one of us cries and the other diagnoses the problem with merciless affection.
“I have to go,” I say finally. “I’ve got to adjust my meds.” But we just sit there, clinging to goodbye, before I say at last: “Go live your life, Chels.”
All these words I am tripping over are benedictions. Live unburdened. Live free. Live without forevers that don’t always come. These are my best hopes for you, that you press forward at last. I don’t know how to die, but I know how to press this crushing grief into hope, hope for them. It doesn’t sound like goodbye. It sounds more like this: Fare thee well, my loves.”
I don’t want to miss out on my life. I don’t want to count on a someday that never comes. There is too much that holds us back from living. We get so distracted by to do lists, meaningless tasks that consume our lives. We get caught up in the pursuit of an end game, a goal, a place that feels like stability and safety and lose what could unfold in a day. Each day has the potential for joy. But we delay our enjoyment until someday. It is so common to think that weekdays are for work and weekends are for enjoyment. It is so common to think that if we put in the work now, that we will get to have fun later. But as Kate Bowler points out, that day might never come. Personally, I am not willing to take that risk.
Workaholism is the most widespread illness in my country. Wake up, drop the kids at school, spend the day working, pick up the kids, serve dinner, put the kids to bed, watch Netflix, collapse. Rinse and repeat. We call this a life. Where is the living? We are zombies that shuffle back and forth from home to work with little in between. Where is the life? Why have kids if you don’t get to know them, get to enjoy them? Why have a home if you’re never there? Why have a job that doesn’t fulfill you?
The United States has the least paid leave days and the second least paid vacation days in the world. That is astonishing to me. Out of totalitarian countries, out of dictatorships, out of countries with forced labor, child labor, the United States is dead last. We have an illness and addiction and a strange cultural mentality that work is all that exists. Why is no one allowed to take a break, to rest? Why is no one allowed to enjoy their life, their money earned? If we work so hard to earn, why not get to have time to enjoy what we have earned? It has gotten to the point that colleagues have to ‘donate’ their leave days to each other in order to have surgery, to attend to a sick child, to attend a once in a lifetime event. This has become normal. It baffles me. Why can’t the employer just grant more leave?
At any dinner party, any social gathering, I’ve even been to in the United States, I have always been asked ‘What do you do?’ as the first question upon meeting someone. I never understood this. Especially because I have always had jobs that I felt ill defined me. I never once identified with my job as who I am as a person. I never have liked leading with a title to say something about who I am. No title has ever really said much about who I am.
“Everybody’s working for the weekend… Everybody’s goin’ off the deep end”
We are lost in work, we are lost in goals, we are lost in trying to earn enough to survive. In that maze we have lost what matters most. Everything that makes us human – our capacity for joy, wonder, and love.
When my first nephew was born, it was the closest, most front row seat I got to have to watch a human arrive into the world. From seemingly nothing and nowhere there was a baby, a whole other human that never existed before. I got to hold him when he was two hours old. I watched his infancy as he discovered the world. First, he found out he had hands. Then he found those hands could grab things in this world. I watched his exploration as every new object entered into his newborn bubble. I was as spellbound by him as he was spellbound by each discovery he made. I looked around at the people in our family, the people around us. They were oh so busy. And I felt like screaming, ‘Do you see this? Do you see this miracle right here? This human who just showed up out of nothing is discovering what it means to be in a human body and interact with the world. You are missing it! You are missing it! How can you just go about life as normal?”
This is just my personal example of what I marvel at. What makes me stop and go wow. Not everyone is entranced by the development of a child. But there is something that entrances each of us. Something that makes us stop, our stomachs turn, and the world tilt on its axis. Suddenly, the world is different. It could be the development of a plant in a garden or the construction of a building, a beloved family pet perhaps. Each of us has the capacity for wonder. For awe. We don’t use that in our lives. We are missing it.
The checklist of what makes up a life goes something like this: after you are born, go to preschool, then kindergarten, go to school, to high school, to college, get a job, get married, have a baby, have two, buy a house, retire, and maybe then you might get to enjoy your life.
What I want for my life. What I want for all of us. What I want in my life is delight. I want to be surprised and delighted. I want joy. Laughter. Enjoyment. I want to act from a place of love. To let every decision I make be led from my heart and not my brain.
