Rupture, Repair + Resilience
I write often about unhooking from aggressive, push-on-through (non)culture and the toxic glorification of busy-ness.
Today, I want to briefly explore some of the nuances around this, namely around navigating this space in a way that’s radical, resilient and loving.
I’ll use myself as an example. Recently, I consciously broke a body boundary by going back on social media. Since I had a miscarriage back in early July, I’ve honored the clear directive from my body to disengage from Instagram (the only social media platform I’m actively on). I jumped back in briefly a month or so back, and then bowed out again after it was still a no from my body.
Every time I floated the idea of logging back in, my body declined the invitation, and I didn’t argue with it. As someone running her own business, the fear-based thoughts of needing to engage regularly inevitably dropped in. But, capitulating to the oppressive performing monkey directives that have been imposed onto the already daunting landscape of being one’s own boss, is participating in the very (inner/outer) systems I’m here to dismantle.
The work I do in the world, and the enterprise that arises from it, cannot run on the toxic fuel of energy vampirism. My business is a living, breathing organism that I’m in relationship with, and it doesn’t want to be fed the GMO diet of me exploiting my own energy. Rather, it wants to be in reciprocal, loving, mutually nourishing + supportive interdependence with me.
So this is where I’ve been: deepening into the work of unhooking from a lot of unloving, disempowering meanings around self love + self care being incongruent with running a thriving, meaningful + fulfilling business.
Eventually, it became clear that the initial, organic “no” to social media had veered off into a sort of phobia which was feeding a wounded part that needs to hide in order to feel safe. I know that part well, and have come to love and accept it, understanding that its ultimate wish is to protect me - but because it’s based in trauma and wounding, its well-intentioned methods have become maladaptive.
So we had some loving conversations through the rich language of sensation, and have come to an agreement.
The no to social media was still showing up in my body, from this wounded part. If I went back on it - on my own terms, engaging according to my own capacity, and not in a way that exploited my energy - I would still be breaking a body boundary.
We agreed that every time I made the conscious decision to break this body boundary and create a rupture, I would make space + time for the repair afterwards.
And in the process, this wounded part that wants to hide in order to feel safe is seen and loved by me, and in time grows to trust enough to expand into the larger regenerative garden of my Self.
Art by Em NiwaThis is where true, self-generating resilience is born.
And all of this can then become the energy that feeds my “doing” in the world.
So, to summarize: if you make a conscious, loving decision to break a body boundary, agree also to make space for the repair after the rupture.
And you don’t need me to tell you that this is a deeply radical way of releasing a dying paradigm - within + without - and allowing a new way to emerge.
Join me this Sunday for The Light Gets In to drop into rupture, repair + resilience