Leading with my heart has led me to places I never expected to be. But I can say truthfully that every logical decision I have ever made has made me unhappy and every heart led decision I have ever made has made me happy.
Living this way takes practice. It takes time to learn to hear your heart and learn what it is trying to tell you. It takes time to have faith in your heart. To shut out all the outside voices. To shut out the shoulds and have to’s. And to become intimately familiar with one’s one inner direction.
Choosing this way of living is terrifying. It comes with a healthy dose of fear. Because there is no logic under it. There is no security net. There is just faith. Faith that my heart will lead me in the right direction. So far it has.
Let me be clear. I am well aware that not everyone has the privilege and ability to get out of survival mode to live a heart led life. There are so many, too many, who have to work to survive. I wish for many things in this world, in this country. But what I cannot seem to fathom, in this country, one of the wealthiest in the world, we cannot afford somehow for everyone to have a living wage and time off to enjoy their wages? In a country with this much wealth, we cannot afford to take a break?
“I will not die an unlived life
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance;
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.”
Beauty
What we talk about when we talk about beauty
We don’t show our scars enough
The imprint of a wedding ring removed
Stretch marks
The signs of a life fully lived
Botox removes our wrinkles
Signs that we have thought and smiled and frowned
Signs of emotion and expression
We don’t show our scars enough
We turn into wax dolls
Beauty is a strange thing. What we think of as beautiful. What we are drawn to. What we think of as ugly. What we are repulsed by. How much of it is innate? How much of it are we taught? How much of it is somebody selling something?
Beauty is a strange thing. So much of what is socially and commercially accepted as beauty is an erasure of any sign that we have experienced something beautiful. We smile, laugh, our eyes widen in delight. We take in the beauty of the world and over time laugh lines and squint lines develop on our faces. But we are told that those lines that came from the wonder of the world are themselves not beautiful and must be erased.
Beauty is a strange thing. It is sold as perfection. That we must hide any and all imperfections to be deemed beautiful. Think of the base layer of makeup. Foundation. Concealer. Cover every inch of your face before we can put any color or decoration. Hide what you look like to beautify what you do not look like. I always found it strange that I had to put on concealer to hide any redness in my skin before putting on blush to add a healthy looking red flush to my skin.
Beauty is a strange thing. What is it about flaws that make us turn away? What is it about perfection that makes us look? I still cannot separate in my mind what I find beautiful because I was taught it was beautiful, and what I find innately beautiful. I wonder if what repulses me actually repulses me or I was just taught to be repulsed.
The most beautiful moments of my life have not been the most glamorous. I have been beautified by some of the most incredible beauty experts in the world. Flawless makeup that took my natural features, covered them, and painted me a new face. Hair perfectly coifed. Wardrobe perfectly tailored to suit my body, and show off it’s assets. I was stunned at my transformation. I drew the eye of every person in every room I walked into. But I didn’t look like myself. I didn’t feel beautiful. My natural features, my face was lost, and I felt as though I had an inch of mud on my face. From the outside looking in I was beautiful. From the inside I felt gross, and could not wait to wash my face.
The most beautiful moments of my life have been the most tender, the most raw, the most real. The human moment of connection. The human moment of seeing beyond a façade to connect to another person, in truth. This is a beauty beyond words, description. The beautiful moment of holding a new child in your arms. The beautiful moment of embracing through tears in shared grief. The beautiful moment of harmonizing in song, your voice matching another human’s voice, carrying each other skyward. The beautiful moment of reunion after months of separation from someone you love. The beautiful moment of seeing my grandmother’s wrinkled face, no make up, smiling her joy when she sees my face, no make up.
There is beauty in the surreal, there is beauty in the human. I don’t think I know what beauty is exactly. But I have clarity on what beauty is not to me.
I do not want to be made of wax. I do not want to pursue perfection.
I do want to made of flesh and bone. Of tears and heart. I want to pursue humanity.
I want to pursue a life.
Everyone Needs a Pack of Wild Girlfriends
What we’re talking about when we talk about community, friendship, and mutual support.
It has been my experience in life, as a female bodied and female living human being, that everyone needs a pack of wild girlfriends. Here is why:
One: To remind you of who you are
The longer someone knows you, the better they’re able to remind you of parts of yourself you lost along the way. As time passes, we must adapt to the struggles of living in this world. Those adaptations can cause us to lose ourselves.
New wild girlfriends can bring you back to yourself, too. Do not despair if you have broken ties with wild girlfriends of your youth. Being in the right community for you is important. And entering into that community can reignite a spark you lost along the way.
Two: To have a safe space
Everyone needs a safe space where they can talk without being judged or ridiculed. Where every part of them is welcome. Where they do not need to mask their truths. A place where they can be utterly honest, be embraced, and feel safe to exist.
Three: To explore, to test limits
When you feel safe in a group, you can try out new parts of yourself that are emerging. Perhaps you do not feel safe to show a new wild wardrobe or a growing part of your personality to the world at large. A pack of wild girlfriends is a safe place for new growth to be tested and limits to be explored.
Four: To shit talk
Let’s face it. There’s shit in our lives. There are struggles. There are battles. There are people who just rub us the wrong way. In a safe group of wild girlfriends, we can shit talk and that’s okay. Our girlfriends know that this is a pressure release valve and necessary for sanity, but not malicious. We trust our words will go no further. We can vent out what does not serve us.
Five: To be mothered, sistered, aunted
Adults need someone to care for them, too. It’s a strange thing in our world that once a person reaches adulthood we act as if they do not need nurturing anymore. Nothing could be further from the truth. Every human, regardless of age needs nurturing. In a pack of wild girlfriends, you can receive the nurturing that you need and deserve. You can receive the support you need when life gets rough. Or even when life isn’t rough, someone cheering you on and believing in you is magic.
Six: To mother, sister, aunt others
There is reciprocity in this. Sometimes you are the one being nurtured. Sometimes you are the one nurturing. I believe this is also a quintessential human need: to care for others and be needed by others in a community. Someone relying on you can give a sense of purpose that other life tasks just do not give.
Seven: To feel less alone
To just simply be with others. To have a place to go and be with others who care for you and hold you in loving regard.
But also, to have others validate your experiences by saying they’ve felt that way, too. To sit with someone, share something personal, and have that person say, ‘Oh my goodness! Same! Same! Same!’ Both of you are released from a prison of secrecy and perhaps even shame because you both have had the same experience.
Eight: To increase confidence
Being loved and accepted by a pack of wild girlfriends bolsters your self-esteem, your confidence. Knowing that there is a group out there that accepts you helps get through almost any situation. They know you and like you and have your back. So you can do anything.
Nine: To get valuable feedback
When you’re being a shit you need someone to call you on your bullshit. Period. A real pack of wild girlfriends will tell you when you are being a shit, call you out, and help you course correct.
Ten: To gain new perspectives
No two human beings have the same lived experience. That is quite impossible. Spending time with wild girlfriends will allow you to learn from their experiences and perspectives. It will give you insight that you haven’t thought of yourself. Whether you are sharing a problem or just chatting about life, you get a chance to hear about life from another person’s perspective and learn something new.
And of course: TO BE WILD
Whatever wild feels like and looks like to you. It could be going out dancing until the wee hours. It could be to fan girl over the same celebrity. It could be drinking tea on a Sunday afternoon. Wild looks and feels different to everyone. But really it is to let loose in a way that feels real and good and untethered. A true expression of self.
LET ME BE CLEAR
A pack of wild girlfriends can be just two people. It does not need to be a crowd. It can be as small or as large as feels comfortable. It can be as diverse in gender, age, race, lived experience, etc as necessary. The minimum is that all members of the group feel safe to show up as themselves, not mask their truth, and feel seen, heard, and nurtured as a pack member.
Some examples of packs: a grandmother and granddaughter; a sorority, a yoga class, an aunt and niblings, sisters, a study group for a macro economics class. A pack of wild girlfriends can come together anywhere from any origin for any reason as long as there is safety and care built in.
I believe in the need for such a group for each human being with my whole heart. It is my goal in life to cultivate such spaces.
Start
What we’re talking about when we talk about starting something.
Start
Let us begin.
What is it about beginnings that are simultaneously so enticing and so offputting. I want to start writing this, but also I am going to procrastinate writing this. Alright, I think I’ve got it now. I’ve begun.
Wait.
Wait.
Actually, I need to answer these urgent texts that need replies. Nevermind that they’ve been languishing undisturbed for weeks now.
Okay, now. I’m really ready. Let us begin.
Well, before we do, I am just going to hop up and use the bathroom. Just in case, you know?
Hold on. Just a second.
Sorry about that. I had to tidy up on my way back to starting this.
Alright, for real this time. Begin.
This may look like procrastination on the surface. Sure. Maybe it is. Or perhaps it is the leeway to keep beginning.
Just now I paused to fix the formatting. I didn’t like how my words looked on the page. The spacing was all wrong. And the font. I couldn’t think in this font.
So now that I’ve paused, settled in, got the format in order, I can begin.
Let’s start for real now.
I’m not sure how many times I’ve started writing this now. It might be seven. But I am relishing these starts. Every time I sit down to write I get a thrum, a thrill. My fingers flex. My body comes to awareness. I get to start a new project today. Here now in this moment I get to enjoy the start of something new that has never existed before. In all of humanity all of these words have never been in this order. Ever. I get to make something. I get to begin something wholly completely new.
A fresh start on a new page.
Funny how that works. When we start something new we are gung ho excited for it. A new fitness routine that means new gym clothes, a new gym membership, new things to learn. A challenge to navigate a new place and new routines. Or a new instrument. How to coax the sounds you are certain should come from this instrument, sounds other people have made from similar instruments – a challenge to coordinate brain, fingers, and breath. Or perhaps a new recipe. Flavors to tantalize your taste buds. Spices you’ve never tried before like turmeric or sumac or saffron. Their aromas tickle your nose as they fill your kitchen. You taste the smallest amount and wonder is this supposed to taste like this?
We love newness. We love starting. We love new things, ideas, experiences. Novelty. This love of novelty is hardwired into our brains. Our brains light up when we experience something new because we have the expectation for a potential reward. Familiar things we know what they are and if there is a reward associated with them, or not, so they don’t light us up in the same way.
I’ve decided to use this love of starting, of newness, of novelty to my advantage. I’ve realized that any habit, hobby, routine that has gotten stale, I can just start over. Sometimes the starting over comes with a break. Sometimes I just tell myself I am starting over. And the strange thing is, just telling myself ‘hey Sarah, it’s now time to start a new way or approach to doing this’ will kick my brain into novelty mode. Suddenly, my brain is like new? I like new! New is great! New is wonderful! How can I do this new and different to how I’ve been doing it?
Building structure, habits, and routine is great. But too often we get caught up in the rigidity of routine and forget how release from routine and re-creating it can enhance the routine we’ve got going. We lose focus as we focus on the routine. Often I find myself doing something so I don’t break a streak and losing the benefit of the activity itself. When walking ten thousand steps a day, the point, ostensibly is to enjoy moving your body, feel the benefits of movement, perhaps get outside and enjoy the fresh air. But too often I’ve found myself speed walking through my house at 11:47PM trying to get those last twenty-two hundred steps in to not lose a streak. Suddenly, the routine has become binding and I’ve forgotten all about how I enjoy a daily walk outside. I was not getting the stress reducing benefits of my walking habit because I had created a stress around the structure of my daily walking habit.
Nowadays, whenever walking feels like it is getting stale, I’ll find a way to shake it up. Perhaps I’ll take a week off. Or invite a friend along. Or race my dog in the yard. None of it premeditated or planned. I will suddenly declare a restart! A new walking habit. Perhaps I will even tell myself, ‘you know what I would really like to do, I think I would like to start a walking routine’. A kind of ridiculous voluntary amnesia of the months I’ve spent walking daily. A new spark arises. I have new ideas. Walking becomes interesting again.
Random novelty has done more for me maintaining a streak and routine than rigidity ever has. It also liberates me from a desperation mindset. Routine for routine’s sake closes down creativity, shuts off the reward center in our brains, and negates the benefit of the routine activity. It makes habit the point and the actual activity less than the point.
So. Have we begun?